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Zydeco Funk
Lif Briar? His Travelers
Fee! The Music
in Louisiana know how to have fun. The food is
fun, and Mardi Gras is the greatest example c f
anity on the planet. And, with all honesty, there's
few things in this c r azy ol' world that are more fun than a good
zydeco band. Zydeco is simply fun music. It's propulsive, jumping,
rocking and... funky. Basically, zydeco makes you want to get up off
your ass, no matter how cool a hipster you might be, and get all
sweaty dancing. From the genre's humble beginnings with Roy
Carrier and Clifton Chenier right on up to modern day giants like
Buckwheat Zydeco and the late Beau Jocque, zydeco bands have
been making booties shake in Louisiana, Texas and beyond.
The latest edition to that long line of rump shakers is Lil' Bnan
& The Zydeco Travelers. Representing Barrett Station, Texas (just
outside of Houston), Lil' Brian (born Brian Terry) and his boys make
some of the most infectious, high-energy and, of course, danceable
zydeco to come along in quite a while. Like the best traditional
zydeco bands, the Travelers rely on standard instrumentation like
accordion and scrub boards as well as funky beats. They also incor
porate some hard hip-hop rhythms in what Lil' Brian calls "Z-Funk,"
which owes as much to George Clinton as it does Clifton Chenier.
Zydeco has its roots in the traditional music of Louisiana's colorful
Cajun and Creole peoples, but it's spiced up with touches of funk
and R&B. The name itself is a bastardization of an old tune
"L'Haricots Sont Pas Sals" (The Snap Beans Aren't Salted). The early
pioneers of this mainly style of music were greats like Chenier and
Boozoo Chavis, and the genre grew enormously popular in the '90s
with the success of Chubby Carrier, Beau Jocque and, particularly,
Buckwheat Zydeco.
In fact, it was Buckwheat (AKA Stanley Dural) who inspired - the
young Brian Terry to take up the accordion and zydeco music. The
young musician picked up the instrument at 13 and was soon
befriended and encouraged by Dural. Terry f ormed the Zydeco
Travelers in the early '90s and released a pair of albums on Rounder,
1995's Fresh and 1997's Z-Funk.
The band's latest effort. Funky Nation, is Lil' Brian & The Zydeco
Travelers' most energetic effort to date. Filled with hard-core funk
mixed into a traditional zydeco stew, the resulting s.jnd is quite a
potent gumbo. The Travelers are reminiscent of Beau Jocque and the
Zydeco Hi-Rollers and Buckwheat Zydeco, but not as raw and primal
as the former nor as laid-back as the latter. The band takes zydeco
into a new area with its indoctrination of hip-hop sensibilities, but
at the end of the day all that really matters is how much they can
get dancers to sweat. The band's performance at Lucy's during this
year's South By Southwest conference in Austin leaves no doubt in
anyone's mind about its power on-stage.
"There are no limits to this music," Terry says. "1 love the roots
of zydeco, but listen to the music that's happening today, and my
music is the way I feel the music today."
Matt Thompson
People
organized mass ir
WHO: Ul' Brian & The Zydeco Travelers
WHERE: Chip's Roadhouse, Winder (770) 307-2840
WHEN: Friday, August 4, 9 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $10
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