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buckwheatzydeco.com
Stanley Dural put away his keyboards, picked up an
accordian, and Buckwheat Zydeco was born. The man
and the group perform at the Honolulu Zoo tomorrow.

The ‘best party band’
brings swamp jam
to the zoo

By Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin

It all comes around. Stanley Dural faithfully paid his dues as an R&B musician in the '60s and early '70s, pumping keyboards alongside the likes of Joe Tex and Gatemouth Brown. You can take the musician out of the Creole community of Lafayette, La., and make him play 12-bar blues 'til the sun comes up, but sooner or later, the Lafayette comes out.

In the mid-'70s, during an explosion of "ethnic" musical styles, Dural was offered a keyboard slot with accordion legend Clifton Chenier. It turned out to be an apprenticeship. The music of Dural's youth -- the feel-good jubilee-jump of swamp jam called "zydeco" -- possessed him. He put down the keyboards. He picked up the accordion. Dural's childhood nickname of "Buckwheat" became his persona.

MARDI GRAS 2000 Who: Buckwheat Zydeco and Mitch Woods and The Big Easy Boogie Band When: 7 p.m. tomorrow Place: Honolulu Zoo Tickets: $22 in advance from Tower Records, Hungry Ear, Rainbow Books and Schofield Barracks Call: (808)-326-9148 Also: 7:30 p.m. today at Maui Arts & Cultural Center; $20, $25 and $28. Call 242-SHOW (7469). And 3 p.m. Saturday at Kona Brewing Co. Brewhouse Oasis; $22 in advance and $25 at the gate. Call Big Island number above.

A quarter-century later, Dural's band, Buckwheat Zydeco, has taken the zydeco pole position laid down when Chenier died. Even the staid Wall Street Journal isn't immune to swamp boogie, and calls Buckwheat Zydeco "The best party band in America."

The party comes to Oahu tomorrow, when Buckwheat Zydeco returns on the current leg of its "Mardi Gras 2000" tour.

Buckwheat and his musicians have played both of the '90s presidential inaugurations -- Al Gore confessed that his copies of Buckwheat's albums were given to him by one of his daughters, who was attending school in New Orleans -- played the Atlanta Olympics (estimated audience; 3 billion TV viewers and 17,000 pumped athletes) and countless TV commercials, festivals and the Boston Pops.

Despite the old-timey flavor of Buckwheat Zydeco's groove, it is a thoroughly modern band with its own Web site -- buckwheatzydeco.com -- their own record label -- Tomorrow Recordings -- and marketing savvy.

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