Buckwheat Zydeco

Zydeco has remained mostly a regional music, the genre having produced very few bona fide national stars. Buckwheat Zydeco, whose real name is Stanley Dural, is a notable exception. After the death of Clifton Chenier, Dural became the most important figure in zydeco—appropriate because he had originally undergone his zydeco apprenticeship in Chenier's band. Although Dural was brought up in Lafayette and was prodded by his father to play zydeco, he tended more toward R&B, and in his early career he played keyboard for Joe Tex and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Dural also led a large funk band called Buckwheat and the Hitchhikers in the first half of the 1970s until Chenier, a friend of his father's, recruited him to play organ for a tour in 1976.

Before long the genre and the accordion fascinated Dural, and in 1979 the Buckwheat nickname that he acquired as a child became his official moniker. His new band, the Ils Sont Partis Band, soon secured its place in the upper echelons of the zydeco hierarchy. Between 1983 and 1987 the group released three albums that were nominated for Grammy Awards: Turning Point , Waitin' for My Ya-Ya and On a Night Like This, which took its title from a Bob Dylan song. That 1987 album was the first zydeco album ever released on a major label and, as such, it became something of a milestone for the genre. That same year Buckwheat performed with Eric Clapton and appeared in The Big Easy, a major Hollywood film which gave another boost to the zydeco genre. More major-label albums followed, and in 1996 Buckwheat performed Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" in the closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a major breakthrough for a regional musical genre and, obviously, for the artist himself.

Besides being a riveting performer, Buckwheat Zydeco has also proven himself to be an innovator by launching his own label, Tomorrow, and by releasing a very good children's album, Choo Choo Boogaloo, which consists mostly of traditional songs. Besides being able to draw effectively from soul music, he's written some first-class zydeco songs and, just as important, he has effectively adapted famous songs to the zydeco style, including Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby," the Rolling Stones's "Beast of Burden," Mongo Jerry's "In the Summertime," Leadbelly's "Midnight Special" and Bobby Troup's "Route 66," not to mention some classic songs from New Orleans. —Paul-Emile Comeau