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

> The album

"Zydeco is not Cajun !"

The 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

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