An accordion virtuoso and a gifted vocalist, he scored country hits in the 1980s by putting a Cajun spin on songs like Richard Thompson’s “Tear-Stained Letter.”
Jo-El Sonnier, the singer and accordionist who revived Cajun music within popular culture with hit versions of Richard Thompson’s “Tear-Stained Letter” and Slim Harpo’s “Rainin’ in My Heart,” and with appearances on recordings by Mark Knopfler and Elvis Costello, died on Jan. 13 after a performance in Llano, Texas. He was 77.
The cause was a heart attack, the music promoter Tracy Pitcox wrote on social media. He said Mr. Sonnier had been airlifted to a hospital in Austin, where he was pronounced dead.
Recordings by Cajun singers and players of stringed instruments like Rusty and Doug Kershaw and Jimmy C. Newman often reached the country Top 40 in the 1950s and ’60s. But it wasn’t until Mr. Sonnier’s arrival three decades later that Cajun accordion music became more than a regional phenomenon.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
