Monday, June 21, 2021

More ersatz culture?

Looking again at this Zydeco music, I made a point that Slippery Sneakers was not really Zydeco, the chap had Zydeco instruments and the pace was cranked up at times but to extend the point, it’s largely country crossed with rockabilly, with a few other things thrown in.  Nothing wrong with that - most danceable and people were enjoying themselves on the dance floor.

I looked through comments because four years ago, the scrub boarder came in and replied in a few places … then I scrolled down and saw some really nasty things from someone saying he was from Cajun country and that the Slippery Sneakers were not even close to Zydeco, you had to be born and bred south of the I-10 to really feel it.  

Pity he had to be so nasty about it but on the other hand, maybe there was a bit of cultural appropriation going on.  The issue was in the name “Zydeco Band”, plus constant references in songs to it being Zydeco, plus a dialogue between these northerners about how good Louisiana was.  It struck me that they were overegging it at that point.

Reading all this was the little scrubboard player herself and she said hey wait, I am southern, I’m from North Carolina.  That differs from what the leader was saying, claiming she was from SC.  So there was this thing going on the whole time, which to me was a pity because if they’d just dropped the word Zydeco or called it something else such as Northern Zydeco, stopped trying to be Cajun, it would have been fine.  Many liked the songs and loved the scrubboard player to boot.  Pity really.

As for genuine Zydeco, well here’s an example:


The other thing I’d mention is that it’s almost always “joined up” dancing on the dance floor in swamp country from what I’ve seen, not the case in the north-east.

Whatever, whichever way you want it, it seems a stoopid argument to me.  For example, those Country Girls from Czechia - well so what?  Obviously they’re not Nashville, are they?  Is that a crime?  Come to think of it, is it a crime for an English band to call themselves the Nashville Teens?

4 comments:

  1. There's plenty of Southern bands who overplay the Southern/Country hokeyness to the point of becoming complete jackasses.

    "Hee-Haw" was funnier when you only had to deal with it for 30 minutes a week.

    I've heard all the "good intentions," but it only goes so far before it looks like a white minstrel show.

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  2. Most interesting to an outsider. Starting to see the lie of the land. Starting, say, at Gulf Shores, what’s on the seaboard west and further west, then north west, take in Branson, then north-west of Bama, Decatur, radially into Georgia, Classic City [you’re interesting yourself], down to the conurbation of Atlanta, south west Florida, down to the Keys, up the eastern seaboard, then into NC, VA. Southern Appalachians further in. Very interesting stuff. I suppose we’re shown, around the world, so much eastern and western seaboard, I myself know of Sioux City inland, Utah. Knew a lady from Montana, lightyears from Georgia. CA I used to drive each year, north to Nike country, south to Tijuana.

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  3. Now, The Bay City Rollers were a crime.
    Even if they had called themselves The Embra Stotters they would still have been a crime.

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