James Floyd Soileau was born November 2, 1938, in the small rural area of Faubourg between Ville Platte and Washington, Louisiana. Floyd grew up in Ville Platte and has lived there since.

In his junior year of high school he got a job as a part-time DJ with KVPI radio in Ville Platte. He did an afternoon Cajun music show followed by five minutes of news in French.

After graduating from Ville Platte High in 1956, while still working at the radio station, he opened a small record store. It was then he found that a market still existed for Cajun French music, but records were no longer being produced. With the financial help of a friend, Ed Manuel, a juke box operator from Mamou who wanted new French records for his juke boxes, Floyd released his first record on the Big Mamou label by artists Austin Pitre and Milton Molitor. It was early 1957 and before the year had passed legendary Cajun musicians Lawrence Walker and Aldus Roger would help Floyd launch his own SWALLOW record label.

In 1959, he married his high school sweetheart (whom he earlier had named another of his record labels after, JIN), Jinver Ortego. They have a family of three daughters, Catherine, Connie and Cindy, and one son, Christopher.

In the past 40 years, using his own small recording studio and other studios at times, SWALLOW records released 265 45rpm single records and 151 albums of Cajun French music, including recordings by Adam Hebert, Belton Richard, Dewey Balfa and the Balfa Brothers, Nathan Abshire, Jambalaya Cajun Band, Paul Daigle & Cajun Gold, D.L. Menard, and many more, and recordings by the Cajun French story teller, Marion Marcotte.

Through the years he has encouraged his artists to compose new songs to record, and his Flat Town Music Company now publishes over 2,800 songs, a majority of which are Cajun songs.

His Swallow Publications now publishes two books vital to the Cajun French language, Cajun Dictionary and Cajun Self-taught both by Rev. Jules Daigle.