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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Imelda May - Love Tattoo (2008) (2009 for the 2-CD Edition)

► The album

Throw-back glamour

Her husky hoarse voice sounds as sensual as her glamorous look. Halfway between rockabilly and retro swing vocal jazz through boogie and jump blues, she made her 1950s pin-up hair-style a real iconic trademark, almost a commercial logo, to the point that her hair-dresser should be credited on her early albums !

Now 47 and apparently sexier than ever with a return to a natural hair style, she was born Imelda Mary Clabby in July 1974 in Dublin. Strongly influenced by Billie Holiday and the likes, she started singing on the Dublin pubs circuit at age 16, sometimes even banned from entering her own shows for being under-age !

She had already started to make a name for herself with the retro-swing band Blue Harlem, which originally featured more or less the same musicians as her later band, when she relocated in London in 2002 and recorded her first solo album, "No Turning Back", which came out in September 2003 under her real name Imelda Clabby, and was later re-issued in 2007 under her new stage name Imelda May.

So "Love Tattoo" is in reality her second album. Recorded in 2007 and released in October 2008, it was followed in 2009 by a limited double CD edition featuring eight bonus live tracks, five of them being stage versions of some of the studio CD tracks.

The opening number, "Johnny Got A Boom Boom", is a hot rockabilly master-strike that would certainly not be despised by somebody like Brian Setzer and brought her instant celebrity. But this double album is subtler than simple rockabilly. It features a richer and larger range of styles, and May excels in all of them : the retro jumping jazzy blues "Feel Me"; the piano jazz ballad "Knock 123"; a rocky blues adaptation of the traditional "Wild About My Lovin'" with ultra sensual bewitching vocal; "Big Bad Handsome Man", a New Orleans style jazz piece with a trumpet-voice dialog; the rock'n'roll title song "Love Tattoo"; "Meet You At The Moon", a bluesy jazz ballad à la Sinatra; "Smokers' Song" another punching rockabilly; "Smotherin' Me", a pure rocking jump blues; "Falling In Love With You Again", a melancholy love ballad, probably the most "Irish" track with May's bodhran giving the beat over the piano; the swampy Charles Sheffield's rhythm'n'blues "It's Your Voodoo Working"; and finally "Watcha Gonna Do", a heavier electric and more pop piece.

The particular sound of the album, which gives it its unique color, is largely due to the excellent upright bass-drums pair (Al Gare & Dean Beresford), the first in particular giving the whole package its distinctive warm and jumpy texture. On piano and organ Danny McCormack is doing an excellent job, as is doing multi-instrumentist Dave Priseman especially on trumpet or flugelhorn. As for Darrel Higham (May's husband at the time), he is perfect on guitar navigating from straight rockabilly to blues and jazz.

Apart from five versions of songs taken from the studio CD, the live bonus disc, recorded in 2009 in Exeter (UK), features three non-May numbers : a rocking version of Willie Dixon's soul "My Babe", the stomping rockabilly "Don't Do Me No Wrong", and a five and a half minutes Delta slide-rockabilly mix cover of Muddy Water's classic "Rollin' And Tumblin'" on which May's voice and Darrel Higham's guitar make marvels.
At the end, when May breathlessly credits her musicians, you can't miss her strong Irish accent. 😉

I confess that I didn't hear anything by Imelda May before. This great double album was a big nice surprise to me, and I can assure y'all that it's really worth listening. And not just a few times ! ■

Discography
→ No Turning Back (2003, as Imelda Clabby)

→ Love Tattoo (2007/2009)
→ Mayhem (2010)
→ Tribal (2014)
→ Life Love Flesh Blood (2017)
→ Slip Of The Tongue (2020)
→ 11 Past the Hour (2021)

Anecdote
When 16 or 17 and already playing the Dublin pubs circuit, Imelda May was broken hearted after a love rupture. Her father who was driving her to the show where she was due to sing, looked at his tearfull daughter and said : "Is your heart broken ? Excellent. Now you can really sing the blues !"

Interviews

 ● At Le Live, France : https://youtu.be/SXG9Z0Sn6to
● On France 2 TV channel, 2011 : https://youtu.be/81_wcp_rD-s
● New Year's Eve interview on Ireland’s National Public Service Media TV channel : https://youtu.be/gvVjXFcUW7Q
● On Ireland AM : https://youtu.be/oFdmWFQYVng

Live videos
● "Johnny Got A Boom Boom" at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, April 2022 : https://youtu.be/7reQG8MYy84

Darrel Higham & May

● At Pryzm, London, 2021 : https://youtu.be/sdMprwn3s_I

 ● With Ronnie Wood at the London Palladium, 2019 : https://youtu.be/3DWu5tfvLhw
● Live at the Liverpool Feis, 2018 : https://youtu.be/IOSQUpcprBg
● "Always On My Mind"/"Call Me" with Jack Savoretti, Rome, 2018 : https://youtu.be/KgYsintDuiQ
● "Black Tears" live at Latitude, 2017 : https://youtu.be/by8XI_NQGOg

● "Johnny Got A Boom Boom"/"The Girl I Used To Be" at the Ipswich Regent, 2017 : https://youtu.be/6aok3tsoTZk
 ● 'Love and Fear' at Lakefest, 2017 (with a speech about the Charlottesville riots) : https://youtu.be/pMhMLoIhk_M
● "Spoonful" live at the Pori Jazz Festival, Finland, 2016 : https://youtu.be/23gww7kNJWY
● In Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2015 : https://youtu.be/nEwJbhS6tbE
● Full concert at Blues Cazorla, 2015 : https://youtu.be/GCzxbZBP3kc
● At the Roundhouse, Camden, 2014 :
→ Part 1 : https://youtu.be/W6ueogeMfEw

→ Part 2 : https://youtu.be/l31FptJ3gys

● At the Postbahnhof, Berlin, 2014 : https://youtu.be/xgo544Fk9Cw
● At Le Live, Paris, 2013 : https://youtu.be/L-LkoplDB5A
● At the Luna Lunera Fest., Spain, 2011 : https://youtu.be/arxWg41IpSQ
● At the Isle Of Wight Festival, 2011 : https://youtu.be/Zcm56V577aU
● At the Marquee, Cork, Ireland, 2011 (phone shot) : https://youtu.be/LRwzIJaMctQ
● At the Burnaby Blues & Roots Fest., 2011 : https://youtu.be/DgAcUtlHbno
● "Proud and Humble" live at La Cigale, Paris, 2011 : https://youtu.be/G8QD9uxqUn8

Jeff Beck & May

● With Jeff Beck at the "Jeff Beck Honors Les Paul" concert, 2010 :
→ https://youtu.be/WjJiuk37Ux0
→ https://youtu.be/E-YdEatw6kA
→ https://youtu.be/aJmAX8bMan8
→ https://youtu.be/rstg37FB9k0
● At the Azkena Fest., Spain, 2010 : https://youtu.be/8KJ_X69Oc4U

● At Concorde, 2009 : https://youtu.be/WsI3FFUzCBk
● "Rollin' And Tumblin'" at The Boardwalk, 2008 : https://youtu.be/vf34PBw8Zx4
● At John Sheahan 80th Birthday Celebration, Dublin : https://youtu.be/zULN0JRXrk8

● In Russia (?) : https://youtu.be/ubrQ8IOvLcg

 

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Corey Harris - Mississippi To Mali (2003)

> The album

Malissippi griot

Who would have guessed that behind Corey Harris nyahbinghi (1) rasta look, there is a university scholar ?!
Harris, who was born in 1969 in Denver, Colorado, got a linguistics diploma from the university of Maine in 1991, traveled to Cameroon where he spent a whole year studying African linguistics in the early 1990s. In Cameroon, he discovered African music, fascinated by its complex poly-rhythmic structure. After returning to the US, Harris taught English and French in Napoleonville, Louisiana, where he got more seriously into blues and gospel. In his spare time he played the clubs, coffeehouses and street corners of nearby New Orleans, then throughout the southern US. He was in Arkansas in 1994 when musician Larry Hoffman discovered him and produced his first album, "Between Midnight and Day" which was released the next year. Harris career was definitely launched in 1997 when his second recording with Hoffman, "Fish Ain't Bitin'", received the W.C. Handy Award for Best Acoustic Blues Album of the Year.

Later, in 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music. The author of several books, he is currently doing a PhD in music, while teaching and working with university classes in Virginia in between concerts and tours.
Meanwhile, he traveled widely in West Africa and the Caribbean (particularly in Jamaica where he discovered and adopted rasta culture). There he befriended numerous musicians. In 2002, he collaborated with famous guitarist Ali Farka Toure from Mali.

The result in this album "Mississippi to Mali" fusing Mississippi and Louisiana blues and Toure's music. This 2002 voyage to West Africa was filmed by Martin Scorsese for his documentary film "Feel Like Going Home" (2) which traced the evolution of blues from West Africa to the southern US, and was released the same year as this album.
"Mississippi to Mali" is as fascinating as it is highly informative : Harris shows the connections that link West African traditional music to American blues without any unnecessary heavy demonstration but by simply going very naturally back and forth between the Delta and Africa. The simple juxtaposition of pure Delta blues songs and typical West African complaints makes the evidence luminous.

The Fife and Drums pieces from northern Mississippi (Shardé Thomas  ― 12-year-old at the time ―, Otha Andre Evans, Aubrey Turner, Rodney Evans & R.L. Boyce) on "Back Atcha" and "Station Blues" constitutes the ultimate link, to the point that after a while one hardly distinguish anymore between what's from Mississippi and what's from Mali ! 

The two opening tracks, "Coahoma" and "Big Road Blues", are 100% Delta blues but suddenly with Skip James' "Special Rider Blues" you're halfway between two continents : with Harris playing with his Malian friends, this blues sounds as African as American. The following song signed by Toure, "Tamalah", definitely transports us to Mali, before returning to a quite africanized Mississippi on the hypnotic Fife & Drums "Back Atcha".

◄"Otha" Turner & his Fife & Drums band

Back to Africa again with the traditional "Rokie" and "La Chanson Des Bozos" sung in French by Toure and Magassa, then return to vintage Mississippi blues with "Mr. Turner", a tribute from Harris to "Otha" Turner, the late master of the Fife & Drums style.
Then Skip James "Cypress Grove" is given a true African treatment, before a new return to the northern Mississippi Fife & Drums with a down-home version of "Sitting on Top of the World" titled here "Station Blues".

Ali Farka Touré et Toumani Diabate ►

If you don't look closely to the credits, you wouldn't know that the long hypnotic version of ".44 Blues"  is sung by… Ali Farka Toure.
"Njarka" is a 100% African affair with Toure on a 1-string kind of violin called njarka, simply backed by traditional percussion, while the following moving melancholy ballad, "Charlene", sung in a very "African" French by its composer (Harris) mixes sounds from both sides of the ocean.

Like a traveler returning back home after a long rich journey, the albums concludes like it opened, with two authentic Delta blues : Robert Petway's famous "Catfish Blues", though blended with African percussion, and finally, Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" in a true Delta slide style that shows Harris guitar solid skills.

This fascinating album is certainly building the best possible bridge between African music and Afro-American early blues, clearly showing the lineage linking the latter to West Africa. It's as much a cry of rebellion against slavery that cut many from their African roots, as a cry of hope : despite (and because of) slavery the cultural thread between the country of the blues and the mother continent has never been cut. Fortunately... ■

(1) Nyahbinghi is one of the very first structured rastafarian group that appeared in Jamaica in the mid-1930s. It was inspired by a secret animist cult from east-central Africa, centered around the legendary deity figure of a woman named Nyahbinghi who lived in the Rwanda-Uganda region in the second half of the 18th century. This secret cult, using ritual drumming during its trance ceremonies, probably began in Rwanda, around 1800. The Nyahbinghi initiates were violently fighting against European colonization and slavery. The Jamaican Nyahbinghi rastas, who are easily recognizable by the long colorful turbans tied over their dreadlocks, are similarly using ritual drumming in their spiritual ceremonies (along with a psychotropic plant better known there as ganja). 😉

Harris (left) & Toure in Mali (2002) ►

(2) The first chapter of Martin Scorsese documentary series "The Blues, A Musical Journey", "Feel Like Going Home", released on the PBS TV channel in 2003, follows Corey Harris in Mississippi and West Africa where he shows the Delta blues roots largely come from the traditional music of West Africa, particularly Mali and Niger.

The scholar

● Phone interview for an Australian radio station in Melbourne in 2016 (audio) : https://youtu.be/Yp03tIMPuQI

● CH gives a lecture, "Black Ourstory: Liberation Through Culture”, at the Double Shot Festival in Valencia in 2019 : https://youtu.be/3qG1ev8jI88

● Campaign for his book "Blues People" : http://www.tinyurl.com/bluespeoplebook

The Rastafarian
● CH talks of his rastafarian faith to the Priest Isaac's Institute of Holistic Knowledge, based in Antigua : https://youtu.be/hpAJZFzW9MA
● Covid confinement live stream interview on the web site "I-Jah Stars" in July 2020 (skip first 3 mn) : https://youtu.be/PuTgTpq97gU

Around the album "Mississippi To Mali"

● Corey Harris & Ali Farka Toure talking & playing "Catfish blues" (from Martin Scorsese's film "Feel Like Going Home") : https://youtu.be/uahUgXnhcUk

Ali Farka Toure & Boubacar Traore ►

● Corey Harris & Moh Kouyate play "Highway 61" from Fred McDowell, in 2012 : https://youtu.be/2_P74Cj7fjg
● Corey Harris & Baba Sissoko : https://youtu.be/2RvppT_XUgs
● Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart & Hook Herrera play ".44 Blues" in Madrid in 2019 : https://youtu.be/ZndfvA-dx2Y

Live shows videos

● The Corey Harris Band at Live Blues in 2018 : https://youtu.be/IVyejul4E_c
● The Corey Harris Band at the Festival International in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 2017 : https://youtu.be/wsu_8PQ6W7o & https://youtu.be/TRdQ50M0cg4
● Live in Villa San Giovanni (Italy) in Dec. 2017 : https://youtu.be/0JVJFejsGug

● At the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival in Sept. 2015 : https://youtu.be/Wiw1vPAimVs
● The Corey Harris Band in Toronto in June 2015  : https://youtu.be/MXZe17ipYIs
● Corey Harris & Rasta Blues Explosion full set at the Front Porch Fest. in Stuart, Virginia, in 2014 : https://youtu.be/pMmmGT7lLaU
● The Corey Harris Band in 2014 : https://youtu.be/uWyX7UJtbLs
● Corey Harris streamed concert for the Ark Family Room Series : https://youtu.be/H9OoH55R1LE

Ali Farka Toure

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