In 1822 in Berlin, Friedrich Buschmann developed a portable bellows organ, named the handäoline. In 1829 Cyril Damian of Vienna improved upon this and called his instrument the akkordion . . . .
Like the pedal steel guitar and the dobro, the accordion came to be used in popular music through the merging of cultures. When the French settlers in Nova Scotia, who were known as Acadians, were deported to Louisiana at the turn of the century, they took their folk music — which was similar to Irish jigs and other European folk dance styles — with them. The word “cajun” is a southern corruption of Acadian. The merging of the blues sound, prevalent in the south at that time, with Cajun music produced an R & B style of playing (with flattened thirds and sevenths) known as zydeco . . . .
