American Creole singer

Inez Catalon

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American Creole singer
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Music

Inez Catalon (c. September 23, 1913 – November 23, 1994) was an American Creole ballad singer, who was one of the most well-known performers of the genre known as Louisiana "home music". These are a cappella versions of ballads and love songs, drinking songs, game songs, lullabies and waltzes performed by women in the home, passed down from earlier generations to provide entertainment for the family before radio and television existed. Home music is not considered part of the public performance repertoire of Cajun and zydeco music because the songs were sung in the home by women, rather than in the dance halls of southwestern Louisiana which featured almost exclusively male performers.

Catalon was a recipient of a 1993 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.