Cedric Watson Et Bijou Creole

Spearheading the emerging generation of Cajun and Creole musicians, Cedric Watson is a fiddler, vocalist, accordionist and songwriter of enormous talent and potential.

Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole resurrect the ancient
sounds of the French and Spanish contra dance and
bourré alongside the spiritual rhythms of the Congo tribes of West Africa, who were sold as slaves in the Carribean and Louisiana by the French and Spanish. Injecting a healthy dose of his own personality and ingenuity, Cedric has been exciting an ever-broadening audience with his unique take on traditional Creole music, and with his new compositions that expand the genre while still respecting its roots. In the few years since he assumed the role of bandleader, all of his albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards. Moving with ease between fiddle and accordion, and adding his strong blues-inflected vocals,
Cedric’s albums are a tapestry of pulsing rhythms and
Creole poetry, and his live performances are
unforgettable, at once progressive and nostalgic.

With an apparently bottomless repertoire of songs at his fingertips, Cedric plays everything from forgotten Creole melodies and obscure Dennis McGee reels to more modern Cajun and Zydeco songs, even occasionally throwing in a bluegrass fiddle tune or an old string band number. Almost unique amongst his contemporaries, he is also a prolific songwriter, writing almost all of his songs on his double row Hohner accordion. Cedric’s songs channel his diverse ancestry (African, French, Native American and Spanish) to create his own brand of sounds.