Doug Kershaw
If you’re heading out to Reverend Horton Heat at the Arvada Center on Saturday, August 6, make sure to show up early for Doug Kershaw.
Known as “The Ragin’ Cajun,” Doug is a bona fide music legend, the sort you don’t often encounter these days.
Hailing from Tiel Ridge in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, Doug’s music career started in earnest 1948 when his brothers Rusty and Peewee formed the Continental Playboys.
After some lineup changes, Doug and Rusty soldiered on and by the 1950s they were scoring hits on the Country charts like 1955’s “So Lovely, Baby.” Appearances on the Louisiana Hayride and at the Grand Ole Opry ensued.
Following a stint in the military in the late 1950s, Doug returned to music, mostly as a solo artist, in the 1960s. He capped off the decade with an appearance on the premier of The Johnny Cash Show in June of 1969.
The appearance elevated Doug’s status, bringing him the unanticipated honor of having his signature hit “Louisiana Man” being broadcast from the lunar surface by the Apollo 12 Crew later that year – making it the first song ever to be broadcast from the Moon’s surface back to Earth.
Doug lives in Colorado now, and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee continues to record and perform in his signature Cajun-American style.
Come for the Reverend – but come early for the Ragin’ Cajun!
Sources: Promotional materials and:
AllMusic Biography of Doug Kershaw by Craig Harris.
Louisiana Music Hall of Fame biography of Doug Kershaw by Tom Aswell .