Welcome to ISSUE #42 of FloridaCajunZydeco.com Update!

This newsletter showcases dance events from the FloridaCajunZydeco.com website and publishes articles not on the website pages.

Happy 240th birthday to the United States of America!

In July we’ve got Dikki Du (aka Troy Carrier) in Bradenton, and brother Chubby Carrier in the panhandle. Then next month, we’ve got Chubby Carrier at the Bradfordville Blues Club. In October, Marcia Ball will be appearing at Ace’s Live in Bradenton, Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton and Daytona Blues Festival.

In this newsletter, a review of the book Cane River, a historical fiction account on seven generations of a Louisiana family, before and after the Civil War. The book became a best seller after publication in 2001, and was an Oprah book selection. The back story on the author is fascinating too.

Florida bands Gumbo Boogie and Porchdogs are playing at some of the familiar venues.

We're on Facebook in Groups (Florida Cajun Zydeco Dancers) and with our own Facebook Page (Florida Cajun Zydeco). Check us out and "Like" us to see the posts and reminders throughout the week. This is a good way to get your Cajun and zydeco fix between newsletters.

FloridaCajunZydeco.com loves to travel and fits neatly in your pocket on your smart phone. Check the website for dance information wherever you may travel.

Regards, Jim Hance
Publisher, FloridaCajunZydeco.com

Dikki Du & The Zydeco Krewe at Ace’s July 9

Dikki Du (Troy Carrier) played washboard with his dad, the great Roy Carrier, and then C.J. Chenier for two years. He played drums behind his brother Chubby Carrier for a few years before picking up the accordion and starting his own band, Dikki Du and the Zydeco Krewe, about  twelve years ago. The band has a funky and hypnotic zydeco style. He takes songs from classic zydeco and turns them inside out with fresh and funky renditions. Catch Dikki Du and the Zydeco Krewe at Ace's Live Lounge in Bradenton, 4343 Palma Sola Blvd., Bradenton, Florida 34209. Phone 941-795-3886. Tickets: http://aceslivemusic.com/

Porchdogs at Davie Seafood Festival July 9

1st Annual Davie Seafood Festival, Bergeron Rodeo Grounds, 4271 Davie Rd., Davie, FL. Info: 561-633-6034.

Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band in Florida July 20, July 21, and August 13

The premier zydeco showman on the scene, Chubby is a third generation zydeco artist and winner of the Grammy Award for his album “Zydeco Junky” at the 53rd Grammy Awards in the Cajun-Zydeco category. Chubby incorporates the crowd into his performances, bringing kids and audience members onto the stage playing rubboards and singing along. His performances are high energy and great fun. Chubby began his career at 12 playing drums with his dad, Roy Carrier, and toured the world for two years with Terrance Simien before forming his own band, Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, in 1989. The band has recorded ten albums and headlined at every major Cajun-Zydeco festival as well as major jazz and blues fests, and recorded with major artists including Tab Benoit and Jimmy Thackery. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear and dance to Chubby Carrier and  in Florida this summer.

Wed., July 20 --- Chubby Carrier and Bayou Swamp Band (Sandestin)
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Events Plaza Stage, Baytowne Wharf, 244 Fisherman's Cove, Miramar Beach, FL 32550. Phone: 850-267-8000, Website: www.baytownewharf.com

Thur., July 21 --- Chubby Carrier and Bayou Swamp Band (Pensacola)
6 p.m. at Paradise Bar & Grill, 21 Via de Luna, Pensacola, FL 32561. Info: 850-916-5087, Website: www.paradisebar-grill.com

Sat. Aug. 13 --- Chubby Carrier and Bayou Swamp Band (Tallahassee)
9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Bradfordville Blues Club, 7152 Moses Lane, Tallahassee, FL 32309. 850-906-0766. Tickets: www.bradfordvilleblues.com

October Marcia Ball Tour in Florida

Put Marcia Ball on your calendar for early October. She will be appearing at Ace’s Live in Bradenton on Thurs. Oct. 6 and Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton on Fri. Oct. 7 on her way to Daytona Blues Festival on Sat. Oct. 8.

For those not familiar with Marcia Ball, she grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. She began taking piano lessons at age five, playing old Tin Pan Alley tunes from her grandmother's collection. From her aunt, Marcia heard more modern and popular music. But it wasn't until she was 13 that Marcia discovered the power of soul music. One day in 1962, she sat amazed while Irma Thomas delivered the most spirited performance the young teenager had ever seen. According to Ball, "She just blew me away; she caught me totally unaware. Once I started my own band, the first stuff I was doing was Irma's." In 1966, she attended Louisiana State University, where she played some of her very first gigs with a blues-based rock band called Gum.

In 1970, Ball set out for San Francisco. Her car broke down in Austin, and while waiting for repairs, she fell in love with the city and decided to stay. It wasn't long before she was performing in local clubs with a progressive country band called Freda And The Firedogs, while beginning to sharpen her songwriting skills. It was around this time that she delved deeply into the music of the great New Orleans piano players, especially Professor Longhair. "Once I found out about Professor Longhair," recalls Ball, "I knew I had found my direction."

Marcia Ball has recorded with Capitol Records, Rounder Records and currently with Alligator Records. She has been nominated for a Grammy, and has been featured on numerous TV programs such as “Austin City Limits” and movies including Piano Blues and Angels Sing.

New York Times says, "Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time."

Boston Globe says, ”An irresistible, celebratory blend of rollicking, two-fisted New Orleans piano, Louisiana Swamp rock and smoldering Texas blues from a compelling storyteller."

Minneapolis Star Tribunes says, ”Ball is the bayou queen of the piano, steeped in blues and honky-tonk. When revved... she's a rollicking dynamo spewing heat-seeking triplets from the ivories while her horn-driven band wails. She's also a subtle songwriter and a formidable singer with a wisp of huskiness edging her Cajun-Texan twang."

We had fun at Edge of 9, but that is over. Amber and Sally sold the club. We thank them for their generous hospitality, loaning us their dance floor every other week, and hosting three great bands from out of town for us.

So today I’m just chillin’. I am at loose ends with no place to play Cajun and zydeco tunes for happy dancers. I’ve got some new Cajun and zydeco music to play. My next dance song list is ready. I’ve got my portable Fender sound system ready. I just need some place to play.

I’m soliciting your help. Please inquire at clubs near you and ask if they would be interested in having a crowd of dancers on a mid-week off night. If it works out, you won’t have to drive very far for your Cajun-zydeco fix.

Florida bands Gumbo Boogie and Porchdogs are appearing at the following locations in July:

July 1: Porchdogs at Fridays on the Plaza (Winter Garden)
July 9: Porchdogs at 1st Annual Davie Seafood Festival (Davie)
July 17: Gumbo Boogie at Ace’s Live (Bradenton)
July 23-24: Porchdogs at Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort (Bonita Springs)

For more information, visit floridacajunzydeco.com/calendar.html

Find a list of festival events throughout the United States at floridacajunzydeco.com/festivals

July 1-4, 2016 --- Waterfront Blues Festival (Portland)
Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys, California Honeydrops, Tedeschi Trucks Band, ZZ Ward, JJ Grey & Mofro, Jimmie Vaughan and the Tilt-a-Whirl Band, Maceo Parker, Femi Kuti and the Positive Force, Curtis Salgado Band, The Soul Rebels, Samantha Fish, and more. Website: http://www.waterfrontbluesfest.com
 
July 10-15, 2016 --- Cajun-Creole Week at Augusta Heritage Center, West Virginia
"It's a great way to get out of the heat and head for some of the most scenic mountains in the East. Over the years a lot of Floridians have attended." Music and cooking workshops and dancing. See American Heritage Center YouTube Channel.  https://augustaheritagecenter.org/augusta-schedule/cajuncreole/
 
August 4-7, 2016 --- Sailieu Cajun Nights Festival (France)
N'hésitez pas à nous contacter par téléphone ou par e-mail pour tous renseignements complémentaires.
Tél : 06.08.53.88.75. Email: bayouprod@aol.com. Website: http://www.bayouprod.com/fr/
 
August 5-7, 2016 --- Long Beach Crawfish Festival
Step Rideau and the Zydeco Outlaws, Dwight Black Cat Carrier and The Zydeco Ro Doggs, T-Lou and His Super Hot Zydeco Band, Theo and The Zydeco Patrol, David Souza and the Zydeco Mudbugs, The Mudbug Brass Band, Bonne Musique Zydeco, CZ and The Bon Vivants, The Bayou Brothers and AJ Gibbs Mr. 1-Man Show. http://www.longbeachcrawfishfestival.com

August 12-14, 2016 --- North Shropshire Cajun & Zydeco Festival (UK)
A joyous celebration of Cajun and Creole music, dance and cuisine featuring Wayne Singleton and Harold Guillory, Lisa Trahan, Flatville Aces, Bearcats, Joe Le Taxi, Rip Roaring Success, Jock Tyldesley and Vera Van Heeringen, Joli Blon, The Rosellys, Bakerfield -- Cajun and zydeco bands from US, UK and Europe.  Website: http://www.northshropshirecajun.co.uk/

August 20-21, 2016 --- Cotati Accordion Festival (Cotati, CA)
MotorDude Zydeco, Mark St. Mary Band, The Bon Vivants, Do Wah Riders, Those Darn Accordions, The Mad Maggies and other accordion bands from around the world.  Festival location is north of San Francisco.
http://www.cotatifest.com.

Aug. 28 through Sept. 4, 2016 --- Louisiana Proud Dance Cruise (New Orleans)
Dance cruise featuring Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners.  Website: https://www.travelmachine.net/Featured-Cruises/56

Louisiana Historical Novel Cane River Documents One Family’s Resolve To Be Free

In 1995 Lalita Tademy (pronounced the same as “academy”) was a vice president of Sun Microsystems, running a business unit within the large corporation. She was featured in Fortune’s “People on the Rise” list, as well as Black Enterprise and Ebony, and in 1998 she was named an African-American Innovator in the New Millennium at the Silicon Valley Tech Museum of Innovation.

Suddenly Tademy decided to leave her career behind. She couldn’t explain why, except that her work was beginning to feel stale. “I was starting to feel as if this was not what I was supposed to be doing,” she said. She had no plan moving forward, so she began a genealogical search of her ancestry in Louisiana to pass the time. After a year and a half of rummaging through courthouse archives and peoples’ attics, she hired a professional genealogist, primarily to decipher the records written in French. The genealogist came up with the key to what Lalita would do next: a bill of sale for a slave named Elizabeth, Lalita’s great-great-great-great grandmother. The bill showed her that her ancestors were black slaves. A closer inspection of the document showed that some of her ancestors were white slave owners. With further study, the people from her past began to “speak to her,” and she set her mind to telling their stories. The result is a volume of historical fiction, Cane River, which documents the changing social setting of rural Louisiana from 1800 through the Civil War, through Reconstruction and into the 20th century.

The book is a captivating blend of fact and fiction which brings to life four generations of her family’s women who are exceedingly strong and adept at loving and supporting their mixed-race families in a chaotic society torn asunder by the emancipation of slaves. The new “freedom” of the slave was fraught with persecution, bigotry, killing, terrorism, plundering and unjust legal proceedings which forced the separation of the races, and the breakup of families of mixed races.

Though the characters in the book endure great suffering, Tademy was determined not to portray them as victims. “One of the things I was mindful of was that I did not want a victim mentality in this book because these were people who went through unbelievable hardship and obstacles and they kept going. And they not only survived, they thrived. Her novel reveals the horror of racial violence, but also the strength of the human spirit. Particularly when it's family-pulling-family and community-pulling-community, you get beyond, you move forward, and you get to the point where you can rise. It's a book about a tough period of time, but it's very redemptive to me, and I draw an enormous amount of strength from these people.” Tademy's readers will undoubtedly draw strength from them, too.

The story begins in 1834 where we meet the cook Elisabeth and her nine-year-old daughter Suzette who is destined for service in the house, not the field. As she has been house raised, both maid and companion to the young ward of her employer, Suzette has a hunger for something other than what's on offer and is dismayed when her mother discourages her aspirations. Though she lives to see freedom, Suzette's life is not easy and, after a time, when her master dies and her family is broken up, she discovers why her mother took such a circumspect stance. She bears two children by a Frenchman, Eugene Durant.

The focus of the book shifts to Suzette’s daughter, Philomene, who determines she will marry a slave from another plantation, Clement, though she is being relentlessly pursued by a French plantation owner, Narcisse Fredieu. The wedding takes place, and she bears twins with Clement, but a cholera outbreak and the death of the Clement’s owner allow Fredieu to send Clement and a daughter away to Virginia, and to bury the other child who succumbed to the disease. Philomene is led to believe both of her children have died, and she angrily stops speaking to everyone for months. Finally, she develops a strategy to control her destiny and speaks to Narcisse about it. Philomene has the power of “glimpsing” or premonitions of things to happen, and also she is skilled in argument. Philomene gets Fredieu to build her a cabin of her own, and plants the idea that their children should be free. She bears eight children with Fredieu, and the first one, Emily, is sent to a convent in New Orleans where she learns to read and write both French and English. Fredieu feels the societal pressures to separate himself from his “mulatte” family, and marries a white woman which seems to improve his social standing.

The focus of the book changes again to the next great matriarch of the family, Emily. A friend of Fredieu, Joseph Billes, calls on Emily at the convent and a romance ensues. They marry, have five children, and Billes goes on to become a successfully landowner and developer. Billed is threatened with death for his family and manipulated by racist people in the community including his own cousin who force him to send his family away to a new home, and he remarries a white woman to improve his status in the community just as his friend Fredieu had done. This eventually leads to the death of Bille and his white wife by undetermined cause, and their estate is transferred to the cousin, leaving Emily out of the will. Bille had foreseen this, and surreptitiously provided her with cash that sustained the family.

In all, we chart seven generations of strong women -- from Suzette's mother Elisabeth all the way to author Tademy -- in a spellbinding matriarchal tale. Tademy colors all of the detail that history cannot provide and her family story springs to life. Does Cane River illustrate precisely how it was for these women? It hardly matters. The author keeps us rapt with a well-told story.

With Cane River Lalita Tademy became a New York Times bestselling author, it became an Oprah book pick in 2001, and was translated into eleven languages. She has followed the novel with Red River in 2007, and Citizens Creek in 2014.

Thanks to Dwight Dupree of Henderson, Louisiana and Bradenton, Florida for recommending this book to me.

Cajun-Zydeco Programming on the Radio

Here is a list of Cajun and zydeco radio programming streaming over the Internet. You can find this list and a host of other information at floridacajunzydeco.com/links.html

MONDAY

"Louisiana Dance Hall"
WRIR (Richmond, VA)
Mondays 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST (EST 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.)

TUESDAY

"Zydeco n Blues"
KMUZ, Salem, OR  /  Link: http://kmuz.org/
Tuesdays, 8-10 p.m. PST (EST 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.)

THURSDAY

"Zydeco Workout with Lola Love"
www.ustream.tv/channel/the-zydeco-workout-feat-lola-love
Thursdays, 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. PST
EST 10:00 p.m. to 1 a.m.)
http://www.zydecoOnline.com

FRIDAY

"Louisiana Rhythms"
KFAI, Minneapolis, MN
Fridays 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. (EST 3 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.)

SATURDAY

"Zydeco Est Pas Sale"
KRVS, (Lafayette, LA)
Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon  (EST 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
Traditional, contemporary and live Zydeco sounds. Cultural conversation and information on community events.

"Zydeco Stomp"
KRVS, (Lafayette, LA)
Host: Herman Fusiler
Saturdays, noon to 3 p.m. (EST 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.)
Louisiana music including Zydeco, Cajun, Swamp Pop and Blues.

"Born on the Bayou"
KRVS (Lafayette, LA)
Saturdays, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. (EST 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
hosted by Lee Kleinpeter
Swamp pop and Louisiana R&B, zydeco, Cajun, blues and more.

"Second Line Parade" with Drew Miller
KSDS (San Diego, CA)
Saturdays, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. PST (EST 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.)

SUNDAY

"Zydeco Zity Radio"  (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Link: http://www.zydecozityradio.com/
Sundays 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. (EST 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m.)

"Cajun and Zydeco" with Charles Laborde and Jim Hobbs
WWOZ (New Orleans, LA)
http://www.wwoz.org/programs/cajun-and-zydeco-with-charles-laborde-or-jim-hobbs
Sundays, Noon to 2 p.m.  (EST 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.)

"Zydeco Workout" featuring Zydeco Lady, Lola Love
KZSU (Stanford University, CA)
PST 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., Sundays (EST 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.)

"Louisiana Gumbo Show" with Kid Red
WSLR (Sarasota, FL)
Sundays EST 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Atlanta Cajun Zydeco Association

July  9  --- Terry & the Zydeco Bad Boys
at Benson Center, 6500 Vernon Woods Drive, Sandy Springs, GA 30328; Phone: 404-613-4900. Free beginners dance lesson 7-8 p.m. Free intermediate dance lesson 6:15 p.m. to 7 p.m. Dance to live music 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.
August  6 --- T'Canaille
September  10 --- TBA
October  1 --- Zydeco T
October  29 --- Roux du Bayou
December 3 --- Jambalaya Cajun Band
The Atlanta Cajun Zydeco Association (ACZA) would like to remind dancers traveling to Atlanta that there is information about a hotel discount for out-of-town dancers on their website (http://aczadance.org/). “It’s the hotel where the bands stay when they play for us.”