Nathan Williams Sr. (born March 24, 1963)[1] is an American zydeco accordionist, singer and songwriter. He established his band Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas in 1985.
He developed his musical sensibility in his hometown, a place rich in folk tradition, following in the footsteps of his uncle, the Creole guitarist Harry Hypolite, who was a band member with both Clifton Chenier and later with his son C. J. Chenier.[4] The young Williams eagerly sought out the music of zydeco originators such as Chenier. When he was too young to attend a Chenier dance at a St. Martinville club, he hovered by the window-sized fan at the back of the building to hear his idol, only to have the bill of his baseball cap clipped off by the fan when he leaned too close.[5]
When he was 13,[6] Williams moved to Lafayette, Louisiana to live with his older brother Sid and his wife. He worked in Sid's grocery store. Later, while recovering from a serious illness, Nathan decided to dedicate himself to learning the accordion. He began practicing in the bathroom because he did not want anyone to hear him play. His main mentor was Buckwheat Zydeco, although his biggest influence was Chenier.[7] Sid Williams purchased his brother's first accordion from Buckwheat Zydeco.[8]
Career
Williams in 2022
Williams began playing professionally around the age of 21.[6] Five years after graduating from high school, Williams was recording 45s on his brother's El Sid independent record label.[3] Sid opened a club in Lafayette, El-Sid-O's, and Nathan became a regular Friday night performer there.[8]
Williams got his lucky break after Buckwheat Zydeco had left Rounder Records for Island Records. Rounder was in need of an accordionist to fill a spot on a project they had lined up. Buckwheat Zydeco suggested Williams for the position; he auditioned and got the recording contract. In 1985, he formed his band, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas, with which he plays to this day.[3][9] Williams named the band after a Chenier instrumental song.[10] In 1988, Williams and the band performed for the first time at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.[11]
The Cha Chas played at the New Orleans Rock n' Bowl for the first time in November 1992. After their successful performances as well as those by John Delafose and Beau Jocques, the venue began to host zydeco bands every Thursday night beginning in spring 1993.[12] In 1997, Williams released a live album recorded at the club, titled I'm a Zydeco Hog: Live at the Rock 'N' Bowl, New Orleans. Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas performed at the 30th anniversary celebration of the venue in November 2018.[12]
Early in his career, The New York Times wrote that the then-25 year old Williams was "poised to become important; already he is being mentioned as one of the people revitalizing the genre".[13] A few months later, the newspaper described him as "rightly considered one of the best young zydeco musicians in Louisiana".[14]
His musical style combines elements of zydeco, jazz, blues and R&B. Williams writes most of the band's original tunes.[15]
For more than three decades, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas have toured widely, performing at venues as diverse as his brother's convenience store in Lafayette, Louisiana to the Lincoln Center in New York and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.[16][17] The Cha Chas performed at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Internationally, he has performed in Austria, Spain, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Turkey and Germany,[18] among others. They were the first zydeco band to perform in Poland.[19]
From its inception, the band has included members of the Williams family, with Nathan on accordion and lead vocals, older brother Dennis Paul Williams on guitar, first cousin Mark Anthony ("Chukka") Williams on rubboard, and brother Sid as manager.[5][16] Other Williams family band members have included his son, accordionist and keyboardist Nathan Williams Jr., cousin Allen Williams on bass, nephew Djuan on rubboard and accordion. Non-family band members have included bassists Paul Newman and Wayne Burns, drummers Herman "Rat" Brown and Gerard St. Julien Jr., Clifford Alexander on rubboard, and Allen "Cat Roy" Broussard on saxophones.[3][5][9]
On his 1995 album Creole Crossroads, Williams teamed up with Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet from the band BeauSoleil. At the time, collaborations between zydeco and Cajun musicians were rare.[6]
In 2013, he founded his own record label, Cha Cha Records,[19] which releases albums by both Williams Sr. and Williams Jr.[21]
In 2022, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas toured with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, playing 30 dates across the United States, promoted as the Mardi Gras Mambo Tour.[22]
When he is not touring, Williams runs a trucking company named Cha Cha Hot Shot Service that hauls equipment for the Louisiana oil and gas industry.[19]
Williams met his future wife Nancy when he was 16 years old. They were high school sweethearts. He said "Once I met her, that was it. I have a nice wife, a nice family. I make a decent living. I enjoy what I'm doing."[24] The couple have three children.[18]
Nathan Williams Jr. began performing with the Cha Chas at age 3, playing the rubboard.[25] He released his debut album Zydeco Ballin' in 2002, at age 14. Since then, he has led his own band, Lil' Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers, playing accordion and keyboards.[26]
Williams' youngest son Naylan is also a musician and record producer. He played most of the instruments on his father's 2022 album Lucky Man.[27]
His older brother Dennis Paul Williams, in addition to being a jazz and zydeco guitarist, is a well-known visual artist, whose mixed media works have been exhibited in multiple U.S. cities and in Europe. His paintings were featured in a 2013 book titled Soul Exchange[28] and appear on the covers of two books by poet John Warner Smith.[29]
Discography
Studio and live albums
Album title
Record label
Stock number
Release year
Zydeco Live!: Direct From Richard's Club, Lawtell, Louisiana (with Boozoo Chavis)
2006: Best of the Beat Award for Best Zydeco Band or Performer[34]
2006: Best of the Beat Award, Best Zydeco Album for Hang it High, Hang it Low
2010: Big Easy Music Award for Best Zydeco Band[36]
2012: Big Easy Music Award for Best Zydeco Band[37]
2012: Zydeco Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award[38][39]
2015: Zydeco, Blues and Trailride (ZBT) Clifton Chenier Lifetime Achievement Award[40]
2017: Landry Vineyards in West Monroe, Louisiana unveiled their "Nathan Williams Zydeco Wine" label in honor of the musician who performed at the venue for many years[41]
unknown year: voted top festival band in the country[35][40]
Related Research Articles
Zydeco is a music genre that was created in rural Southwest Louisiana by Afro-Americans of Creole heritage. It blends blues and rhythm and blues with music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles, such as la la and juré. Musicians use the French accordion and a Creole washboard instrument called the frottoir.
Stanley Dural Jr., better known by his stage name Buckwheat Zydeco, was an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He was one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group was formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band, but they often performed as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.
The music of Louisiana can be divided into three general regions: rural south Louisiana, home to Creole Zydeco and Old French, New Orleans, and north Louisiana. The region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The music of the northern portion of the state starting at Baton Rouge and reaching Shreveport has similarities to that of the rest of the US South.
Alton Jay Rubin, who performed as Rockin' Dopsie, was an American zydeco singer and accordion player who had success first in Europe and later in the United States. He played accordion on "That Was Your Mother" on Paul Simon's album Graceland (1986).
Clifton Chenier, was an American musician known as a pioneer of zydeco, a style of music that arose from Creole music, with R&B, blues, and Cajun influences. He sang and played the accordion. Chenier won a Grammy Award in 1983.
Maison de Soul is a Louisiana-based Zydeco and blues record label. It was founded in 1974 in Ville Platte, Louisiana by Floyd Soileau and remains under his ownership. It is one of four record labels under Soileau's Flat Town Music Company umbrella, and combined the Flat Town labels make up "the largest body of Cajun, zydeco, and swamp music in the world". Living Blues magazine has called Maison de Soul "the country's foremost zydeco label".
Wilson Anthony "Boozoo" Chavis was an American accordion player, singer, songwriter and bandleader. He was one of the pioneers of zydeco, the fusion of Louisiana Creole and blues music developed in southwest Louisiana.
Chris Ardoin is a zydeco accordionist and singer. He is one of the young artists that helped form nouveau zydeco, a new style of music that fused traditional zydeco with various styles including hip-hop, reggae and R&B.
Beau Jocque was a Louisiana French Creole zydeco musician and songwriter active in the 1990s.
Geno Delafose is an American zydeco accordionist and singer. He is one of the younger generations of the genre who has created the sound known as the nouveau zydeco. His sound is deeply rooted in traditional Creole music with strong influences from Cajun music and also country and western. His father was the fellow zydeco accordion player, John Delafose.
C. J. Chenier is the Creole son of the Grammy Award-winning "King of Zydeco", Louisiana musician, Clifton Chenier. In 1987, Chenier followed in his father's footsteps and led his father's band as an accordion performer and singer of zydeco, a blend of cajun and creole music. With five previous albums to his credit, by 1994, Chenier began to record for Chicago-based Alligator Records.
The Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album was an honor presented to recording artists at the 50th, 51st, 52nd and 53rd Annual Grammy Awards (2008–2011) for quality zydeco or cajun music albums. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
Paul Alton "Lil' Buck" Sinegal was an American blues and zydeco guitarist and singer.
Lynn August is an American zydeco accordionist, keyboard player, singer and bandleader.
Dwayne Rubin, better known by his stage name Dwayne Dopsie, is an American Zydeco musician. He is the accordionist and vocalist for his New Orleans-based band, Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers.
Bogalusa Boogie is a studio album by the American zydeco musician Clifton Chenier. It was released in 1975 via Arhoolie Records. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2016, the album was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.
Hot Rod is an album by the American musician C.J. Chenier, released in 1990. He is credited with the Red Hot Louisiana Band. Although Chenier grew up listening primarily to R&B, he considered Hot Rod to be a traditional zydeco album.
Follow Me Chicken is an album by the American musician Nathan Williams, released in 1993. He is credited with his band, the Zydeco Cha Chas.
Joe Hall is an American accordionist and vocalist who performs Creole la la, Cajun, and zydeco music.
Jeffery Broussard is an American zydeco musician.
References
↑ "Williams, Nathan, 1963-". LC Name Authority File. Library of Congress. February 27, 2001. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
↑ Kemp, John R. (October 1, 2020). "Prayerful Painting". Acadiana Profile. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
↑ Caudell, Robin (February 13, 2013). "Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas: Zydeco with spice makes everything nice". Press-Republican. Plattsburgh, New York.
↑ Bourque, Darrell; Gould, Philip (2013). Soul Exchange: The Paintings of Dennis Paul Williams. Lafayette, Louisiana: University of Louisiana at Lafayette. ISBN9781935754237. OCLC833146950.
↑ Johnson, Ben (February 19, 2009). "Do the Cha Chas: Zydeco giant Nathan Williams brings Mardi Gras dance music to the North Shore". Staten Island Advance. p.W04.
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