Critic's Choice

Lil' Brian & the Zydeco Travelers, Wednesday, June 14, at Brendans Pub, are an accordion-toting crew from Barrett Station, Texas, that aims to prove that modern zydeco music can carry the same hipness quotient as other urban genres like rap and hip-hop. Foundationally, the Travelers music is rooted in crawdad...

By Laura Bond

June 8, 2000

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Lil' Brian & the Zydeco Travelers, Wednesday, June 14, at Brendans Pub, are an accordion-toting crew from Barrett Station, Texas, that aims to prove that modern zydeco music can carry the same hipness quotient as other urban genres like rap and hip-hop. Foundationally, the Travelers music is rooted in crawdad country: Cajun and Creole traditions filtered through the swampy depths of the Louisiana bayou. But bandleader Brian Terry also reaches into a deep well of soul, funk and R&B influences, effectively mutating his accordion into an instrument that wouldnt sound at all out of place on the fattest P-Funk recordings, or as a background curio in an old-school Prince jam. The bands latest recording, Funky Nation, was produced by Stanley Buckwheat: Zydeco, who is credited with familiarizing a new, younger audience with zydeco music. Lil Brian and his travelers hope to take things a step further by making the genre not just familiar, but cool. The songs of the South have never sounded like this.

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