Cajun and zydeco music is not just for old people

Contemporary r'n'b and hiphop influenced zydeco in addition to Curley Taylor whose 2009 cd I should get:

Chris Ardoin’s “Swagga Remix” with guest performers J. Paul and Cupid is at Chris’s myspace site and I think it is on his 2008 album Mr. V.I.P.

quite a few bands in Houston
http://www.zydecoevents.com/bands.html

I was told to contact Houston zydeco dj JB Adams

Josh & the Zydeco Souljas from Ossun, Louisiana have been listening to the-Dream I think

Listen to "Souljas' Luv"

http://www.myspace.com/johandthazodecoouljas

I should have gone to Curley Taylor last night. Anybody see him in Ithica or Rhode Island or elsewhere on this current tour?

Roy Carrier Update 3/11/2010
Roy is set to finish the last of his radiation/chemo treatments this week and all indications are the treatment has taken. He will have scans done after the treatment and then wait 6 months for a check up on that.
BUT...
He is still having circulation issues with his right leg and the care there is ongoing with His spirits are still great and he wants to get out on the road and play!
Keep those cards & letters coming. He loves to hear from his friends & fans around the world.

BIG BENEFIT SANDWICH SALE & DANCE FOR ROY CARRIER & DONNA ANGELLE
Saturday March 27
at Roy Carrier's Offshore Lounge in Lawtell LA
(Donna had heart surgery last year and has also been hit hard by medical bills)
Sandwich sale begins at 10 am
pork --------- $3
chicken ---- $4
Dance begins at 9 pm until....
Music by Roy Carrier & Donna Angelle
admission $7
for more info or to make a donation call 337-351-2404
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The tax deductable non-profit For the Benefit of Roy Carrier Bank account is ongoing so if you are of a mind please consider making a contribution to help on his medical bills
IT'S TAX DEDUCTABLE!
Here is the info to donate money to Roy's account :
For wired donations the account name is:
Benefit Of Roy Carrier
Account # 819510637
Routing Number 065400137

If you wish to send a check by on-line banking or through the mail
Make the check out to:
Benefit Of Roy Carrier & put the account number on the check..
mail to:
Chase Bank
c/o Benefit Of Roy Carrier
800 Pinhook Rd.
Lafayette, LA 70503
www.chase.

Sandwich sale.... That's an interesting benefit idea for heart surgery...

http://www.theind.com/arts-a-entertainment/86-aae/6117-treme-filming-friday-at-crawfish-festival
Tremé filming Friday at Crawfish Festival
Written by Walter Pierce
Tuesday, 27 April 2010

The producers of the acclaimed HBO drama Tremé will be in Breaux Bridge Friday to film a scene for the New Orleans-based series. The scene will center around a performance by The Pine Leaf Boys, one of Acadiana’s most popular up-and-coming Cajun bands.

“They wanted to film at Jazz Fest,” says Pine Leaf Boys accordion player Wilson Savoy, “but Jazz Fest has real strict regulations about filming and they weren’t allowed to do it there, so I told them that we’re playing at Crawfish Fest, and they said they’d bring their crew out on the Friday night, believe it or not, all the way to Breaux Bridge and film us there.”

The band will be joined on stage by musican/actor Lucia Micarelli as part of the continuation of a story thread from the series; Savoy and Creole band leader Cedric Watson appear in episode No. 7 of Tremé with Micarelli, who plays an aspiring fiddle player trying to transition from busking in Jackson Square to becoming a part of the established New Orleans music scene.

Savoy says he and Watson filmed a scene last month in New Orleans in which Micarelli’s character gets a fiddle lesson from Watson’s character. In the scene to be filmed Friday at the Crawfish Festival, Micarelli’s character has won a fiddle contest; the prize is appearing on stage with The Pine Leaf Boys. Watson believes the Crawfish Festival will serve as a generic south Louisiana festival, although the producers may present it as Jazz Fest. The performance is also expected to be available as part of a Tremé iTunes package. The Pine Leaf Boys also filmed a scene for Tremé at Tipitina’s. Episode No. 7 is expected to air in May.

“It’s great for us, and it’s a great experience, once again,” Savoy adds. “The Tremé thing has been really fun for us to work with.”

April 28 - May 5, 2010
>
> Routes March On: Brass Bands & Cajun Youths
>
> Visit with musicians taking Louisiana roots music forward into the 21st
> century. Brass Bands like Soul Rebels, Rebirth and Hot 8 can be found
> everywhere in the streets and clubs of the Crescent City, mixing rap and
> funk with older traditional numbers. Over in Cajun country, the Pine Leaf
> Boys swap accordions and fiddles for guitars, moving back and forth between
> Cajun and zydeco tunes and new originals.
>
>
> See below for a full playlist, including song title, artist and release.
>
> Click here <http://bit.ly/b4KLs>; to find a list of stations airing American
> Routes.
> Or click here <http://bit.ly/18iwM2>; to listen to this episode.
>

RIP Roy Carrier

JOSEPH ROY CARRIER 2/11/1947 - 5/3/2010

It is with immense sadness that I pass on the the news that Southwest Louisiana music legend Roy Carrier died this morning of a heart attack in Opelousas General Hospital. Funeral arrangements will be announced when available.

Born in 1947, Roy was playing rub board by age six with his father Warren and other relatives and friends that would come by to cut up. Roy moved on to drums, but it was the accordion that caught his fancy. Since accordions were hard to come by, Roy's daddy wouldn't let him play, fearing damage to his instrument. Undeterred Roy "borrowed" his father's accordion and taught himself to play in the barnyard. When he got caught, he got a whippin'. However, Warren understood his boy's determination and eventually allowed him to play.

At 14 Roy formed The Night Rockers with his brother Murphy on drums and Chris Johnson on accordion. Playing guitar, Roy all the while watched what Chris was doing with the accordion and played it himself whenever he got the chance. A farm machinery accident a year later cost Roy half of the index finger on his right (chord) hand, and he nearly lost the ability to play the music he loved. Limited to the guitar it would be two years before Roy would return to the accordion. Meanwhile, Roy soaked up as much pure Zydeco as he could in local clubs around Lawtell and Church Point, Louisiana, following Clifton Chenier, Rockin' Dopsie, Fernest Arceneaux, and Marcel Dugas. Without the use of his right index finger, he developed a unique technique of "crossing" chords, something other musicians don't even try.

Roy came up front to play the accordion when Murphy and Chris Johnson quit the band. His own son Chubby, age eight, played drums. At the time the band featured two rub boards, with Roy's uncle, John, teaching Roy's other son, Troy then six. Roy often got together with Boozoo Chavis, Chris Johnson and Delton Broussard to play for the horses in the barnyard because they wouldn't be allowed to make so much "noise" in the house.

Roy took a job on the offshore oil rigs around 1972, and the seven-day-on, seven-day-off shifts allowed him to continue playing Zydeco. As Roy recalls, he was soon playing Zydeco in an era dominated by youth-oriented disco music and well before it became “cool” again. While many of the newer players moved towards other styles Roy would not. Roy and sons Chubby & Troy often refer back to the ridicule they were subjected to for playing the music that only the old-timers liked. Whenever Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco, was in the area, he made it a point to come out to see Roy, sometimes sitting in with him. Roy remembers what Clifton told him: "Roy, don't ever let nobody beat you. You're the best. Whether you're in the mud or the water or wherever, be a hog."

1981 marked the establishment of Thursday night Zydeco jams at Roy's Lawtell, Louisiana club, The Offshore Lounge. Patrons could enjoy as many as six bands for a two dollar cover charge. Throughout the 80's it became THE place for aspiring Zydeco musicians to meet, learn and jam with other Zydeco musicians. It is difficult to find any Zydeco musician that came of age in the 80's and 90's that weren’t encouraged and tutored by Roy. From helping Beau Jocque find his boogie to encouraging John Delafose to perform publicly to loaning equipment to Zydeco Force to giving Geno Delafose his first paying gig, Roy was at the center of Zydeco music development. Roy showed younger musicians what Zydeco is all about. He taught a lot of people in that club." Most of today’s active musicians played The Offshore Lounge on Thursdays, honing their Zydeco chops. .

In 1987 Roy gave up the oil fields and took his band, The Night Rockers, on the road.

Roy felt it was up to him to keep the tradition alive. “When I first came up in the 70's, I was playing for an audience of old timers. But, luckily, a lot of new people are discovering what real Zydeco is all about— the blues. I guess I’ll play the true stuff as long as there are people willing enough to listen. But catch me quick ‘cause I could very well be the end of the line.”

Roy is a bridge from all that Zydeco was-to what it is today. He belongs at the head of any list of Zydeco influences.

Hopefully thunderstorms won't impact the Swamp Romp at Wolf Trap today with sultry-voiced Rosie Ledet & her zydeco Playboys and Cajun vets Beausoleil plus others.

Rosie's voice was great, her guitarist's solos not so great. Beausoleil were as good as always.

Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys
General Information
When
Thursday August 5th : 8 p.m.
Where
Skirball Cultural Center
Los Angeles, CA
FREE

I was looking for things to do on my upcoming visit to California and saw this. I always liked Steve Riley & his band. They've got some great swamp-pop melodies that transcend mere genre exercises (and you can still dance to them).

Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble sure do a nice job of melding zydeco and circa 2010 r'n'b

http://www.myspace.com/CurleyTaylorAndZydecoTrouble

The keyboards and the vocals bring out the r'n'b influence effectively without overwhelming the zydeco aspects

Rhythm and Roots Festival in Charlestown, R.I. this weekend (unless Earl gets too rough). Sunday will feature Rhode Island’s only Cajun band, Magnolia.

Michelle Kaminsky, the gal with the funky glasses, gave Blake Miller (former Pine Leaf Boy, now with Cedric Watson) his first fiddle lesson.

Cool. So Blake's with Cedric. Interesting. A bunch of DC area zydeco dance fanatics are heading up there for the Fest. They love it. I'd have to practice zydeco dancing every night for months and months to be anywhere close to the technique level of those hardcore 2-steppers. Most of them have been doing it for years and years. I'm too much of a diletante -- dedicating myself to just Cajun & zydeco is not me (plus parenting, work and more). I wish I could zydeco dance well though.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20101216/ACADIANA04/12140352/Local-events-keep-Carrier-legacy-alive

Some year I need to head down to Bayou country around New year's day

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/clicktrack/2011/03/album_review_mama_ill_be_long.html#more

Amede Ardoin cd collection

Steve Riley east coast tour on now. Bandmate David Greely is leaving after this tour because of ear damage. They have a nice new album with various special guests on it. They are at Artisphere outside DC tonight, then 2 nights in NYC I think

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/travel/24zydeco.html?pagewanted=1

Nice long article on zydeco trail rides by Shaila Dewan. Here's a small excerpt

Virtually everyone wore T-shirts proclaiming their allegiance to a particular riding club: the No Limit Riders of Mamou, La., the Spare Time Riders of New Roads, the Hip Hop Ghetto Riders of Breaux Bridge. Some clubs, like the Exclusive Steppers, showed loyalty to a particular kind of mount, the high-stepping Tennessee walker, considered the Cadillac of trail riding (“If you ain’t steppin’, you ain’t reppin’ ”). Others, like the Wild Bird Riders, honored their favorite whiskey, while the Suga Riders were named in memory of “one of the realest cowboys you would ever get to know,” a Lafayette man who rode his horse to nightclubs. The Mixed Breed Riders, a youthful posse in short-shorts and tank tops, gave a nod to the racial mélange so common in Acadiana. I counted upward of 50 riding clubs, though a few of them didn’t seem to bother with actual horses.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/travel/24zydeco.html?pagewanted=3

If you get a chance to see the Anthony Bourdain No Reservations tv show where he visits New Orleans and Cajun country (where Red Stick Ramblers and members of the Savoy family play at an outdoor feast and cook too) you should

http://rhythmandroots.com/ws/pages/schedule.php

A fair amount of interesting zydeco and Cajun acts at this Rhode Island fest (plus various roots-rock acts)

Big zydeco fest in the W. DC area this weekend

http://dancingbythebayou.com/

And I missed it. There's plenty of zydeco acts coming to the DC area these days(but alas, not those Houston hip-hop inflected ones I am curious about)

I wish Texas writer (and ocassional ILX poster) John Nova Lomax was still writing about Houston zydeco...

zydeco in Opelousas

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20111103/ACADIANA04/111030310

In his year-end wrapup Southern soul blogger Daddy B. Nice said in part:

--The Zydeco sound was contagious, with artists from T. K. Soul to Kenne' Wayne to Ms. Jody endeavoring to incorporate it into their music. All of the attempts paled next to the mesmerizing rhythms of the real thing in the hands of veterans Keith Frank ("Cassanova," "Haterz") and Rosie Ledet ("When I'm Gone"), whenever Southern Soul deejays deigned to insert their masterful work into their playlists.

http://www.southernsoulrnb.com/corner2012.cfm

Zydeco acts are always coming through the W. DC area and somehow I always miss CJ Chenier. Missed him again last night at Hill Country BBque. I like his albums. I think some zydeco dance fanatics are less crazy about him, as he does not always just stick to that zydeco beat

Minneapolis seems to have fallen out of favor for touring zydeco bands, so I haven't seen him for quite a few years now. Always prefer his concerts and albums to Buckwheat. I think he's a better, more soulful singer than many of those guys.

Curley Taylor, Leroy Thomas, Rosie Ledet, Dennis Stroughmatt, Steve Riley, and others are always coming through the Washington DC/Baltimore area.

http://wherewegotozydeco.com/

I wish obscure Houston and Louisiana zydeco bands that rarely tour would come through.

The same bands tour up and down the East Coast. Here's a June 2012 Connecticut fest schedule. But no obscure Houston bands I don't think.

http://www.strawberrypark.net/cajun-zydeco-festival/

Saw Cajuns Goldman Thibodeaux, Hadlee Castille and Steve Riley at Jazzfest in New Orleans, among others.

Missed new and upcoming zydeco artist Ruben Moreno appearing in Maryland last weekend

"New" means he has only been leading a band and touring the East coast recently, but this 22-year-old has been in bands since he was 13

http://www.zydecoevents.com/texaszydecoevents.html

lots of zydeco in Texas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu-kzTtrlFg&feature=related

Extended video version of zydeco-r'n'b dance song "Do It With Your Boots On" by Cupid

there's a cajun music thread and i never posted this
http://images.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/drc500/c581/c58105g0898.jpg????

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/06/01/why-zydeco-player-curley-taylor-likes-r-kelly/

New York City's zydeco scene is in trouble

http://jimsrootsandblues.com/blog/letter-from-zydecolaura/

Pine Leaf Boys are probably the first Cajun band to tour in these countries

June 13-18 Kyrgyzstan U.S. State Department Tour
June 19-24 Tajikistan U.S. State Department Tour
June 25-July 2 Uzbekistan U.S. State Department Tour

The Savoy family (maybe with Wilson Savoy from the Pine Leaf Boys) were just in the UK, France and Belgium.

x-post re the future of zydeco gigs in the Northeast USA:
Read nice writeup of recent New Jersey and Connecticut festivals with zydeco bands. The zydeco fanatics are making it out to the festivals if not to single band shows in individual East coast towns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/garden/at-home-with-louis-michot-of-the-lost-bayou-ramblers.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Nice NY Times piece on the fiddle player from raucous Cajun Band Lost Bayou Ramblers and his unique home

Rhythm and Roots Festival, on Labor Day weekend in Ninigret, RI is getting lots of attention from zydeco fanatics although the bill does not look as good as fests in Louisiana or Texas, naturally

http://www.cascadezydeco.com/trips/festivals.shtml

Host Band: The Pine Leaf Boys Featuring Steve Riley, David Bromberg, Geno Delafose, The Gourds, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Johnny Nicholas, Roddie Romero and that's just the start... many more TBA!

Bed & Breakfast Referrals (from Bed and Breakfast Referrals of South Coast Rhode Island)

There are two huge dance floors, and dancers galore of both sexes! Dancing goes til midnight all three days.

I go to R&R every year (we’ll be there Sunday). It’s my favorite festival ever — very relaxed, cool people, great workshop tents, good food. Just a fantastic all-around atmosphere.

I have never been, but I am on a Washington DC area zydeco and root-rock email list with a number of people who go up there every year and always seem enthusiastic

http://www.offbeat.com/2012/10/25/hadley-castille-1933-2012/#.UIoJwNqOB1E.email

RIP. I saw this great Cajun fiddler a few times.

zydeco and Southern soul line dance music come together with autotuned vocals:

Here's the zydeco remix of Bigg Robb's "Work That Sexy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHCqyrXzMh0

Lost Bayou Ramblers were raucous and rocking in San Francisco tonight, where I saw 'em while on vacation

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2012/nov/29/issue-79-dragged-through-forest-long-gone-sound-am/

Those old-time Creole fiddlers like Amede Ardoin are great