Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, who are at Artisphere tonight, are a Cajun band. But they’re more than that. Formed in 1988, this French-singing Louisiana group, led by singer/accordionist Riley and fiddle player David Greely, started out by covering obscure Cajun two-step numbers and waltzes with energy and precision. But beginning with their 1995 [...]
Not content with simply booking one-off cajun and zydeco events and teaching folks how to spin and strut to those genres, last year Sharon Schiliro and Michael Hart organized the first Dancing by the Bayou Festival at Glen Echo Park. The festival's back this weekend, with the addition of a pre-fest kick-off dance tonight at [...]
In July 2009, the Surf Club, a Hyattsville roadhouse that had been presenting live roots-rock, blues, and zydeco, transformed into a neighborhood bar catering to the area’s Spanish-speaking population—but with no live music. More than year later, on August 26, the club suddenly featured a D.C. Blues Society-sponsored gig with Louisiana bluesman Kenny Neal. Tonight, live [...]
The posthumous release of Jack Rose's Luck in the Valley is a return to American roots music. Made up of Cajun, country, blues, and jazz influences, Rose's album is characterized by acoustic fingerpicking and ample use of slide. Guest artists on the album (including a banjo player, junkyard percussionist, and harmonica player) seem superfluous when [...]
Louisiana Creole and Cajun music has long had a home in the D.C. area. From the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the Twist and Shout club and Wolf Trap’s “Swamp Romp” to Texas Fred Carter’s WPFW Saturday afternoon radio show and dances at Glen Echo Park, distinctive fiddle and accordion-led bayou sounds have always been on the [...]
