FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12 July 2020
Music entertainer and broadcaster Rod Bernard passed away on July 12, 2020, in New Iberia, Louisiana, after a short illness. A husband, father, and grandfather, Bernard also was known for helping to pioneer the south Louisiana musical genre later called “swamp pop.”
A Cajun of French-Catholic heritage, he was born Rodney Ronald Louis Bernard in Opelousas, Louisiana, on August 12, 1940, to Louis Varnum “L.V.” Bernard and Irene Bordelon Bernard. As a child, Bernard learned to play guitar, sing, and yodel. Around age 10 he joined the Cajun/country-and-western group The Blue Room Gang, which performed live on KSLO radio in Opelousas. He toured with the ensemble outside Louisiana, visiting the Grand Ole Opry, and it was during this tour, around 1950, that Bernard recorded his first song, Hank Williams Sr.’s “Jambalaya.”
As a teenager Bernard and his musical high-school friends switched to the new rock ’n’ roll sound, calling themselves Rod Bernard and the Twisters. They recorded a few original songs on the Carl label of Opelousas and in 1958 covered King Karl & Guitar Gable’s song “This Should Go On Forever.” Issued on the new Jin label of Ville Platte, Bernard’s version of the swamp pop ballad became popular along the Gulf Coast. In response to its growing sales, Jin soon licensed the track to the Chess label of Chicago, which, with its sister labels Checker and Argo, handled artists such as Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, and Clarence “Frogman” Henry. On Argo, Bernard’s recording hit nationally, propelling the Louisiana teen onto Alan Freed’s rock ‘n’ roll show, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and concerts and tours with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, B. B. King, Duane Eddy, Roy Orbison, and Frankie Avalon, among others. As music writer John Broven wrote in South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous, “Rod’s hit record had provided an epic, unrepeatable adventure, yearned for by many, attained by few.”
In the coming years, Bernard released many regional hits that today remain swamp pop classics. These include “Congratulations To You Darling,” “Forgive,” “Loneliness,” “Fais Do-Do,” and his own bilingual (French and English) version of the Cajun classic “Colinda.” In 1976 he teamed up with fellow Opelousas native, zydeco legend Clifton Chenier, to record the Jin album Boogie In Black & White — for its time a groundbreaking biracial collaboration. He performed at various times with other swamp pop musicians, including Warren Storm and Skip Stewart. (The trio called themselves the Shondells — no relation to Tommy James’ group of the same name.) Over the years Bernard recorded for a number of labels, including the aforesaid Carl, Jin, and Argo, as well as Mercury, La Louisianne, Arbee, Teardrop, Copyright, Crazy Cajun, and CSP. Much of his early work has been reissued on the British label Ace.
In addition to his music career, Bernard worked in radio and television for his entire life. He landed his first radio program on KSLO around age 10, and for many years in the 1960s, he deejayed, sold airtime, and served as a program director at KVOL radio in Lafayette. (Bernard was instrumental in hiring Lafayette’s first African-American deejay, Paul Thibeaux, who joined KVOL in 1965.) Around 1970 Bernard switched to a career in television and for nearly 30 years worked as an advertising executive and on-air talent for Lafayette’s KLFY-TV 10 (for whom he had previously hosted his Saturday Hop live dance program). For decades he appeared in television commercials and often guest-hosted the channel’s long-popular Passe Partout and Meet Your Neighbor programs. He retired in 2018 from the Acadiana Broadcasting Group.
In his personal time, Bernard enjoyed watching classic westerns, barbequing, cooking chicken and sausage gumbo, and listening to country and western, blues, and rhythm and blues music. He also loved to spend time with his family, especially his three grandchildren. In 2010 Bernard celebrated his 70th birthday by parachuting from an airplane — telling his family only after he returned from the jump.
Bernard was preceded in death by his parents and is survived by his wife of 55 years, Jo Ann King, originally of Magnolia, Mississippi, and a longtime resident of Lafayette, now residing in New Iberia; his brother, Oscar Bernard of Scott; his children, Shane K. Bernard of New Iberia and Shannon Bernard Bourg of Metairie; three grandchildren, Colette A. Bernard and Alexandre T. Bernard of Lafayette, and Ella G. Bourg of Metairie; his daughter-in-law, Amy Lancon Bernard of New Iberia; and his son-in-law, Rusty Bourg, of Metairie.
Bernard proudly served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve from 1962 to 1968, attaining the rank of sergeant. He was later active in the Lafayette-area Marine Corps League until declining health prevented him from doing so. His family asks that donations be made to the U.S. Marines’ Toys for Tots campaign at www.toysfortots.org. At his request, no funeral will be observed.
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Submitted by:
Shane K. Bernard
(337) 364-1934
