Jamey Bearb grew up with strict accordion rules. His dad, Cajun musician Ricky Bearb, demanded the accordion, handmade by pioneer builder Marc Savoy, sit a precise position in its storage box. Even the shoulder strap had its designated place.
Seven-year-old Jamey could practice only in the room where the instrument was stored.
Forty years later, he owns the accordion. His father has a big smile.
“The day I got that accordion was the first time we played the (Breaux Bridge) Crawfish Festival in 2022,” said Jamey Bearb, 48, who lives in Judice. “It’s 50 years old, but that thing is in amazing shape. I’ve been playing on it ever since. I made all our recordings with that accordion.
“My dad said, ‘I know you would get that accordion eventually. But I want to see you enjoy it,'" he said.
The inherited accordion has brought Jamey Bearb another box full of Le Cajuns, annual honors from the Cajun French Music Association. He and the 4 Horses Cajun Dancehall Band claimed Best Accordion, Male Vocalist and Band of the Year honors. Their “Live at La Poussiere, Part 2,” recorded at the 70-year-old dance hall in Breaux Bridge, won Best Traditional CD.
The awards further elevate the 4 Horses all-star lineup, which includes steel guitar ace Richard Comeaux, who toured with the country band River Road. Drummer Kevin Dugas and bass player Brazos are Grammy-nominated alumni of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.
All came together as members of the award-winning High Performance band, but lost gigs as venues shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Practice sessions in Comeaux’s garage became Facebook live shows. The 4 Horses band was born when venues reopened.
This quartet has no fiddle player, unusual for a Cajun band and ironic for Jamey Bearb. He rose to prominence as a fiddler and singer with a voice reminiscent of beloved Cajun crooner Belton Richard. Richard mixed poetic, French lyrics and an operatic-like voice, with arrangements flavored with swamp pop, country and early rock ‘n’ roll.
The sound has inspired him and countless Cajun singers.
“I heard these Belton songs all my life,” said Jamey Bearb, a singer since the age of 10. “It took me quite a while to be comfortable that I was singing them well enough. That gave me a huge respect for Belton. The songs that he did are very hard to sing.”
When Jamey Bearb is not performing, he repairs helicopter instruments and accessories, his first and only full-time job for 25 years. He and his wife Tiffany are parents of two adult children.
The 4 Horses play Festivals Acadiens et Creoles in October in Lafayette. They maintain a first- and third-Saturday schedule at La Poussiere and fourth-Saturday shows at the Cajuns Event Center in Church Point.
The band plans to continue to inject new life into traditional Cajun music.
“The whole band and I are good at taking the older songs and bringing new arrangements, new ideas to those great songs, with modulation, key changes," Jamey Bearb said. "We take the songs to another level.”
Herman Fuselier is executive director of the St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission. A longtime journalist covering h music and culture, he lives in Opelousas. His “Zydeco Stomp” show airs at noon Saturdays on KRVS 88.7 FM.
