Different Delta, Different Blues

[creolian]

Not the guitar based blues of the Mississipi River Delta, Zydeco is the musical result of  the cultural collision of African and French Acadien influences in SW Louisiana near the Atchafalaya river basin.  Zydeco literally means snap bean and is more uptempo and snappy than the traditional Cajun waltz.  

Call it what you will, Zydeco is just another form of the blues to me.  The late Clifton Chenier was known as the king of zydeco and I can testify his shows were electric with the entire room dancing for hours.  This is a clip of Clifton playing at the jazz festival in New Orleans  back in what I'm guessing was the 70s



Reason I'm posting this is that Lil Buck Sinegal ( Clifton's guitar player ) will be at the Jazz festival this Sunday Apr 30 with his more straight ahead blues band.  if you've never heard Lil Buck Senegal, he's the reel deal and getting on up in age.  

His set will be streamed at wwoz.org at 1:30pm CDT which I believe is 6:30pm in London.   The station will be streaming from jazz fest this weekend and next... another blues player of note is John Cleary who is scheduled today.

Enjoy!

J

www.wwoz.org

[Michael Messer]

Creolian, thanks for posting that. I love Clifton Chenier's music. I haven't thought about him for a long time. Back in the late 70s early 80s I was very into Zydeco and of course in that genre all roads lead to Clifton & Cleveland Chenier. I would love to have seen him in his prime in New Orleans. Jealous!

Thanks to Paul Simon's Graceland and Rhythm of The Saints, the whole world got to hear that music.

My love of great accordion players then took me to the wonderful Tex Mex music of Flaco Jiminez, who I met many times on his UK jaunts. Great memories :-)

Keep 'em coming....

Shine On
Michael

[Michael Messer]

....now I have to go and dig through my vinyl to find that wonderful Arhoolie live album!

Shine On
Michael

[creolian]

Thanks Michael, I forget sometimes how lucky I am to live here and to have had some of the experiences in music that I have. In that pimento of time it didn't seem all that special in little neighborhood bars or roadhouses in the area. Irony is that the British, Euro and Japanese appreciation of Louisiana and Mississipi delta music, blues, jazz, cajun, zydeco is much greater than it is in that place surrounding us I call America. If it wasn't for people from outside the area like yourself, I wonder if I'd be as aware of my own culture as I am. I wonder if it would have survived at all. Irony is that even today most of the traditional jazz muscians I know here make their living primarily overseas... I do appreciate those keeping the flame regardless of where.

regards, Jeff

PS, back then their were two kinds of microphones on stage ; SM57 or SM58

[leeophonic]

Check out Doug Legacy and The Zydeco Party Band.

Has a back line of everyone you would want on an album.

lee