Music
Zydeco Soiree: Leon Chavis and the Zydeco Flames, The Heat Is On (Indepedent)
When you’re kin to a former reigning zydeco monarch like Boozoo Chavis, there’s always pressure to uphold the family name. Though that’s something Leon Chavis has never forgotten, the good […]
Kira Viator and Bayou Beat, Sticking to My Roots (MTE)
Nineteen-year-old Kira Viator has been pumping accordion since age seven and has released three albums along the way. With seven years between her last and latest, she ends the silence […]
Smithfield Fair, Walking Through This World (Stevenson Productions)
The latest from Baton Rouge’s Smithfield Fair is bound to raise a few eyebrows among its kilted constituency. A core component of the band’s identity, the Scottish-themed material, has been […]
Waylon Thibodeaux, Papa Thibodeaux (Rockin’ River)
Everyone needs to recharge batteries now and then as fiddler/entertainer Waylon Thibodeaux discovered a few years back. A series of life changes had transformed the Bourbon Street warrior into a […]
Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas,Old Time Black Southern String Band Music, (Arhoolie)
With the relatively recent passing of African-American fiddler Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong and the aging of the remaining few practitioners like octogenarian Joe Thompson, America is losing its last links […]
Walter Jr., Back on the Bayou Road (Gatortone)
Maybe someday people will realize the Lafayette music scene is more than just Cajun and zydeco music. An indigenous brand of blues, R&B and rock ’n’ roll has also been […]
Terry and the Zydeco Band Boys, Creole to the Core (MTE Records)
“You can’t make a record if you don’t have nothing to say,” Willie Nelson once wrote. Such a prophetic line could also be paraphrased to apply to an artist’s self-concept: […]
Dikku Du and the Zydeco Krewe, Sraighten it Out (Independent)
Just before Dikki Du’s last album, Make It Funky, hit the streets, the Florida-bound band experienced a fatal car wreck that claimed the lives of drummer Brad Gilbeau and guitarist […]
