Louisiana's Cajun Rockin Fiddler

Waylon Thibodeaux

The label's primary focus since their very first release has been a commitment to preserving the music of New Orleans and southern Louisiana with works by legacy artists and new performers who embody the Crescent City's rich musical traditions.

Rabadash started almost by accident; it wasn't even conceived until label co-founder John Autin found himself on the outside looking in on a spoiled album deal. "We just fell into it," Autin recalls. "I started Rabadash with singer, Nora Wixted, who was my girlfriend at the time. We had negotiated a deal for Nora's album, were ready to sign, and the label called us up at the last second and told us they were signing a different singer instead. Since we already had all the tapes, the artwork and everything, we decided to start our own damn label! We released Nora's CD and then immediately recorded legendary piano player and singer, Al Broussard. He was almost 78 at the time and had never been recorded before even though he'd been playing on Bourbon Street since the 1920's.

Those two records came out in 1984 and we were off and running. We started off doing two or three releases a year, but we had to go dark for a while due to Hurricane Katrina. We didn't do anything for a few years, but we came back about 10 years ago. Last year Rabadash Studios moved to Mandeville, La and took over the location formerly known as Balance Studios, and now we’re able to do about six releases a year and record other non-Rabadash artists in our world class facility." Welcome to the Rabadash world of amazing music!