I was born October 28, 1928, in a community in St. Landry Parish known at that time as Coulée Croche. This was later renamed Cankton.

In 1930, my father, his brothers, sister and their mother bought some property and moved to an area Northwest of Jennings, Louisiana, known as Pine Island. I grew up there on a farm growing cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, etc.

There always was an accordion present in the house as long as I can remember. It belonged to my oldest brother (14 years my senior) who played well. As a kid growing up, I was barely allowed to look at this instrument, much less touch it, unless you knew how to play it. How were we supposed to learn? I have no idea, but I wanted to very much.

A family tradition of ours was that every Christmas, all four of us brothers with wives and children would spend the day at our parents’ house and enjoy good food, and drinks and my brother would play the accordion.

When I came out of the military service in 1954, at the next Christmas gathering, when my brother put the accordion down for a break, I picked it up and started making noise with it. This was the first time ever that I had held one in my hands. My second to oldest brother (I was # 3) had bought his own accordion and had learned to play a little bit. He must have liked the noise I was making because he told me to keep his accordion for two weeks and at that time he would check on me.

After two weeks, I sort of played a couple of songs over the phone for him. He said there was a friend of his that had an old Sterling accordion for sale and that he would buy it, have a pick up put on it and bring it to me for $125. I told him I did not have that much money but he said I would pay him later.

In 1957, I played my first job for money in Houston, Texas for an oil company. I had some musician friends of mine to come help me and that was the start.

This company wanted a name for this band for advertisement, so I came up with the name, "Blackie Forestier and the Cajun Aces." It has remained the same ever since. My share of the money for this first job was more than enough to pay for my accordion. I don’t know if I’ve ever made that much since.

I have really enjoyed this through all the years, made many, many friends and tried to contribute as much as possible to our Cajun Culture And Cajun Music.

Thanks to everybody for allowing me to do this.

Blackie Forestier