Rod Bernard learned to play guitar at age eight and had his first radio program by the time he was eleven. He performed Cajun and country songs while strumming his guitar, modeling himself after his musical hero, Hank Williams Sr. His first band, the Twisters, played local dances and community events around south Louisiana. Bernard would go on to help pioneer the musical genre later known as “swamp pop,” alongside fellow Gulf Coast artists such as Bobby Charles, Johnnie Allan, Tommy McLain, and Warren Storm.

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Bernard’s breakthrough came with his 1958 recording “This Should Go on Forever,” which reached the Top 10 and Top 20 nationwide and became a defining swamp pop hit. Its popularity earned him two appearances on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, giving national visibility to the emerging Louisiana sound. Over the years, he performed with a wide range of major artists, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Freddie Fender, B.B. King, Kenny Rogers, Jimmy Clanton, Johnnie and Edgar Winter, Mickey Gilley, Dr. John, Brenda Lee, and Brook Benton. His other notable songs included “Colinda,” “Sometimes,” “One More Chance,” “Forgive,” and “Congratulations Darling.”

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A stint in U.S. Marine Corps boot camp briefly interrupted his musical career, but after returning home he formed the Shondells—unrelated to the later Tommy James group—with swamp pop musicians Warren Storm and Skip Stewart. Bernard recorded singles for several south Louisiana labels, including producer Floyd Soileau’s Jin Records and other regional imprints that helped define the Gulf Coast sound during the late 1950s and early ’60s.

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Bernard later returned to his country roots, releasing several country and western albums. He recorded Boogie in Black and White with Clifton Chenier, a lively fusion of Cajun, Creole, and R&B influences, and also collaborated with Fats Domino, one of New Orleans’ most celebrated musical figures. In 2003, Bernard released Louisiana Tradition, his first new album in more than twenty years, reaffirming his place in the region’s musical heritage. In June 2006, he re-recorded his spoken-word single “A Tear in the Lady’s Eye,” originally written in 1968.

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Rod Bernard’s final public performance took place in 2015 at the Ponderosa Stomp Festival in New Orleans, an event dedicated to honoring overlooked roots musicians—many of whom he had inspired. He retired from his work as a radio advertising executive in January 2018 in New Iberia, Louisiana, closing a long career spent championing the sounds of south Louisiana.