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Buckwheat Zydeco leader Stanley Dural Jr. dead at 68

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Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural Jr., who traveled the world as the namesake of Buckwheat Zydeco and brought Louisiana music to the dancing masses with his accordion, affable smile and improvised setlists, has died. He was 68 years old. Mr. Dural died at 1:32 a.m. Saturday at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center in Lafayette, according to his manager Ted Fox. Funeral arrangements are pending. "It's a tough one for us and the entire Zydeco community and the greater music community," family friend Dustin Cravins said Saturday. "Words like legend and icon are tossed around so much these days that it almost sounds water downed, but he was the true definition of it." Mr. Dural had been suffering from health problems in recent years, and he'd been diagnosed with lung and vocal chord cancer in 2013. At the time, he was expected to make a full recovery, but by August 2016, Mr. Dural still had lung cancer, according to social media posts by longtime Buckwheat Zydeco manager and friend Ted Fox. Mr. Dural was born in Lafayette in 1947, growing up in a two bedroom house with seven brothers and six sisters on the north side of town. He occasionally joined cousins and other family-members on nearby farms to pick cotton, where he developed a lifelong love of animals. He came willingly to music -- he began playing piano by the age of 4 or 5 -- but unwillingly to zydeco. As he aged, Mr. Dural heard the early sounds of zydeco in the Creole French language, his father's accordion playing and the scratching sounds his uncle could pull out of the family's washboard, which they used to clean laundry. A mechanic, Stanley Dural Sr., according to Todd Mouton's "Way Down in Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop Music" (UL Press, 2015), was "the only man allowed to touch Clifton Chenier's Cadillacs," and so with family and friends, Mr. Dural grew up sneaking into clubs to hear Fats Domino, hearing a range of South Louisiana songs -- and learning to be a successful mechanic. Early on, he earned the "Buckwheat" as a nod to the "Little Rascals" character, according to music writer Scott Aiges in The Times-Picayune archives. Mr. Dural first gravitated toward the organ and rhythm and blues, which he played as part of Sam and the Untouchables and, later, funk and soul as bandleader of Buckwheat and The Hitchhikers. The 15-piece band did well, traveling across the region and recording together, but Mr. Dural broke up the group by 1975. Thinking he was out of the music business for good, Mr. Dural got a phone call from Lil  Buck Sinegal, asking when he'd be around to play organ with Chenier's band. Mr. Dural wasn't convinced, but Chenier kept pressing the issue until he ended up onstage with the band for a marathon set at Antlers in downtown Lafayette, according to Mouton. "When it was time to end, you were wondering if it was 30 minutes," Dural once recalled during an interview with music writer Keith Spera. "There was so much energy, you had no time to think of nothing else." That night changed Mr. Dural's music forever, and he later left Chenier's band to start his own. Within the next four years, Buckwheat Zydeco and the Ils Sont Partis Band was born. The group recorded five albums on independent labels until 1984, when they moved to Rounder Records, where Mr. Dural oversaw the recording of "Turning Point" and the 1985 album "Waitin' for My Ya Ya," both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards. The nominations and Mr. Dural's new friendship with music writer and manager Ted Fox catapulted the band to stardom. In 1987, Mr. Dural was the first zydeco artist to sign with a major label thanks to a deal with Islander Records. Since then, Mr. Dural -- with or without the full band -- performed and recorded with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Mavis Staples, U2 and many others. They appeared in movies, like "Big Easy" in 1987, and on TV shows. Mr. Dural won an Emmy for his music in "Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich."  More albums, Grammy Awards nominations and the development of his own label, Tomorrow Records, which shares a name with his daughter, came along, too. Through it all, Mr. Dural and his fellow members of Buckwheat Zydeco toured constantly, logging hundreds of thousands of miles by land and air, serving as unofficial zydeco ambassadors as they exposed audiences everywhere to the sounds that came from southwest Louisiana. Mr. Dural, who by then was sometimes called "Buckwheat Zydeco" by some who confused his name with that of his band, or the "James Brown of Zydeco," thanks at least in part to his well-coiffed look, played with a southern rock edge and an R&B sound, which only brought more crowds. "I'm not going to have limits to what I do. I'm a musician; I play music. Why not play it all?" Mr. Dural said in 1999. He also made it a personal goal to prevent misconceptions about what he played, according to Mouton, who wrote that Mr. Dural began noting in his contracts that if the term "Cajun" was used to describe the band's music, the show was canceled. The group allowed for musical mentorship, educating alumni C.C. Adcock and Nathan Williams, who eventually left to form their own bands. In 2009, he released what would be his final studio album, "Lay Your Burden Down," on Alligator Records. By January 2013, Mr. Dural first announced he had cancer, but said he was free of it just months later. Undaunted, in 2014, he created an online web series called "Buckwheat's World," but he continued having health problems and, just two years later, the home he shared with Bernite, his wife of more than 40 years, was affected by the Louisiana Flood of 2016. "It's like sharing the culture," Mr. Dural said in a 2009 interview with NPR when "Lay Your Burden Down" was released. "I love going to other countries because this is my culture, this is how I live."

Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural Jr., who traveled the world as the namesake of Buckwheat Zydeco and brought Louisiana music to the dancing masses with his accordion, affable smile and improvised setlists, has died. He was 68 years old.

Mr. Dural died at 1:32 a.m. Saturday at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center in Lafayette, according to his manager Ted Fox.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

“It’s a tough one for us and the entire Zydeco community and the greater music community,” family friend Dustin Cravins said Saturday. “Words like legend and icon are tossed around so much these days that it almost sounds water downed, but he was the true definition of it.”

Mr. Dural had been suffering from health problems in recent years, and he’d been diagnosed with lung and vocal chord cancer in 2013. At the time, he was expected to make a full recovery, but by August 2016, Mr. Dural still had lung cancer, according to social media posts by longtime Buckwheat Zydeco manager and friend Ted Fox.

Mr. Dural was born in Lafayette in 1947, growing up in a two bedroom house with seven brothers and six sisters on the north side of town. He occasionally joined cousins and other family-members on nearby farms to pick cotton, where he developed a lifelong love of animals.

He came willingly to music — he began playing piano by the age of 4 or 5 — but unwillingly to zydeco. As he aged, Mr. Dural heard the early sounds of zydeco in the Creole French language, his father’s accordion playing and the scratching sounds his uncle could pull out of the family’s washboard, which they used to clean laundry.

A mechanic, Stanley Dural Sr., according to Todd Mouton’s “Way Down in Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop Music” (UL Press, 2015), was “the only man allowed to touch Clifton Chenier’s Cadillacs,” and so with family and friends, Mr. Dural grew up sneaking into clubs to hear Fats Domino, hearing a range of South Louisiana songs — and learning to be a successful mechanic.

Early on, he earned the “Buckwheat” as a nod to the “Little Rascals” character, according to music writer Scott Aiges in The Times-Picayune archives.

Mr. Dural first gravitated toward the organ and rhythm and blues, which he played as part of Sam and the Untouchables and, later, funk and soul as bandleader of Buckwheat and The Hitchhikers. The 15-piece band did well, traveling across the region and recording together, but Mr. Dural broke up the group by 1975.

Thinking he was out of the music business for good, Mr. Dural got a phone call from Lil  Buck Sinegal, asking when he’d be around to play organ with Chenier’s band. Mr. Dural wasn’t convinced, but Chenier kept pressing the issue until he ended up onstage with the band for a marathon set at Antlers in downtown Lafayette, according to Mouton.

“When it was time to end, you were wondering if it was 30 minutes,” Dural once recalled during an interview with music writer Keith Spera. “There was so much energy, you had no time to think of nothing else.”

That night changed Mr. Dural’s music forever, and he later left Chenier’s band to start his own. Within the next four years, Buckwheat Zydeco and the Ils Sont Partis Band was born. The group recorded five albums on independent labels until 1984, when they moved to Rounder Records, where Mr. Dural oversaw the recording of “Turning Point” and the 1985 album “Waitin’ for My Ya Ya,” both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards.

The nominations and Mr. Dural’s new friendship with music writer and manager Ted Fox catapulted the band to stardom. In 1987, Mr. Dural was the first zydeco artist to sign with a major label thanks to a deal with Islander Records.
Since then, Mr. Dural — with or without the full band — performed and recorded with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Mavis Staples, U2 and many others. They appeared in movies, like “Big Easy” in 1987, and on TV shows.

Mr. Dural won an Emmy for his music in “Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich.”  More albums, Grammy Awards nominations and the development of his own label, Tomorrow Records, which shares a name with his daughter, came along, too.

“I’m not going to have limits to what I do. I’m a musician; I play music. Why not play it all?” Mr. Dural said in 1999.

He also made it a personal goal to prevent misconceptions about what he played, according to Mouton, who wrote that Mr. Dural began noting in his contracts that if the term “Cajun” was used to describe the band’s music, the show was canceled.

The group allowed for musical mentorship, educating alumni C.C. Adcock and Nathan Williams, who eventually left to form their own bands. In 2009, he released what would be his final studio album, “Lay Your Burden Down,” on Alligator Records.

By January 2013, Mr. Dural first announced he had cancer, but said he was free of it just months later. Undaunted, in 2014, he created an online web series called “Buckwheat’s World,” but he continued having health problems and, just two years later, the home he shared with Bernite, his wife of more than 40 years, was affected by the Louisiana Flood of 2016.

“It’s like sharing the culture,” Mr. Dural said in a 2009 interview with NPR when “Lay Your Burden Down” was released. “I love going to other countries because this is my culture, this is how I live.”