Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience

This event is a part of the 2024-2025 Dippin' Dots Art for All Series. Purchase a subscription and save 15% on all shows.

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Authentic artistry, an accomplished career.

For over 40+ years, two-time GRAMMY award winning, 8th generation Louisiana Creole, Terrance Simien (DOB, September 3, 1965), has been shattering the myths and often misinformation, about what his traditional Zydeco roots music is – and is not. It most certainly is Black American roots music and it is music born of the African American/Black and mixed race French speaking Creoles of South Louisiana. This is the truth and these are the facts.

Simien leads a highly skilled Zydeco Experience band with long time band member, close friend and creative collaborator: Danny Williams (30+ years, two-GRAMMY award winning), keyboards, vocals; Stan Chambers (15+ years, GRAMMY award winning), bass, vocals; Ian Molinaro – Thompson, drums; Michael Christie on trumpet and Noah Boshra, saxophone. Ian MT is a Berklee College of Music graduate and Mike a Shenandoah University graduate ( SU is in the top 10% of music programs in the country). Another Berklee College grad, Ethan Santos, trombone, also lends his skills to us on tour at times.  Noah Boshran, joining us in 2024, is a Tulane graduate.

Simien has become one of the most respected and accomplished artists in American roots music today. He and his band mates have performed nearly 10,000 concerts, toured millions of miles to over 45 countries during their eventful career. Their music has been placed in multiple major studio theatre release films, including a Disney animated film, TV shows and radio commercials. They’ve shared studio and stage with legends the Meters, Art Neville, Los Lobos, Marcia Ball, the late Robert Palmer and Dave Matthews Band to name a few. They’ve been cultural ambassadors for their country since the mid 1980’s as part of the U.S,. State Department ongoing cultural diplomacy tours. They performed in Ukraine twice (2012, 2015) with the U.S. Embassy in Kiev and toured Russia for two weeks as well in 2015.

Prepared for the future, inspired by the past.

At its deepest roots, zydeco music was traditional and performed acoustic with an accordion, fiddle and triangle and sung in French. The older generation simply called it French music. Before that, it was call and response, jure´songs* of the 19th century using only clapping hands, stomping feet and the yearning, often painful voices of the oppressed French speaking blacks unique to Louisiana. Although jure´ was still being performed in rural Louisiana into the 20th century. One must understand how remote and isolated parts of the rural Deep South were to understand they were often decades behind other parts of the country.  When Terrance was just a kid, in the late 60’s  he remembers horse and buggies being used as actual means of transportation in rural St. Landry Parish. The Creoles sang their songs through good times and bad, through slavery, Jim Crow and all the way up to the victorious time in 1982 when our friend and Queen Ida Guillory, now 95 won the first Grammy award for zydeco!

Zydeco is driven by African and Caribbean rhythms and has evolved musically over decades incorporating more popular genres like rock, funk, R&B and into the 21st century, incorporated rap and hip hop. Zydeco became wildly popular all over the world when it began to diversify from mostly trad French songs to contemporary sounding music that traveled more easily outside of the French speaking Creole community of Louisiana. During the 20th century Blues, jazz and folk audiences embraced the music and Terrance et al were at the forefront as the emerging face of the music, even performing in notable rock rooms in the US and Canada in the early-mid 80’s.

This performance is funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kentucky Arts Council.