I like to think that I have an eclectic taste in music, that I am broad-minded. Hey, I was in college during the 1960s and 70s, man. But that is so not true, there is more genre than I knew back then.
My music education pretty much ended in the early 1980s. Some how I cannot get beyond Zanadu Xanadu with Olivia Newton John. Was it the trauma or Boy George? Or both? But then other music styles saved me?
I don’t know, but the last 15 years or more are scarcely dotted with memorable music, except for Whitney Houston and anything Irish music related (of course).
In recent years, I was exposed to something called “Zydeco”. And I haven’t been the same.
Can’t help it, my feet want to dance. I feel the beat and the words—and this is from a person who struggles to clap and sing at the same time. Maybe I was born down in Louisiana, stolen by pirates and brought up-river to where my folks were buying catfish from a guy down on the levee off the ‘Ssippi.
What IS it? It is like gumbo, with every nation tossing a bit of its culture into the pot, adding lots of spice. And I like it.
A community gets together, eat some gumbo, dance like crazy. Just listen, see what you think.
Re-post from October 2013. Arlee Jackson and Alex Kavanaugh helped create the "A to Z April blog a thon" My offering for Z is Zydeco.
Ireland is actually the top of the dancing kingdom. Sorry, guys. Ireland wins.
Zydeco.
