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Kick Up Your Heels with Zydegroove

It has roots that are almost a century before the Revolutionary War. You may not hear much of it around here, but its significance on the American music scene warrants its own Grammy category. Just try to keep your foot from tapping to the distinctive bass beat. It’s just better to kick up your heels and dance to the Louisiana creole country music known as Zydeco.
You can catch some authentic creole music this Friday night in Nyack when Zydegroove, a New York based zydeco band, leads a Cajun dance party at the West Gate Lounge at 7p. With its deep rhythm section of bass, drums, guitar and rub board accompanied by accordion and fiddle, this band will get you on your feet and moving to the beat. Zydegroove was founded by Nyack resident Laren Droll, who plays accordion in the band. You can hear a sample of what you can expect on Friday night at ZydeGroove.com.
According to Wikipedia, zydeco is a rich mix of rhythm and blues salted with music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the people native to Louisiana. No one is quite sure where the term “zydeco” originated (it sounds like a creole expression that translates as “the snap beans aren’t salty”), but the band Zydeco Skillet Lickers gets credit for first public use of that spelling in 1929 with their record, It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo. The genre can trace its roots back to the original French settlers who came to Louisiana in the late 1600s.
It also can lay claim to its own instrument, designed and built to play this kind of music. Clifton Chenier, known as the “King of Zydeco,” designed the first zydeco rubboard in 1946 while he and his brother, Cleveland, were working at an oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. Willie Landry, a master welder-fabricator, who was also working at the refinery, followed Chenier’s design to create the world’s first rubboard. A zydeco rubboard is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
ListenĀ and dance to the beat of Zydegroove on Fri Dec 1 at 7p at the The West Gate Motor Lounge at The West Gate Inn, 26 Route 59 in Nyack.


Nyack People & Places, a weekly series that features photos and profiles of citizens and scenes near Nyack, NY, is sponsored by Sun River Health.


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