The world of zydeco music lost another legend on September 24, 2016. Stanley Dural, Jr., better known as Buckwheat Zydeco, passed away on that day from lung cancer.
Christa at Accordion Americana has a post about his passing on her excellent blog. There are also several Buckwheat Zydeco videos at that link.
I am fortunate to have seen Mr. Dural in concert several times, although I could never get him to play “Zydeco Boogaloo” at those concerts!
This reminds me of the old joke about two Cajun musicians, although, since Mr. Dural never wanted anyone to refer to his music as “Cajun” music, we will change the joke to zydeco musicians.
There were two brothers who played zydeco music. They both wondered about the afterlife, so they made a deal. Whichever one of them passed away first would try to return to earth to let the other brother know what Heaven was like. Sure, enough, about a year later, the older brother died. The younger brother continued playing zydeco music on earth. Then, after another year, suddenly the deceased brother appears to his younger brother!
The younger brother said, “Tonnere mes chiens! Frere, tell me ’bout what Heaven is like!” The older brother replied, “Oh, cher, Heaven is great! They got great zydeco dances every night, and lots of famous musicians to play those dances! For example, last week they had dances played by Boozoo Chavis, John Delafose, and Beau Jocque. For tonight’s dance, they got Buckwheat Zydeco playin’.
The younger brother said, “Tell me more!” The older brother hesitated, then said, “Well, you are booked to play tomorrow night’s dance!”
