A1 - (00:00) - La Valse A Abe
A2 - (03:10) - Two Step D'Eunice
A3 - (06:30) - Madama Etienne
A4 - (09:32) - Quoi Faire
A5 - (12:30) - Two Step De Maman
A6 - (15:38) - Tante Aline
A7 - (18:40) - La Valse A Austin Ardoin

B1 - (21:44) - La Valse De Mon Vieux Village
B2 - (24:54) - Le Midland Two Step
B3 - (28:05) - Valse Brunette
B4 - (31:25) - Two Step D'Ossun
B5 - (34:35) - Valse De La Pointe D'Eglise
B6 - (37:40) - Two Step De Jennings
B7 - (40:46) - Les Blues De La Prison

Ardoin was born on March 11th, 1898 near Basile in Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, a descendant of both slaves and free people. Ardoin spoke only Cajun French and did not speak English, as did most people in the Cajun Country. Developing his musical talents in preference to undertaking farm work, he played at dances, often for Cajun audiences, with fiddle players Alphonse LaFleur and Douglas Bellard. He moved around the area frequently, settling at one point near Chataignier, where he met Cajun fiddle player Dennis McGee. They established a more regular musical partnership, playing at local house parties, sometimes attended by Ardoin's young cousin, Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin.

Ardoin and McGee were among the first artists to record the music of the Acadiana region of Louisiana. On December 9, 1929, they recorded six songs for Columbia Records in New Orleans. They made further recordings together in New Orleans in 1930, and in San Antonio, Texas in August 1934. Ardoin also made solo recordings in New York City in December 1934. The recordings were issued on various labels, including Brunswick, Vocalion, Decca, Melotone and Bluebird. In all, thirty-four recordings with Ardoin playing accordion are known to exist.

His recordings and performances became popular throughout southern Louisiana. In the late 1930s, he played regularly in Eunice, Louisiana with fiddle player Sady Courville, but the two did not record together. Ardoin's music combined "European song forms and African rhythmic approaches such as swing and syncopation... [He] personified this cultural blend and enhanced its development through his deft technique and his ability to improvise. Ardoin was a lively, inventive accordionist who could keep a crowd dancing while playing alone. He was also a soulful singer whose emotional style made dramatic use of elongated, high-pitched notes."

Later life and death:

The circumstances that led to Ardoin's death, and the final cause of his death, were uncertain for many years.Contemporaries said that Ardoin suffered from impaired mental and musical capacities later in his life.

Descendants of family members and musicians who knew Ardoin claimed a story, now well-known, about a racially motivated attack on him in which he was severely beaten, in about 1939, while walking home after playing at a house dance near Eunice. The common story said that some white men were angered when a white woman, daughter of the house, lent her handkerchief to Ardoin to wipe the sweat from his face.

Another story according to musicians Canray Fontenot and Wade Fruge, in PBS's American Patchwork, claimed that as Ardoin was leaving Eunice, he was run over by a Model A car which crushed his head and throat, damaging his vocal cords; they said he was found the next day, lying in a ditch.

Studies have concluded that he died as a result of a venereal disease. He ended up in an asylum in Pineville, Louisiana, where he was admitted in September 1942. He died at the hospital two months later, and was buried in the hospital's common grave

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