Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole
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Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole (Part 2) - FESTIVAL DE PONTCHARTRAIN
Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole (Part 3) - FESTIVAL DE PONTCHARTRA
Les Amis Creole live at Celtic Colours International Festival
About
Cedric Watson is among the brightest stars in a constellation of vibrant music traditions native to southwest Louisiana. A four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, singer, accordionist, and songwriter, Cedric boldly reanimates early Louisiana Creole music—a unique, fiddle-driven style sung primarily in French, and born from a regional mix of African, French, Spanish, Caribbean, and Indigenous musical cultures. Watson’s music is a hybrid of traditional Creole and Cajun songs, zydeco, broader Caribbean influences, and his own original compositions. It’s also a fearless exploration of history and geography—digging deep into the musical roots shared by Afro-French Creole cultures throughout the Caribbean and beyond.
Watson remembers zydeco as the soundtrack to regular family trail rides growing up in San Felipe, Texas. His early interest in music was encouraged by his grandmother, who bought Cedric first a guitar and then a fiddle. Drawn to the music of his Creole ancestors, he began learning Cajun, zydeco, and older Creole tunes, studying French, and playing at a zydeco club in Houston. There, he met J.B. Adams, a zydeco music aficionado who introduced Cedric into a circle of Louisiana musicians. In 2003, he moved to Duralde, just northwest of Lafayette, where he lived with and was mentored by the Ardoin family, among the oldest and most respected Louisiana Creole music families. Warmly received by the local zydeco, Cajun, and Creole music scenes, Cedric has played with everyone from the Pine Leaf Boys to Corey Ledet, Les Amis Creole, Michael Doucet, Edward Poullard, Golden Thibodaux, and Jeffrey Broussard. Along the way, he picked up the accordion and began creating original songs.
Since forming Bijou Creole in 2006, Cedric has continued incorporating diverse musical elements into a sound uniquely his own. With bandmates Chris Stafford on guitar, Latasha Covington on rubboard, Phillippe Billeaudeaux on bass, and Adam Cormier drums, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole show that Creole music is alive and well. In the words of Michael Doucet, “to propel our Louisiana culture into the future seems to be quite a task, but if one lives for the music as Cedric does, the path seems effortless.”
