Iberia Parish students as well as event-goers interested in local music and culture spent Friday morning at the Sliman Theater hearing two talks related to the rich musical history of New Iberia.

The Books Along the Teche Literary Festival kicked off their long list of events for the weekend with a talk from Dwayln Jackson and former Judge Charles Porter on local music legend Bunk Johnson.

Both speakers are local authorities on the jazz musician who spent his twilight years in New Iberia while also heavily influencing a generation of jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong. New Iberia devotees of Johnson’s music have celebrated his legacy for years with the Bunk Johnson Festival, which Porter and Jackson are members of.

Students from Iberia Parish schools attended the event, which led to a packed house at the Sliman Theater Friday morning, with many having a keen interest in musical figure.

“Was his name really Bunk?” one student asked.

“He told a lot of bunk,” Jackson said with a laugh.

Immediately after the talk, Francophone and folklore scholar Barry Jean Ancelet, PH.D, held his own talk on the musical history of Iberia Parish and its contributions to Cajun and Creole music.

Also premised the talk on Alan and John Lomax, ethnomusicologists who came to south Louisiana in the 1930s to record some of the local sounds of the area for the Library of Congress.

Ancelet said one of the first stops made during the trip was New Iberia, where the two interviewed musicians and recorded sessions of Cajun and Creole music.

“They were amazed to find such a rich lyricism and music here,” Ancelet said.

Ancelet connected the story to the eventual push in south Louisiana to preserve local culture and musical traditions that would occur later in the 20th century and still persists today.