Ebook590 pages7 hours
The Kingdom of Zydeco
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
An important book for anyone with an interest in life, American music, Southern culture, dancing, accordions, the recording industry, folklore, old dance clubs in the weeds, fortune tellers, hoodoos or shotguns.” Annie Proulx
There’s a musical kingdom in the American South that’s not marked on any map. Stretching from the prairies of Louisiana to the oil towns of East Texas, it is ruled over accordion-squeezing, washboard-wielding musicians such as Buckwheat Zydeco, Nathan Williams, Keith Frank, Terrance Simien, Rosie Ledet, and C. J. Chenier. Theirs is the kingdom of zydeco. With its African-Caribbean rhythms, Creole-French-English lyrics, and lively dance styles, zydeco has spread from its origins in Louisiana across the nation, from Back Bay to the Bay Area. It has influenced the music of Eric Clapton and Paul Simon and been played at Carnegie Hall.
In this remarkable and engrossing book, Michael Tisserand reveals why zydeco’s identifiable and unforgettable blend of blues and Cajun influences has made the dance music of Louisiana black Creoles so popular and widespread. Zydeco’s appeal runs deeper than the feel-good, get-up-and-dance reaction it invariably elicits and is intertwined in the music’s roots and rhythms, handed down from generation to generation. Here is the story of zydeco music. Tisserand goes on the zydeco trail to meet the major artists; he reconstructs the legends behind the music’s beginnings, offering complete biographies of pioneers such as Amédé Ardoin and Clifton Chenier; and he takes you into the dance halls and onto the front porches where zydeco was born and continues to thrive. More than a book on a musical style, The Kingdom of Zydeco is an exploration and a celebration of a distinctive American culture.
There’s a musical kingdom in the American South that’s not marked on any map. Stretching from the prairies of Louisiana to the oil towns of East Texas, it is ruled over accordion-squeezing, washboard-wielding musicians such as Buckwheat Zydeco, Nathan Williams, Keith Frank, Terrance Simien, Rosie Ledet, and C. J. Chenier. Theirs is the kingdom of zydeco. With its African-Caribbean rhythms, Creole-French-English lyrics, and lively dance styles, zydeco has spread from its origins in Louisiana across the nation, from Back Bay to the Bay Area. It has influenced the music of Eric Clapton and Paul Simon and been played at Carnegie Hall.
In this remarkable and engrossing book, Michael Tisserand reveals why zydeco’s identifiable and unforgettable blend of blues and Cajun influences has made the dance music of Louisiana black Creoles so popular and widespread. Zydeco’s appeal runs deeper than the feel-good, get-up-and-dance reaction it invariably elicits and is intertwined in the music’s roots and rhythms, handed down from generation to generation. Here is the story of zydeco music. Tisserand goes on the zydeco trail to meet the major artists; he reconstructs the legends behind the music’s beginnings, offering complete biographies of pioneers such as Amédé Ardoin and Clifton Chenier; and he takes you into the dance halls and onto the front porches where zydeco was born and continues to thrive. More than a book on a musical style, The Kingdom of Zydeco is an exploration and a celebration of a distinctive American culture.
Author
Michael Tisserand
Michael Tisserand is the author of The Kingdom of Zydeco, which won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for music writing, and the Hurricane Katrina memoir Sugarcane Academy. He served as editor of Gambit Weekly, New Orleans’ alternative newsweekly. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. www.michaeltisserandauthor.com
Read more from Michael Tisserand
Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sugarcane Academy: How a New Orleans Teacher and His Storm-Struck Students Created a School to Remember Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Kingdom of Zydeco
Related ebooks
That's Got 'Em!: The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cincinnati Sound Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFolk Visions and Voices: Traditional Music and Song in North Georgia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBayou Underground: Tracing the Mythical Roots of American Popular Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCleveland's Gospel Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Liberia, Lessons from the Coal Pot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPorch Stories: A Grandmother's Guide to Happiness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Yo' Mama, Mary Mack, and Boudreaux and Thibodeaux: Louisiana Children's Folklore and Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Memphis Blues: Birthplace of a Music Tradition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGullah Culture in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barry Farm-Hillsdale in Anacostia: A Historic African American Community Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cool Gent: The Nine Lives of Radio Legend Herb Kent Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Lifetime of Healing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLower East Side Oral Histories: Interviews by Nina Howes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMambo Montage: The Latinization of New York City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBecause When God Is Too Busy: Haiti, me & THE WORLD Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Was Going On: The Life and Times of Marvin Gaye Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSubversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harriet Tubman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Souls of Black Folk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNashville Music before Country Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth Carolina Blues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRace, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Labelle Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Kingdom of Zydeco
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Kingdom of Zydeco - Michael Tisserand
K{0a book_preview_excerpt.html }ɒ$Gݯ8ptS"^kkdu4()_}77Ϟ_U7qWf"l?}EپMq]Em41mźkM}j:t=^2ŰE?6}]"noś.C_8쏡+&4ئX2,zϩ5)v$`MK±.m"o C_0Ts8~!bfiAf_Kb*N~;V!7cd}dm EY*FyjlJTbwp/eةkYvd6r^IR9xKͮh1,\Zٟ0ptǶ-/]*U<'(Cw+{cm7ܻdf0unnqMݴ]#snTUQ}ڤ s%;t,2f\ x'#?tՇ +pRbeh6YO+VQMն]c~ne@ЦM
K?0t2ԇBJ60j NBTCo_~',A p/}b"]?ʸjf'T~?;q~5Rt11T&aci[,34J.[$I0woxxB)6
\l]?_f+"uDw7|pvLE,B-ٴ "a_eqQ6RtqHM_X`OCW6o,!tyMS DnJ]u;2#eʐxN[Y/f-yVn~{I(@wa[)DW