D.L. Menard, Cajun music ambassador, is dead at 85

NEW ORLEANS » D.L. Menard, the Cajun musician whose song “The Back Door” became an anthem for his culture and carried him to 38 countries on State Department tours, has died at the age of 85.

Menard died Thursday at the home where he lived with his granddaughter Nelda Menard in Scott, Louisiana, a funeral home said.

Including covers by other artists, the Cajun French song has sold more than 1 million copies over the decades, according to Floyd Solieau, whose Swallow Record Co. released “La Porte en Arriere” as a single in July 1962.

Menard became a goodwill ambassador for Cajun music and culture, the heritage of people who settled in the bayou country of south Louisiana after being expelled from Acadia in French Canada 250 years ago. Speaking with The Associated Press in late June, he said the resurgence of Cajun culture in the last few decades made him feel “terrific. Because that was us. It was us.”

“The Back Door “is a jaunty ditty about a man who gets so drunk he sneaks home through the back door.

During a July 2 tribute to Menard and the song’s 55th anniversary, folklorist and retired French professor Barry Jean Ancelet said “La Porte en Arriere,” not “Jolie Blon’” should be considered the Cajun national anthem.

“‘Jolie Blon’ is a song about a girl who went to Texas. ‘La Porte’ is about a guy who slips back in at home through the back door,” he said. “Now I ask you — which one best describes us Cajuns?”

Moreover, he said, nearly every youngster who wants to play Cajun music learns “The Back Door.”

Menard wrote that song between pumping gas and filling tires at a gas station, and for much of his life, music was a part-time gig. It became full time after his chair-making business burned down in the 1990s, but he was already well-known by then.