A man who likes to travel in style. (A.K.A. Mr. Goodwrench.)
A man who likes to travel in style. (A.K.A. Mr. Goodwrench.)
Zydeco Beat
Living Blues - July/August 1997
By Michael Tisserand
As I write this column, a television in another room is running an ad for a new Joe Pesci comedy called Gone Fishin', and the soundtrack is a Buckwheat Zydeco song. Bringing zydeco into the realm of background music may be one of Buckwheat's most significant accomplishments. Thanks to Buckwheat Zydeco, any person within range of a television or radio has at least a subconscious notion of Louisiana accordion melodies and scrubboard rhythms.
In th past year alone, Buckwheat Zydeco has exposed more people to zydeco than any player in the music's history. At the closing ceremonies for the Summer Olympics, he rode onto the field playing Jambalaya, the Hank Williams adaptation of an old Cajun melody(which Clifton Chenier also covered); the television audience for the event topped three billion. He also played at January's presidential inauguration, and his songs were used as theme music for the Super Bowl.
The son of an accordionist, Buckwheat trained with the best, spending three years playing organ with Clifton Chenier's Red Hot Louisiana Band. But perhaps because of his widespread success, some traditionalist zydeco fans have viewed him with skepticism, figuring that anything spread widely must be spread too thin. I disagree.
In the past, his best albums-especially Waitin' For My Ya Ya [Rounder]and On a Night Like This[Island]-have been masterpieces in blending zydeco, rock, funk, R&B, and Southern soul. Now, here comes Trouble, Buckwheat Zydeco's debut for Mesa/Bluemoon, on which he takes the surprising step of going back to his roots. He strips away the guest stars and rock covers, leaving a zydeco accordionist and a hot band playing at the top of their game.
The long shadow of Chenier is cast over some of these songs. On Heard You Twice the First Time, Buckwheat tears apart and refashions lines from Zydeco Cha Cha. On Hard Chargin', he follows Chenier's old lead and tells his band to sit the song out, keeping the accordion and scrubboard out front. He reworks the traditional Going Back to Big Mamou into Out on the Town, displaying all the confidence of someone who grew up in the culture and knows how to make it sing. Other trad-style pieces include the French Allons a boucherie, in which he favors his accordion's higher register to give the tune the old-style Creole sound, and Hard to Stop, which plays like Buckwheat's answer to the contemporary button-accordion players. When he opens the song with a dexterous run along the keys, it's as if to demonstrate that anything they can do, he can do better.
Buckwheat's nine originals are delivered with crisp horn arrangements, and Lee Allen Zeno's inventive bass work again demonstrates that he is one of the most underrated bassists in the field. The only cover is the blues classic Crossroads Blues, which Buckwheat sings as if he plans to set up a funky roadhouse on the lonely intersection. Similarly contemporary is the light-hearted summer anthem Do You Remember the Time? on which Buckwheat asks the musical question, "Do you remember the songs we used to sing?" On Trouble, he shows that his own musical memory runs deep and still flows into unexpected places.