Dewey Balfa

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Dewey Balfa (born March 20, 1927, Mamou, Louisiana, died June 17, 1992) was a Cajun fiddler who contributed significantly to the popularity of Cajun music. He is perhaps best known for his 1964 performance at the Newport Folk Festival with Dewey Balfa, Gladius Thibodeaux and Vinus LeJeune, where the group received an enthusiastic response from over seventeen thousand audience members. After this, in 1965, he formed The Balfa Brothers. He was the father of Christine Balfa of the group Balfa Toujours.

Balfa lost his brothers Will and Rodney in an automobile accident in 1979, his wife in 1980, and later his son, but he still followed his goal to get his music accepted. In 1982 he won the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship.