Nick Spitzer

I really like what Paul Scott just said because it's so true how far zydeco has traveled. In a sense, you could go back in the nineteenth century and say it's traveled from people playing what we think were the bonzas and the bones, moving to the rub-boards, and the frottoir from the crinkled siding, and moving up into the worlds of being recognized as a music of the entire world. I personally encountered the scene when I was down in the mid-70's. I lived with Bois Sec’s [Alphonse Ardoin] family for about three and a half years.

One of the things I learned in the Creole communities about family was really from some of the young guys, some younger than me just said right early on, just said, "Nick, always be yourself. Don't try and be me or this guy, be who you are. You can really help us do some things." And, it was a good message for me, because I learned a lot about music, and speaking the language, and the dance. I have to say that the Creole community in a lot of ways made me somebody, because I was able to hear the message of how people had put Africa, and France, and the Caribbean, and Louisiana together, into this whole land that was represented by the music, and by all the different things of the community, from the Mardi Gras, the trail ride, to the grand matriarchs like Marceline Ardoin and so many others, ladies of the Brun families who run bands. Just really learn about life, and I think for me personally, it was a chance to be able to understand that the world is in many ways a Creole world. We are lucky in Louisiana to have people that identify as Creoles, but much of the world has some of these processes of people coming together to create new culture out of things that were there before. In my own life, I look at America at its best as a Creole society, where cultures have mixed and mingled and shared and created something new. To me jazz is Creole music, rhythm and blues is Creole music, rock and roll is Creole music, and I could name a hundred other styles around the world. But zydeco is the music we know comes from Louisiana Creoles, and Creoles can always be proud of that.

And when you come to a document like this, or things that were done back in earlier times by other producers that are unfolding here, what they do, is they make a record of history that says "This is important, this is important to you now, it was important then, and it will be important  in the future." I remember when there were some of these same kids when I was out there in the early 70's, and particularly some of the elder parents saying, “Zydeco est mort"—zydeco is really dying now. It just won't be, in another ten years we will have no zydeco." But look what happened—Zydeco completely turned around. Zydeco, whether we like it or not, ended up in Maalox commercials, and Chevy truck commercials. But most of all, zydeco got on stage at that first festival in '82, and Boozoo came back out of retirement to do that festival, and Boozoo stepped forward, and you have a whole new generation of zydeco and nouveau guys coming along who heard music because he was being elevated and raised up by that festival.

And so all these different efforts of all these hands have brought it to this point. And I feel like what I do now, "American Roots" the public radio show around the country, is really informed by a Creole point of view. I always include all kinds of music, I try to show what connects them, but also distinguishes them in the best sense. I play a lot of zydeco, but I play a lot of other kinds of music. And I can say that sure “Zydeco c’est pas mort”—It's not about to die. Because you guys, like Zydeco Joe sitting right here, who care about the deep roots of zydeco keep pushing that forward. Just as surely as you have some of these guys who are out there on the big r&b, soul, funk, hip-hop kind of zydeco, in other words zydeco is flowering in many, many directions.

The good thing, I think, about something like this DVD, is that it remembers the people who didn't get that recognition, when zydeco was “apé mort”, before zydeco was known in the big world. That's always important. To have these flowers and branches and fruits you have to water the roots, and that's what you've done, and I just really appreciate it so much. It's great to see, I can't wait to dig into it. I've been away from this scene for too long, and I can go to this DVD now, and update myself just as quickly as a sixth-grader in school is going to be able to do it, and all these schools in this parish, and all parishes of southern Louisiana. So I applaud you, Dr. Willey, for doing this. I think he deserves a big round of applause.

©2005 Nick Spiptzer