Johnny Janot
Johnny Janot carried Cajun radio into the Texas Golden Triangle, where Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange had long been receiving migrants from southwest Louisiana. Born in Eunice, he first stepped into public life not as a disc jockey but as a singer. For a time, he dropped the silent “t” from his name and performed as the rockabilly artist Johnny Jano, a small act of show-business streamlining before he later returned to the fuller Cajun spelling.
His radio path began at KEUN in Eunice, then moved through KLOU Lake Charles, where he played rock-and-roll records. In 1975, he joined KLVI in Beaumont, first in advertising. Three years later, he launched Cajun Bandstand, a Sunday morning show that became the defining Cajun program of east Texas. Janot spoke mostly English on the air and mixed Cajun music with swamp pop, but his cultural loyalties were never hidden. He recorded albums and singles that praised Cajun life, most famously “I’m Proud to Be a Cajun,” a spoken-word roll call of gumbo, boudin, rosaries, rice fields, and wedding dances
Check out some GREAT video of Janot here.
The reach was remarkable. A 1984 newspaper article noted the fan mail Janot received and that tapes of his show had traveled overseas. Daigle’s 1987 list called KLVI the most powerful AM station ever to carry a regular Cajun show, with a signal stretching from West Texas to the Mississippi River