SIMI
VALLEY, Calif. — The 25th annual
Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival
will rock once again at Memorial Day weekend, May 24-25, at Rancho
Santa Susanna Community Park, 5005 Los Angeles Ave., in Simi Valley. The event
features two full stages for each of its musical genres. Music will proceed
non-stop each day from 12 noon until 7:30 p.m. Tickets, $22 adults 13+ and $15
children 7-12, are available online at
http://www.simicajun.org
or at the gate. Parking is ample and free. Fast-moving California Hwy. 118
(Ronald Reagan Freeway) can be taken to the Stearns Street exit; the festival is
four blocks south.
The
blues stage presents its strongest bill ever featuring Robert Randolph
& the Family Band, the American funk and soul ensemble led by pedal
steel guitarist Robert Randolph; Los Angeles-based Southern soul and blues
legend Swamp Dogg; British blues patriarch John
Mayall; blues revival pioneers Canned Heat; Texas-born
bluesman Guitar Shorty; and Blues Music Award-winning singer
and guitarist Tommy Castro. The blues stage will also
feature Flattop Tom & His Jump Cats, Nancy & the Nightcrawlers,
Dennis Jones and Andy Walo.
Meanwhile,
on the Cajun-Zydeco stage, C.J. Cheneir brings the Red
Hot Louisiana Band, assembled by his father, Zydeco king, Grammy
Lifetime Achievement winner Clifton Chenier. Veteran Zydeco accordionist
Nathan Williams Sr. will appear, as will Nathan
Williams Jr. & His Zydeco Big Timers. Dwayne Dopsie, hailing from
one of the top Zydeco families in the world, will front the Zydeco
Hellraisers. Feufollet presents their
indie-rock-influenced Cajun music. Southern California’s own Lisa Haley
& the Zydecats, a popular attraction at the festival for many
years, will return, as will Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic
and the Bayou Brothers.
The
annual Mardi Gras Parade will take place both days at 4 p.m.
About
the performers:
•
Robert Randolph & the Family Band first gained national attention
with the release of the album Live at the Wetlands in 2002. The group followed
with three studio recordings over the next eight years
— Unclassified, Colorblind, and We Walk This Road — which,
together with tireless touring and unforgettable performances at such festivals
as Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival,
won them an expanding and passionate fan base. Randolph’s unprecedented prowess
on his instrument garnered him a spot on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest
Guitarists of All Time” list, and also attracted the attention of such giants as
Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana, who have collaborated with him on stage and in
the studio. His new album on Blue Note Records is Lickety Split.
•
Raunchy, satirical, political, and profane, Swamp Dogg is one
of the great cult figures of 20th century American music. The nom du disque of
Jerry Williams Jr., an R&B producer and songwriter of the ’60s, Swamp Dogg
creates pure Southern soul music anchored on tight grooves and accentuated by
horns. His songs are as much about message as music. His albums Total
Destruction of the Mind and I’m Not Selling Out, I’m Buying In,
both reissued last year, are cult classics. Swamp boasts gold and platinum
records for both soul and country covers of his composition “She’s All I Got.”
The Northridge resident’s 12-minute live rendition of the Bee Gees’ “Got To Get
a Message to You” is not to be missed. A new album is due in the summer 2014.
• John
Mayall was born in 1933 and grew up near Manchester, England. It was
there as a teenager that he first became attracted to the jazz and blues 78s in
his father’s record collection. After an early career in design, Mayall
assembled the Bluesbreakers which featured such giants of British music as Eric
Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Taylor. In 1969 he moved
to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, long a mecca for musicians, where his now U.S.-based
Bluebreakers featured Coco Montoya, Walter Trout and Buddy Whittington. Now
living short miles from Simi Valley, he continues to record and tour the globe.
•
C.J. Chenier was born 1957, the son of the great King of Zydeco,
Clifton Chenier. C.J.’s father was the first Creole musician to win a Grammy
Award. C.J. spent his childhood in the tough tenement housing projects of Port
Arthur, Texas. When Clifton died in 1987, C.J. adopted the Red Hot Louisiana
Band and recorded his debut album for Arhoolie Records with later recordings on
Slash and Alligator Records. His 1995 appearances on the The Daily Show
and CNN brought Zydeco music to its widest audiences yet. He accepted a Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award on his father's behalf in in 2014.
• Canned
Heat rose to fame because their knowledge and love of blues music was
both wide and deep. Founded in 1966 by blues historians and record collectors
Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson and Bob “The Bear” Hite, the band drew on an
encyclopedic knowledge of all phases of the genre and attained two worldwide
hits, “On the Road Again” in 1968 and “Going Up the Country” in 1969. Despite
the untimely deaths of three of its founding members, Canned Heat has survived
under the leadership of Fito de la Parra since the late ’70s.
• Guitar
Shorty, a.k.a. David Kearney, was born in Houston in 1939, raised in
Kissimee, Fla., and now makes his home in Los Angeles. Over the years he’s
played behind T-Bone Walker, Willie Dixon, Guitar Slim, Big Joe Turner, Little
Richard, Sam Cooke and fellow Simi Valley Festival performer Swamp Dogg. His
recent albums on Evidence and Alligator albums attest to the high energy level
of this survivor of blues’ classic era.
•
Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers were rated one of the “Top
100 Reasons to Visit Louisiana.” The last of eight children, Dwayne
attributes his musical abilities to the influence of his father, Rockin’ Dopsie
Sr., a pioneer of Zydeco music.
• Feufollet:
In Feufollet’s repertoire, deathbed ballads meet glockenspiels and
omnichords, Cajun French choruses are written on iPhones, and indie-rock vibes
invade Acadian archives. The Louisiana-based band is deeply rooted in the
francophone soil of Louisiana and pushing boldly into unexplored yet utterly
natural varieties of Cajun experience. They are famous for their renditions of
heartbreaking songs and rollicking tunes.
• Lisa
Haley & the Zydecats: Haley is a fourth-generation fiddler whose
maternal family were Irish immigrants, arriving in Roddy Bayou, Louisiana in
1718 to escape a smallpox epidemic. They moved near Hollywood for her mother’s
health, where Mickey Mouse Show producer Bob Holoboff offered to make Lisa a
Mousekateer. Her parents politely declined, thinking it no life for a young
lady. They said the same of Cajun music as a career. Lisa turned down a
classical music college scholarship, favoring her more passionate calling:
exploring the potential of Cajun and Zydeco potential as a “world music.”
The
Blues Stage welcomes a new booker this year, Martin Fleischmann
and his company, Rum & Humble. For more than 20 years Rum & Humble has
played a key role in presenting some of the world’s most celebrated musical
talent (Radiohead, Manu Chao, and the Rolling Stones, to name a few) to Los
Angeles audiences, in venues ranging from the Echoplex to the Orpheum Theatre to
the Hollywood Bowl. The company has co-produced the Santa Monica Pier’s Twilight
Concert Series since 2011. In addition, Rum & Humble has collaborated
closely and creatively with artists such as Jackson Browne and Paul Oakenfold as
well as with a varied roster of corporate and non-profit clients ranging from
KJAZZ Radio to the Conga Room nightclub to the National Geographic Society.
The
festival has received national press accolades: “Everywhere you turned, there
was something exciting happening. Put this on your 2013 festival calendar,”
wrote Blue Revue editor Art Tipaldi, who made the trek from New
England. The Blues Blast writer enthused, “I attend many venues and
festivals throughout the year but the ones that seem to impress me the most are
the ones that serve the community in some way. I highly recommend you put this
on your calendar for next Memorial Day weekend.” And the music industry trade
journal HITS added, “As the last strains of (Candye) Kane’s set rang in
our ears, we left the grounds fully sated by music, food, drink and, as the
saying goes, bon temps.”
This
family-friendly event boasts a huge kids’ area with bouncers, rock walls,
specialty acts, crafts and talent shows.
The
festival boasts dozens of food booths featuring a variety of fare: authentic
Cajun creations and Southern BBQ as well as multi-cultural cuisine. More than
100 craft booths and retailers will be scattered throughout the festival
grounds.
Tickets
may be obtained online at
http://www.simicajun.org/2014/tickets.html
Support
of the not-for-profit Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Festival has benefited
dozens of local community, national and international organizations, a list of
which may be found at < http://www.simicajun.org/2014/whobenefits.html>.
SATURDAY MAY 24th
BLUES
STAGE
11:30
a.m. TBA
12:15 p.m. Dennis Jones
1:35 p.m. Andy Walo
3 p.m. Canned
Heat
4:25 p.m. Guitar Shorty
5:50 p.m. John Mayall
CAJUN-ZYDECO
STAGE
10:45
a.m. Dance Lessons
11:30 a.m. Bayou Brotghers
12:25 p.m. Lisa Haley &
the Zydecats
1:55 p.m. Feufollet
3:25 p.m. Nathan Williams, Big
Nate
4:35 Mardi Gras Parade
4:55 p.m. Nathan Williams Jr. & the Zydeco
Big Timers
6:25 C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band
SUNDAY MAY 25th
BLUES
STAGE
12 Noon Nancy & the Nightcrawlers
1:20 Flattop
Tom
2:45 Swamp Dogg
4:10 Tommy Castro
5:35 Robert Randolph & the
Family Band
CAJUN-ZYDECO
STAGE10:45 a.m. Dance Lessons
11:30 a.m. Bayou Brothers
12:25
p.m. Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic
1:50 p.m. Lisa Haley & the
Zydecats
4:20 p.m. Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers
5:45 p.m.
C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana band
7:10 p.m. Feufollet
