About Me
LES AMIS CREOLE have passionately absorbed and invigorated the homespun music of their ethnic heritage. In doing so, they take us back to an era before the advent of zydeco--to a time when their people first propagated a danceable folk idiom at "la-la" house parties across southwest Louisiana. Embracing the acoustic purity of that tradition, these three friends perform the old songs with uncommon dexterity and grace. Their lives also reflect the black Creole diaspora that extends most prominently into nearby southeast Texas. Though accordionist and fiddler Ed Poullard was born in 1952 in Eunice, his family moved to Beaumont, TX when he was nine months old, and he has lived there ever since. Known for his previous collaborations with his older brother Danny, Canray Fontenot, Jessie Lege, and many others, he also build POULLARD ACCORDIONS at his home shop. The two other members of this talented trio are Creole Texans by birth. James B. Adams, Jr., born in 1956, is a lifelong Houston resident. In addition to playing guitar, he also co-hosts a weekly KPFT-FM radio program (called Zydeco Pas Sale), through which he inadvertently discovered a prodigy who phones in requests for obscure recordings. That young man is the amazing fiddler and singer Cedric Watson. Born in 1983, Cedric was raised by his Creole grandmother near Sealy, west of Houston. Yet, as his music so eloquently attests, like Ed and James he has inherited and nurtured strong ties to ancestral homeland. Thus, the spirit of an old-style Louisiana "la-la" permeates this recording--and not only in its repertoire, unamplified instrumentation, and authentic French lyrics. It is there also in its very setting --not in some studio but in the Lafayette house where Cedric now currently shares space with cajun musician Wilson Savoy and other colleagues from the group called Pine Leaf Boys. More to the point, as Ed relates, "We recorded this one just like my father and grandfather used to play, seated in chairs right there in the kitchen." With Joel Savoy engineering the sound, the comfortable vibe of LES AMIS CREOLE confirms again the timeless appeal of this music, the root of a rich subculture. (Bio written by Roger Wood)
