The story
There are histories hidden inside the sound of a fiddle.
Follow them through South Louisiana and they lead through Creole communities and Cajun dance halls, across the Caribbean and the Atlantic, through French and Spanish melodies, African rhythms and generations of music passed from one player to another.
“A true expression of the modern Creole man.”
Cedric Watson has spent much of his life following those threads.
A four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, accordionist, singer and songwriter, Watson has become one of the remarkable contemporary voices of Louisiana Creole music. The New York Times calls him a “gifted reanimator of Louisiana Creole music.” But Watson isn't interested in simply preserving old songs. He reaches deep into the tradition to discover what else is there.
With Bijou Creole, Watson moves from nearly forgotten Creole melodies and old fiddle tunes to Cajun dance music, driving Zydeco rhythms and songs of his own. Fiddle and accordion carry melodies that have traveled for generations; rhythms reveal connections stretching through Africa, the Caribbean and the American South.
It is music with a long memory, but it refuses to become a museum piece.
Onstage, those histories become something immediate: soulful, rhythmic, exuberant and deeply danceable. Watson can reach backward for a melody that might otherwise disappear, then turn around and write something entirely new on his double-row accordion.
That balance between memory and invention is at the heart of his music: not preserving a tradition behind glass, but keeping it alive by playing it.
At De la Luz Soundstage, follow the fiddle into the deep roots of Louisiana Creole music.