Every memory in the archive
Browse the full archive of Zydeco music and Louisiana & Texas Creole culture, filtered by category.
One of the Zydeco Nation’s mainstay figures and unsung mentors, Joseph Wilfred Chavis died on Friday, May 7, 2010 at the age of 65 in Houston, Texas. Wilfred Chevis was born in Church Point, Louisiana...
Albert “Little Smokey” Smothers died on November 20, 2010 at the age of 71 at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago, Illinois of natural causes. He began playing guitar at 15. Two years later, Sm...
Ellas “Bo Diddley” Bates, known to the world as “Bo Diddley” died on June 2, 2008 at the age of 79 of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida. Garry Mitchell, a grandson of Diddley and one of mor...
Fernest Arceneaux, "The New Prince of Accordion" passed away on this day of September 4, 2008 at the age of 68. Fernest Arceneaux , born August 27, 1940, died in Lafayette of natural causes. Known for...
Democratic Senator Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, becoming the first African American to be elected to the Nation's highest office.
Senator Jones, one of the most important innovators of the modern Southern Soul Sound, and who produced many Southern Soul and blues records in both New Orleans and at his “ranch” and home in the coun...
Odetta Holmes, "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement" and "The queen of American folk music", most affectionately known as Odetta, died on December 2, 2008 from heart disease in New York City at the...
Southern Soul and Blues singer, Tyrone Davis, died on February 9, 2007 in a Chicago hospital at the age of 66. In October 2004, he suffered a stroke which curtailed his career. Working as a valet/chaf...
Frank Mendenhall died on Wednesday, February 20, 2007 of cancer in Mobile, Alabama. With one of the most angelic falsetto voice in the Zydeco, Southern Soul, and Blues nation, and one of the few South...
Mr. Alphonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin, internationally known Creole accordionist, singer, and one of the Zydeco Nation’s last living link to the old Creole musical tradition called “la la music” or “la musiq...
Geno Delafose, Cedric Watson, & Terrance Simien were announced as the final nominees of the first Grammy category for Zydeco and Cajun Musicians. Seven finalist were choose for the Best Zydeco and Caj...
James Joseph Brown, commonly referred to as "The Godfather of Soul" and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business", died on December 25, 2006 at approximately 1:45 a.m. from congestive heart failure r...