D L Menard

D. L. Menard, "the Cajun Hank Williams," will headline the 1994 Southern California Cajun & Zydeco Festival June 4-5 at the Rainbow Lagoon, adjacent to the Long Beach Convention Center. Menard and his band, the Louisiana Aces, top a six-act lineup that includes Walter Mouton & the Scott Playboys who, according to the festival promoter, have played only one Saturday night concert outside their hometown of Scott, La., since the '50s.

D. L. Menard, "the Cajun Hank Williams," will headline the 1994 Southern California Cajun & Zydeco Festival June 4-5 at the Rainbow Lagoon, next to the Long Beach Convention Center. Menard and his band, the Louisiana Aces, top a six-act lineup that includes Walter Mouton & the Scott Playboys who, according to the festival promoter, have played only one Saturday night concert outside their hometown of Scott, La., since the '50s.

All along the Mississippi River, dozens of cultures have distinctive music styles, from a Chippewa Nation powwow and a snowbound Scandinavian fiddle club at the Minnesota source to the Cajun and Creole French and descendants of African slaves and Spanish settlers in sweltering Louisiana at the river's end.

In a repeat of what was described last year as a scheduling gaffe, two major folk-oriented music festivals will again take place in the Southland on the same weekend in June just 30 miles apart. More than 50 performers of folk, country, blues and roots-based styles will participate in the Troubadours of Music and Crafts Festival slated for June 4-5 at UCLA's Drake Stadium.

Alice Cooper's early "Pretties for You" and "Easy Action" albums are the first releases in Enigma Records' new Enigma Retro CD series. Steve Levesque, manager of press and artist relations for Enigma, said the series--also available in cassette--is designed to re-introduce out-of-print albums or previously unreleased recordings by "superstar or cult" artists. Though Alice Cooper, rock's original shock-rockers, didn't become a national force until its "Love It to Death" album was released in 1971, the two early albums--from 1969 and 1970, respectively--help document the evolution of the group's exaggerated, outrageous style.

Opening day of last year's annual Southern California Cajun & Zydeco Festival made the history books. But if festival promoter Franklin Zawacki has his way when the festival revs up in Long Beach this weekend, there won't be anything remotely close to a repeat performance. "We set a record," Zawacki recalled recently by phone from his office in San Francisco. "One hundred years of recorded history, in the whole month of June, the most rainfall Long Beach (ever) had was one-twentieth of an inch.

There's a lot to debate today in Cajun and zydeco music, and just about all of those things were showcased at Saturday's opening day of the weekend's 11th annual Long Beach Cajun & Zydeco Festival. Purism vs. progress? There was D.L. Menard's acoustic, back-porch approach to Cajun traditions going up against Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys' use of those roots as a launching pad for forays into rock 'n' roll, jump-boogie blues and western swing. The urbanization of zydeco?

D.L. Menard has been dubbed "the Cajun Hank Williams," and one listen to the Louisiana singer, guitarist and songwriter's records makes it clear why: His plaintive, yearning vocal style evokes the Father of Country Music so closely at times that it's haunting. But Menard, who headlines the second annual Folk Music Festival at Irvine Regional Park on Sunday, downplayed the moniker with an almost audible blush during a telephone interview from Bloomington, Ind., where he played earlier this week.

It was pure serendipity, but the eighth annual Southern California Cajun & Zydeco Festival provided a nonetheless ideal counterpoint to a week of ultra-expensive superstar concerts. On the opposite end of the musical scale from the Barbra Streisand and Eagles extravaganzas, the Cajun-zydeco fest was a timely celebration of humble music created simply to express an emotion or to inspire dancers to move their feet.

There was no trouble spotting folks wearing T-shirts from such bastions of Louisiana music as Tipitina's in New Orleans or Mulate's in Breaux Bridge over the weekend at the fourth annual Cajun & Zydeco Festival at Rainbow Lagoon Park. But then, anyone who's from--or who's even visited--southern Louisiana doesn't need a bit of convincing about the unique charms of its home-grown music.