Archive Files of Cajun, Creole, and Zydeco Musicians
Posted between 1999 and 2008

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   Curley Taylor

   and Zydeco Trouble
Click here for high resolution photos of Curley Taylor posted on Flickr.

2007 CD: Nothin Feels Like This

 

Photos taken at Downtown Alive! in Lafayette.

Check out Curley Taylor's MySpace page.

Nothin Feels Like This, Curley Taylor’s 2007 CD, features more Curley Taylor originals that, as in the title cut, roll along with a smooth zydeco groove. Other songs like “Zydeco Cowboys” raise the dance tempo, and the opening cut, “Fire!!!!” (“Girl You Got That Fire”), complete with sirens, generates some real zydeco heat. In Boozoo Chavis’ “Oh Yae Yae, I’m So Tired,”, Curley’s piano accordion and an arrangement using background vocals give us a very different version in which old school meets new school.

The CD includes covers of Ray Charles’ “Hallelujah, I Love Her” and James Brown’s “A Man’s World.”  In his own way with his own voice and his own, rich arrangement that includes horns and sax, Curley Taylor really channels the intensity of the original James Brown version, adding his own crying accordion that matches the raw passion of his vocals.  Like his father, Jude, Curley is a great R&B singer who can reach down within himself and release emotions that move audiences to their core. The 5-minute cut is followed by an up-tempo remix .

Other musicians on the CD are Errol Taylor on bass; Matthew Roberts on rubboard; Eric Minix on drums; and Keith Clement on keys and guitar. Other musicians appearing on the CD are Selwyn Cooper, guitar; Kent August, guitar; D.C. Dalcourt, guitar; Ricky Julien, horns.

The CD was released by Louisiana Soul Records. For more information, got to www.curleytaylor.com, call 337-662-7225; or go to Curley Taylor's MySpace Page.

Posted 7-22-07.


Click on thumbnails for larger version.

2006 CD: Free Your Mind
Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble

Curley Taylor continues to bring out the crowds at dancehalls throughout the region with his own brand of city-in-the-country zydeco: hot or mellow, fast or slow the music is always in the groove, smooth and polished.

He wrote all of the songs on his 2006 CD, including the title cut: "You Got to Free Your Mind," an invitation to just let go and experience the music and be open to one another. Especially appropriate for Louisiana in 2006 is "This Song Is Dedicated to...," a tribute to everyone close to us, to those we depend on like our soldiers overseas, and to the people who suffered the devastation of the hurricanes. "Let Me Be Your Creole Man" is one of several songs featuring some especially nice female background vocals, supplied on the CD by Cousin Glen and Bridgette Dugas. In "Blue Jeans," Curley merges a Latin rhythm with his uptown zydeco sound.

Almost hidden within the CD package is a second CD, Close to Midnight, which features four romantic songs with seductive lyrics that definitely suggest a midnight mood.

The photos at left were taken at the 2005 Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival and at the 2005 Original Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Festival in Plaisance.
Go to the Official Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble Web Site for contact information, a schedule, details about the band, and much more.

Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble offer a fresh sound in Zydeco. His first CD is titled Country Boy, but the band's sound is as smooth as a big city boulevard.  Taylor's fingers glide up and down the piano accordion keyboard producing melodies that draw on R&B, soul, and urban blues. His vocals and the band's harmonizing also blend smoothly. The lyrics explore love, heartache, and relationships, the words flowing along while also propelled by a driving Zydeco beat.  "Country boy, city thoughts," Taylor sings in the title cut. Taylor manages to bring both worlds together, "grooving in perfect harmony"–to quote from his song.
Taylor's achievement is based on wide experience that has taken him far beyond his native Sunset, but that is where his roots are, in a small town in St. Landry Parish. He has been surrounded by music all his life. His father, Jude Taylor, plays piano accordion with his band, the Burning Flames. His uncle (on his mother's side) is the legendary blues and zydeco guitarist Lil Buck Senegal, who played for 12 years with Clifton Chenier.

"I like the stories and the style of music in R&B, and the voices," Taylor explained to Alain A. de la Villesbret in an article in the Opelousas Daily World. Citing his admiration for his father's singing, he added, "When I hear him and other people that good, I just have to sing."

 

Curley began playing drums in his father's band when he was 16 and went on to work as a drummer with C.C. Adcock, Steve Riley, John Hart and C.J. Chenier. The Curley Taylor Official Web Site provides additional details about how Curley learned to play accordion, how he put his plans to start his own band on hold for several years while playing drums with Geno Delafose, and then how he managed to record his CD and begin performing on accordion with his own band, Zydeco Trouble.

Taylor wrote 12 of the 13 songs on the CD. The melodies, the lyrics, and the vocals themselves all show how much he values music as an expression of his feelings and as a way of reaching out to his audiences. The only cover song is also by a great vocalist, "Another Saturday Night" by Sam Cooke. On "Hard Times," the musicians include his father and Lil' Buck Senegal.

Band members in addition to Curley Taylor are his brother Errol Taylor on bass; Keith Clement on keyboards; Wayne "D.C." Dalcourt on guitar, Eric "Boss Hogg" Minix on drums, and Matt Sonnier on rubboard.

Photos on this page were taken at Festival International in Lafayette April 24, 2004, and at the Grande Boucherie de Mallet at St. Ann's Catholic Church May 8, 2004.

 
 


Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble are shown performing in Mallet at St. Ann's Catholic Church.

 
Posted 6-15-04
All photographs and text by David Simpson.

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