Buckwheat Zydeco bringing Cajun-style party to The Ark
Buckwheat Zydeco has been the most popular act on the zydeco scene for, oh, probably the last 20 years. So, when Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural Jr. and his group won a Grammy award in early February, I thought to myself: “I wonder how many Grammys that makes for Buckwheat now?”
The answer, it turns out, is…. 1. Surprisingly, this was their first, after 5 previous nominations. The award, for the album “Lay Your Burden Down,” was in the Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album category.
Buckwheat Zydeco, led by Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural Jr. (pictured), plays The Ark on Monday.
Rick Olivier
“It really is an honor to win, especially after the previous nominations,” says Dural, who brings his group to The Ark for a high-stepping zydeco party on Monday. “It’s a good feeling, and it does take you to another level, in terms of reaching new listeners. I think it’s also the result of a lot of hard work.”
The album just may be Buckwheat’s most stylistically ambitious to date, which is really saying something — because 1 reason that Buckwheat Zydeco has been the most high-profile group in the zydeco community for so long is that Dural and his mates have always cast a wider net than most. Instead of every tune being a straight zydeco two-step, they draw more liberally on blues, R&B, funk, rock and other styles.
And that, in turn, is partly due to the fact that Dural actually started out as an R&B/jazz-funk artist, playing the Hammond organ. His father was a zydeco accordion player, but Dural resisted his dad’s music, determined to go his own way. But he eventually got the zydeco bug and picked up the accordion.
But he never completely left behind R&B and funk. One of Dural’s trademarks has always been putting a zydeco-flavored spin on rock, soul, blues and gospel songs written by other artists. Over the years, he’s covered such classics as Derek & the Dominos’ “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad,” Bob Dylan’s “On a Night Like This,” the Blasters’ “Marie Marie,” the Staple Singers’ “This Train,” and many more.
And he likes to up the ante by inviting high-profile guests to play on his albums, especially on these covers: Eric Clapton guested on “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad,” and Mavis Staples added her soulful gospel vocals to “This Train.”
And, Dural and company continue that stylistic diversity — and open-door policy — on “Lay Your Burden Down.” The title track is a Gov’t. Mule song, and Dural invited Warren Haynes, guitarist for the Mule (and for the Allman Brothers) to lend his searing slide-guitar sound to the track. Other guest artists include Louisiana slide-guitar hero Sonny Landreth, Trombone Shorty, JJ Grey, and saxman Steve Berlin (from Los Lobos) — who also produced the record.
Listen to a selection of Buckwheat Zydeco songs:
Dural is a native of Lafayette, Lousiana, and this is his first new album since the flooding that almost destroyed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Katrina also caused heavy damage in the Lafayette area — including some damage to Dural’s home. So, some of the songs address the theme of enduring and overcoming hardships, given what the people of New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region have been through over the last 4-plus years.
“I like to write and record songs that relate to reality — to what’s happening on the planet,” says Dural during a phone interview from a New Jersey tour stop. “And a lot of people are hurting in New Orleans, still. They have so many heartaches, so many problems. But I also like to do songs that address the need to set their problems aside, and try to be happy for 5 or 10 minutes.”
So, when Dural and the band give “Burden” their own zydeco-fired reading, “that’s what we’re saying, to lay it down, set it aside for a bit — and maybe the experience of listening to the music can be healing, or cleansing.”
The most pointed song on the disc, however, is the band’s sizzling, muscular, bluesy work-up of “When the Levee Breaks,” driven by Landreth’s sweltering, Luzianne-style slide guitar. The song performed by many artists at various benefits after Katrina, given that the real devastation that occurred in New Orleans was not caused by the hurricane itself, but when the levees burst, allowing the waters of Lake Pontchartrain to flood, and wipe out, almost every low-lying ward in the city.
Classic-rock heads, of course, are most familiar with the Led Zeppelin’s early-‘70s “Levee” cover — but it’s actually an old Memphis Minnie blues song, dating back to the late ‘20s.
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“That is definitely a song with an important message, in this context,” says Dural. “It’s a warning — ‘If it keeps on raining, the levee’s gonna break.’ That is, something’s wrong — and if something’s wrong, it needs to be fixed. Those levees down there should have been fixed a long time ago. If they had been, the city wouldn’t have flooded.”
Other covers are zydeco-inflected interpretations of Captain Beefheart’s “Too Much Time,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Back in Your Arms,” Jimmy Cliff’s “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah,” and JJ Grey & Mofro’s “The Wrong Side.” Balancing those interpretations are 5 songs written by Dural that are consistent with the theme of “reality-based” music — but which also emphasize the need to seek refuge and relief from one’s problems — through music, of course.
“When you come to 1 of our shows, or listen to 1 of our records, our goal is to make you happy, no matter what your problems are,” stresses Dural. “If you’re at a zydeco party, you got no business being sad, because this is happy music.”
Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.