Louisiana Zydeco music concert with Buckwheat Zydeco

Zydeco is the exuberant dance music of southwestern Louisiana’s French-speaking black people who refer to themselves as “Creoles.” The music is a lively mix of traditional Creole music combined with ’50’s and ’60’s blues, soul and R&B. Its distinctive instrumentation includes accordion, electric guitars, bass, drums and a horn section, in addition to the “frottoir,” a washboard that is worn like a vest and scraped with spoons or other implements.

This exciting music, which has been enjoyed on its home turf for generations, is now winning converts worldwide. Buckwheat Zydeco, led by accordionist, singer and songwriter Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr., and backed by the Ils Sont Partis Band, has led the advance of Zydeco out of the swamps and cane fields of his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana and into the pop mainstream where they have opened for artists like U2, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Robert Cray. Buckwheat has been nominated for four Grammys, and has recorded about a dozen albums, including his Grammy-nominated classic “On a Night Like This.”