April 21, 2022

Nathan & The Zydeco Cha-Chas (feat. Michael Doucet) - Creole Crossroads (1995)

"Zydeco is not Cajun !"
T
he opening track "Zydeco Hog" is a real killing two-step that makes you jump up and dance from the first seconds. Fortunately for those affected by a heart condition things slow down a beat on the next track "Black Gal". But not for long !

This album is very properly titled : it's really a mix of Zydeco and traditional Cajun music, both styles being different though they share much in common. In 2014, one of the best Louisiana historians of Zydeco music, Herman Fuselier, put things straight : "<i>Zydeco is not Cajun music. Cajun music is the waltzes and two-steps played by the white descendants of the Acadians, who were exiled from Nova Scotia in the 1700s. Zydeco is the R&B-based accordion grooves of black Creoles, who are descendants of slaves, free colored and mixed-race people of this region</i>" (1).

Sid Williams (left) & Stanley Dural
And precisely Nathan is a Creole not a Cajun. He was born in 1963 in St. Martinville, in the heart of the bayou country, in a French speaking Creole poor family In his teens, he became a great admirer of legendary Zydeco icon Clifton Chenier whom he probably saw as a paternal figure after his own father died when he was just 7. So he learned to play accordion, first by himself practicing in the bathroom so nobody could hear him play, then with the help of a friend of his elder brother Sid, none other than the legendary Stanley Dural aka Buckwheat Zydeco, who offered him his first accordion.

In 1985 Nathan formed his own band, The Zydeco Cha-Chas (the name was borrowed from a Chenier's song), largely a family affair featuring two of his brothers : excellent jazzy guitarist Dennis Paul Williams, eternally wearing his French style beret, who is also a famous painter, and accordionist Sidney "El Sid O" Williams, a Lafayette legendary character (2) and successful businessman, owner of the popular zydeco nightclub El Sid O’s Zydeco & Blues Club, of the independent record label El Sid O and of Sid’s One Stop, a grocery and convenience store. As for washboard player Mark Anthony Williams aka "Chukka", he is their first cousin.

Nathan threw all his ammunition in this album : in addition to the classic zydeco outfit (the bass-drum-washboard holy trinity + guitar + accordion ― in fact two of them for good measure ― that gives Zydeco its so unique color), Allen Roy “Cat Boy” Broussard's saxophone (alto or tenor) riffs bring a soul color to some tracks, and above all, Cajun excellent fiddler Michael Louis Doucet, founder of the BeauSoleil band, offers an outstanding special sound to each track. The album was in fact officially presented as Nathan & The Zydeco Cha-Chas featuring Michael Doucet, and indeed the uniqueness of this album comes from the marriage and constant dialog between the accordion(s) and the fiddle.

These honorable gentlemen take us for a grooving ride through the bayous of Louisiana with a few irresistible two-steps  like the hot-as-a-BBQ "Zydeco Hog" or the outstanding "I Wanna Be Your Chauffeur".

Clifton Chenier
Nathan renders unto Caesar aka the emperor and ambassador of Zydeco Clifton Chenier, with three numbers : the blues "Black Gal", the slow soul complaint "Hard To Love Someone" underlined by Doucet sliding on his fiddle, and the melancholic classic "Black Snake Blues"/"I Can't Go Home No More", plus the waltzing "La Nuit de Clifton Chenier" (Clifton Chenier's night), a Micheal Doucet homage to the master.

Nathan shows his attachment to his native culture by singing his own original material in Creole French (that even French people like your humble servant have a hard time decoding, but that's the charm of it) : the Louisiana style country "Hey Yie Yie"; "Ma Femme Nancy", another typical Creole sorrowful ballad; "Festival Zydeco", a two-step cosigned with his brother Sid and one Gerald Foreman; and the jumpy "Alligator". He and brother Sid also arranged the sorrowful traditional "Jolie Noir" which closes the album, into a deeply moving waltz.

Halfway through the album, he also chose to pay tribute to Otis Redding with a cover of Z.Z. Hill's soul classic "Everybody Got To Cry" sounding much like the great Otis.

Zydeco is not just using an accordion, it expresses the historical resistance of the people of Louisiana to keep in a vast Anglo-Saxon dominated country their cultural and linguistic identity, both inherited from the French possession of the then "Louisiana Territory" until Napoleon sold it to the young US. In this Nathan & his Zydeco Cha-Chas are not only talented musicians but also militants. 

Documents
Herman Fuselier
(1)
Herman Fuselier's article in Zydeco Crossroads : http://zydecocrossroads.org/2014/11/zydeco-versus-cajun/
Herman Fuselier, Louisianian of the Year 2020 : https://youtu.be/SOvBFMxhn8c
(2) The hard life of black Louisiana Creoles in the 1950s-60s - Sid Williams incredible story : https://kreolmagazine.com/culture/features/sydney-williams-a-story-of-mr-el-sid-o/

Denis Paul Willams, musician & painter

A painting from Dennis P. Williams
Web site : https://dennispaulwilliams.com
International Magazine Kreol article on DPW : https://kreolmagazine.com/culture/art/dennis-paul-williams-unleashing-spirituality-and-energy-through-works-of-art/
At DPW book signing : https://youtu.be/YSRBRRAYjjY

Interviews with Nathan Williams
Audio itw in 2014 : https://youtu.be/DKVWcZTL26Q
Audio itw on The Paul Leslie Hour : https://youtu.be/9PP5Z2uUVNE
Intimate backporch performance & itw, Lafayette : https://youtu.be/Pqk83w7GaJA
Itw & perf at the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Fest., New Orleans, 2015 : https://youtu.be/gfydtZ6w2RI
Itw with Nathan & Denis, Zydeco Music Fest., 2013 : https://youtu.be/SqE6JufGZT0

Live concert videos (from most recent to older)
At Venice West, Los Angeles, February 2022 : https://youtu.be/APKFzPMi4oA

At the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Fest., New Orleans, 2021 : https://youtu.be/26s1jZKtZ8w or https://youtu.be/A-_ushAC7mw
"Feed The Needy, Not The Greedy" with Colombian Afro band Tribu Baharu at the Bal Masque, New Orleans, 2020 : https://youtu.be/zjymnB6SWNo
At the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, February 2019 : https://youtu.be/qpn_--xa6Oc
At the Rock'n'Bowl, Lafayette, 2018 : https://youtu.be/wKfOylmWZM0
At the Salisbury University, Maryland, 2016 : https://youtu.be/bp64uYZBRT8
Dennis P. Willliams
When DPW breaks a guitar string at the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Fest., 2016 : https://youtu.be/NjAksi1OK8U
At the Rhythm & Roots Fest., Charlestown, Rhode Island, 2016 : https://youtu.be/vBjIF8M7qqY
"I Got a Woman"  at Hamilton Live, 2016 : https://youtu.be/A6DtjSXPzJo
At Johnny D's, Somerville, Massachusetts, February 2016 : https://youtu.be/QkM2ADVKFUU & https://youtu.be/jZcI6L4Ded0
At The Common, Buchanan, Michigan, 2015 : https://youtu.be/i-QRlSiPWFY
With the Zydeco Big Timers at the Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Fest., California
2014 : https://youtu.be/LRqmuCMe2ZU
2012 : https://youtu.be/QFF_qdFn0Vw
At the Louisiana Music Factory, 2014 : https://youtu.be/zPLmR99X5xY
At the "Acadiens et Creoles" Fest., 2013 : https://youtu.be/_myR9XQsQJ0
At the Richmond Folk Life Fest., 2013 : https://youtu.be/Rg0S419p1f4
At the Newton Theater, Newton, New Jersey, February 2013 : https://youtu.be/Dj7ts_ktFNE
"Zydeco Cha Cha", 2010 : https://youtu.be/ex9zZwtNKq4
In Netherlands, March 2012 : https://youtu.be/w88Y68-pGZ0 & https://youtu.be/roG8Gsj0bno
At the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, October 2012 : https://youtu.be/UPuO3yM6VT0
At the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Fest., Plaisance, Louisiana, 2011 : https://youtu.be/GGn7gI-OyFc
"Let The Good Time Roll" at the Jazzwoche Fest., Burghausen, Germany, 2010 : https://youtu.be/0A89Yu2yI60
Outdoor perf, date unknown : https://youtu.be/U196RMm07IM
"Live at the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville : https://youtu.be/nlm1Y68fFkw
"Bon Ton Roule" & "Taunte Rosa" : https://youtu.be/omWYvMvkW2w
At the Venue Bar and Grill, Freeport, Maine : https://youtu.be/gw1x1qJWwcA




____________________________________________________

No comments: