|
Profile
Buckwheat Zydeco
|
 |
1999 KBA Award Winner
Achievement for Blues on the Internet
Presented by the Blues Foundation
| |
 |
From his start as a poor youngster growing up in Lafayette, Louisiana, Stanley Joseph Dural Jr. has become one of the most highly recognized figures on the contemporary Zydeco scene. Born in 1947 Dural always knew that music would be his life, and an early encounter with one of his heroes, Fats Domino, only served to solidify that conviction. A piano prodigy at the age of four he was nicknamed "Buckwheat" by a childhood friend because his hair looked like that of the Little Rascals character. By the mid-1950's he was already playing professionally with Lynn August and later with people like Barbara Lynn, Joe Tex, Bobby Bland and Solomon Burke. Although often exposed to traditional zydeco as a child (his father was an accomplished accordion player and close friend of Clifton Chenier), he preferred R&B. In 1971 he formed his own band, Buckwheat and the Hitchhikers, a 15-piece funk and soul band with Buckwheat playing the Hammond B-3 organ. Later in that decade an epiphany occurred when Buckwheat attended a show by Clifton Chenier at the urging of his father. Dural was amazed at the sound the "master" got from an accordion and loved the way he incorporated blues and R&B into his traditional style. He ended up on stage that night playing keyboards and in 1976 joined Clifton Chenier's band full-time as a keyboard player. During the next two years he also taught himself to play the piano accordion, and in 1979 launched the Buckwheat Zydeco Band. In 1999, after 20 years and more than a dozen albums, Buckwheat launched his own record label, Tomorrow Recordings, with the re-release of his 1997 album Trouble. Nobody does it better when it comes to full-tilt, get-out-of-the-way-we’re-coming-through, ecstatic, uptempo zydeco than Buckwheat.
|
|
E-mail Ray Stiles at: 
We build websites