Stanley Dural, Jr., known to the world as Buckwheat Zydeco was born on November 14, 1947 in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1971 to Stanley Dural Sr. and Mathilda Gobert Dural.
Stanley Dural, Jr., known to the world as Buckwheat Zydeco was born on November 14, 1947 in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1971 to Stanley Dural Sr. and Mathilda Gobert Dural. He was one of 13 children; he had six brothers and six sisters. As a five-year-old boy, he worked on a farm picking cotton. Stanley Dural, Jr. also worked as a delivery boy and cared for chickens. He acquired his nickname as a youth, because, with his braided hair, he looked like the character "Buckwheat" from Our Gang/The Little Rascals movies. His father, Stanley Dural Sr., a farmer, was an accomplished amateur traditional Creole accordion player, but Stanley Dural, Jr. preferred listening to and playing rhythm and blues.
Stanley Dural, Jr. became a sought after and well known musician at the organ, and by the late 1950s he was backing Joe Tex, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and many others. As a teenager, he played piano for Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ray Charles as well as two Lafayette-based bands, Sammy and the Untouchables and Lil' Buck and the Top Cats.
In 1971, he founded Buckwheat & the Hitch hikers, a 16-piece funk band that he led for the next half decade. The group experienced regional success and produced a regional hit single called, "It's Hard To Get." In 1976, Stanley Dural, Jr. was recruited to back a good friend of his father, Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco himself. Originally brought on to Clifton Chenier's Red Hot Louisiana Band, as an organist, Clifton Chenier convinced Stanley Dural, Jr. pick up and learn the accordion under his tutelage and within two years and he felt ready to start his own band under the name and re-inventing himself as Buckwheat Zydeco.
In 1979, Buckwheat Zydeco & his Ils Sont Partis Band debuted with their album release "One for the Road." Over the course of his musical careers, In 1985, Buckwheat Zydeco was nominated for a Grammy for Best Ethic or Traditional Folk Recording for his CD release "100% Fortified Zydeco." In 1986 Buckwheat Zydeco was nominated for a Grammy for Best Ethic or Traditional Folk Recording for his CD release "Turning Point," followed by Grammy nominations in 1987 for his CD release "Waiting On My Ya Ya" Best Traditional Folk Recording and in 1988 for his CD release "On A Night Like This" for Best Contemporary Blues Recording. Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural Jr. received 5 Grammy nominations during his lifetime, winning 1 Grammy award for his CD "Lay Your Burden Down" in 2010. After Stanley Dural, Jr's passing in 2016, his son Reginald "Buckwheat Zydeco Jr." Dural continued the band's legacy. Because the Recording Academy groups both artists under the name "Buckwheat Zydeco," the official Grammy Awards artist page lists 6 total nominations and 2 wins.
In 1988, Eric Clapton invited the band to open his North American tour as well as his 12-night stand at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Buckwheat subsequently shared stages and/or recording with Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, David Hidalgo, Dwight Yoakam, Paul Simon, Ry Cooder, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and many others, including indie music band Yo La Tengo on the soundtrack of the Bob Dylan bio-pic, I'm Not There. His music has been featured in films including The Waterboy, The Big Easy, Fletch Lives and Hard Target. BET's show Comic View used his live version of “What You Gonna Do?” as theme music for the program's 10th anniversary "Pardi Gras" season. He also wrote and performed the theme music for the PBS television series Pierre Franey's Cooking In America. Buckwheat won an Emmy for his music in the CBS TV movie, Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich.
Buckwheat Zydeco played many major music festivals, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (numerous times), Chicago Blues Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Summerfest, San Diego Street Scene, Bumbershoot, Montreux Jazz Festival, the Voodoo Experience, and countless others. In 1996, Buckwheat Zydeco performed alongside Little Richard during the summer Olympic closing ceremonies in Atlanta, Georgia, bringing zydeco music to a worldwide television audience estimated at three billion people. For millions of people around the world, it may have been their first introduction to zydeco music.
Buckwheat Zydeco & his Ils Sont Partis Band also became the first zydeco band to win an Emmy Award, and appeared on television numerous times and was chosen by Jimmy Fallon for his final show, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Buckwheat Zydeco & his Ils Sont Partis Band have appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, The Today Show, MTV, BET, CNN and have been featured on news programs on NBC, CBS and National Public Radio.
Buckwheat Zydeco lived across the street from Sid Williams neighborhood store on North St. Antoine Street in Lafayette, Louisiana and encouraged Sid to open a zydeco club (El Sido's). Buckwheat played the grand opening of El Sido's in 1985 and remained a fixture there throughout his international career.In spite of his rigorous national and international touring schedule, Buckwheat Zydeco regularly returned to Lafayette to headline and perform alongside other local zydeco legends at the annual Thanksgiving food drive at El Sido's Zydeco & Blues Club to collect canned goods and raise money to provide holiday meals for local families in need., a tradition that his son, Buckwheat Zydeco Jr., continues today.
Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural Jr.) is widely recognized for having three of the best-selling zydeco albums of all time, all released on Island Records during his mainstream breakthrough. His album "On a Night Like This ," release in 1987, was Buckwheat Zydeco & his Ils Sont Partis Band's major-label debut with Island Records and the first-ever major-label zydeco album, which earned a Grammy nomination and charted on the Billboard 200. Buckwheat Zydeco's album "Taking It Home" was released in 1988 and followed his debut album and reached No. 104 on the Billboard 200. His third best selling album "Where There's Smoke There's Fire " was released in 1990 reached No. 140 on the Billboard 200.
Buckwheat Zydeco's national and international presence and commercial success is unmatched, with only the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier overshadowing his presence. He was a worldwide ambassador for Zydeco music earning him the title of the Zydeco Nation's "Proudest Creole Man." Buckwheat Zydeco was a gifted and inventive arranger who pushed the traditional boundaries of Zydeco and Creole music to incorporate and embrace elements of soul music and R&B and Rock-N-Roll songs from Domino or Ray Charles, songs by Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix.