Historians can look back to several junctures of time and place in American music when it was clear that something significant was happening. For Southern blues, it might have been Beale Street in Memphis in the early 1950s, when B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland pioneered a modern blues sound that continues to resonate today. For bebop, it might have been 52nd Street in New York City in the 1940s, when Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk deconstructed jazz. For zydeco, I would argue that it was Southwest Louisiana in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Boozoo Chavis came roaring back onto the scene at Richard’s Club in Lawtell. Read more.
Month: April 2015
Soul Creole releases new songs on Delta: Indigo
Listen to new music by Andre Thierry from his EP, Bouncin’ With The Blues
Beau Jocque: The Funkiest Band in the Land
When I first heard Beau Jocque in 1992 at the Quarterback Lounge in a rundown neighborhood of Lafayette, Louisiana, I felt as if I had been transported to a primeval moment in which all the music I loved—funk, blues, R&B and zydeco— had coalesced into a single, relentless groove. I was also a little bit scared. Read more
Despite strong start, Ledet gives career a ‘reboot’
Despite winter storm blues, Amy Nicole happy with East Coast debut
Last February, Amy Nicole left Opelousas, La. on cloud nine. She was headed to Boston, Richmond and other cities on the first East Coast tour of her two-year music career. Read more
Nicole had no idea four snowstorms and record cold temperatures were waiting. Three-hour trips between gigs turned into eight-hour nightmares.
Artist Spotlight: Fernest Arceneaux
Born to a family of sharecroppers in Carencro, Louisiana in 1940, the late Fernest Arceneaux learned accordion early. He later dropped it and took up the guitar, playing rhythm & blues. Legend says that Clifton Chenier himself persuaded Arceneaux to go back to the accordion. He played mostly triple-row accordion, smaller than the piano key type. Read more