When Alton Jay Rubin aka Rockin' Dopsie, crowned King of Zydeco, born in 1932 in Carencro, Louisiana, died in 1993 in New Orleans, three of his sons decided to perpetuate their dad's music and his band : David Rubin (aka Rockin' Dopsie, Jr.), Alton Rubin, Jr. (aka Tiger Dopsie) and Anthony Rubin (aka Anthony Dopsie) form the core of The Zydeco Twisters. Dopsie, Sr fourth and youngest son, Dwayne Rubin (aka Dwayne Dopsie), decided to go on his own with his band, the Zydeco Hellraisers.
The reviewer quoted in the presentation above has obviously mixed up father and son. Rockin' Dopsie, Sr is not present on this album, the first issued by his offspring after his death.
Rockin' Dopsie, Jr is the band leader but holds the unusual position of… washboard player ! Of course he soon learned to play accordion with his father, but switched to washboard : "I needed more mobility so I could jump up and down and do my splits, you know", he explains on his Web site. And it's true that he is a hell of a showman (see the videos listed below). His brother, Tiger Dopsie, is sitting behind the drums and keeps up the highly dancing beat, while Anthony Dopsie is in charge of the emblematic zydeco instrument : accordion.
Zydeco is a mix of blues, Acadian and American country music, R'n'B, funk and soul, all cooked à la creole in an up-beat pot and spiced with Caribbean influences coming from the West Indies across the Gulf. It's mostly a dance music, a saturday night dance hall stuff, but not only, it also features slower ballads and blues (dancers have to cool down sometimes if they want to keep dancing all night).
Blues holds a good space with "Worried Life Blues", "Please Come Home", "Baby What You Want Me To Do ?" and "Mountain Jack Blues" (with young brother Dwayne Dopsie on accordion).
The cajun ballad "To Nay Nay" and the up-tempo "Famous Stars (Tribute)" are sung in creole french (a language hardly understandable even by French people themselves, but so "exotic" !). For the final track, the iconic and world famous New Orleans anthem "Jambalaya" has you jumping up for a last dance.
Dance music ? Yes indeed… but Zydeco has a characteristic sorrow underlying of its own which makes it not just a dancing music, but also a genre resulting from the long and hard historic heritage of the swamps and bayous land.
Rockin' Dopsie Jr. : https://www.rockindopsiejr.com
Infos
& Live videos (all links open in a new tab)
- Rockin' Dopsie, Jr. talks about Zydeco ("a black creole music") in 2014 : > clic here
- Rockin' Dopsie, Jr, what a showman !
> At the New Orleans Oyster Fest, 2012 : > click here, here and here (new tab)
> With the Marc Stone Band at Tipitina's, New Orleans, 2019 : < click here
> At the "Acadiens et Creoles" Festival, 2014 : > click here
> At the New Orleans French Quarter Fest, 2010, 2011 & 2015 : > click here, here and here
> At the Umbria Jazz Festival, Perugia, Italy, 2001 : > click here
> At the Fultan Street Fan Fest, New Orleans, 2019 : > click here
> At the Louisiana Music Factory JazzFest, 2009 : > click here
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