New Beginning

Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. is keeping his father’s legacy alive

BY DAN WILLGING

It’s not always easy following in the footsteps of your major dad, especially when he’s the legendary Buckwheat Zydeco (1947-2016) who brought zydeco to worldwide prominence— more so than his mentor and genre founder Clifton Chenier. After spending three years playing organ in Chenier’s Red Hot Louisiana Band, Buckwheat Zydeco, a.k.a. Stanley Dural, Jr., founded his own group, Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Parti Band. (Ils Sont Parti means “they left,” a commonly heard cry when the horses sprint out of the chute at a local racetrack.)

Among Buckwheat Zydeco’s accomplishments was being the first zydeco artist signed to a major label, Island Records (home of Bob Marley), and performing at the closing ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, viewed by a worldwide audience of three billion. Additionally, he played at President Clinton’s inauguration ceremony twice.

His son Sir Reginald Masters Dural knows that and realizes such herculean feats aren’t easily topped, but that doesn’t deter him. Starting at age 17, Dural was Ils Sont Parti’s rubboard player. As the years wore on and cancer took its toll on Buckwheat, Dural assumed a bigger role by jumping on organ and accordion and handling lead vocals. It was a sad day for zydeco and the Dural Family when Buckwheat succumbed to the deadly disease on September 24, 2016.

The following year, 2017, Jazz Fest organized a Buckwheat Zydeco Tribute featuring Dural,

Nathan Williams, Corey Ledet, and CJ Chenier. At that performance, the torch was symbolically passed to Dural, and Buckwheat’s former band became Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and Ils Sont Parti Band.

Growing up in Lafayette’s McComb neighborhood, Buckwheat was just “dad” to Dural, even though the youth knew there was something special about his neighborhood of musicians.

Living across the street was Clifton Chenier. “I remember [Chenier] was really tall with big hands and he was really nice,” Dural recalls. “And he was a monster on accordion.”

Chenier’s longtime drummer Robert St. Julien lived around the corner, and three blocks away was Paul “Lil’ Buck” Sinegal, who played guitar for both Chenier and Buckwheat. Some of Dural’s fondest memories of Buckwheat and Chenier performing together were at Lafayette’s Blue Angel Club.

“They used to go at it all the time,” Dural explains. “My dad was on Hammond B3. [Chenier] was on accordion—two talented musicians with lots of respect for one another.”

As a youth, Dural was into sports, playing basketball—his favorite—and football. It wasn’t until later that Dural developed a passion for music. “I was a freshman in high school when I began to take notice of what my dad was doing,” he says. “I started putting my time in on Hammond B3 and accordion, and it just went on from there.”