‘The Cajun Bruce Springsteen’ : After That Bizarre Entree Promise, Toups’ Zydeco Career Has Had Its Dry Wells and Gushers

Wayne Toups was born 30 years ago in Lafayette, La., “the Capital of Cajun Country.” As a full-blooded Cajun growing up in the small neighboring town of Crowley, he was surrounded virtually from birth by the region’s distinctive accordion-dominated music.

Signed last year to PolyGram Records as only the second Cajun-zydeco act on a major label (the Buckwheat Zydeco band was first), Toups is now one of a handful positioned to bring that effusively joyful music beyond its cult following to mainstream popularity.

He found his entree into the record business through, in the words of the D.L. Menard song considered the Cajun national anthem, “the back door.”

Toups, who will be opening for Carole King (see accompanying story) at the Pacific Amphitheatre tonight, landed his record deal as a result of bizarre coincidences, according to Steve Popovich, the former PolyGram vice president who signed Toups before leaving the label earlier this year for a sabbatical.

“I had first read about Wayne in an airline magazine article about Cajun music,” Popovich said from Nashville. “It had called him ‘the Cajun Bruce Springsteen’ because of his marathon live shows. I had underlined his name because of that. The next day I was in my office trying to dig up more information about him, when a guy I hadn’t seen in years walked into my reception area with another guy, and said he had a project he just had to play for me.”

That “other guy” was Toups, and the project that promotion man Steve Topley had with him was Toups’ previous album, “Johnnie Can’t Dance,” which had been released by a small Louisiana label.

“The raw energy and excitement I heard on that record was so different, I got really enthusiastic about it,” Popovich said.

Despite the analogy to Springsteen, Toups was signed to the label’s country division in Nashville, largely because of Popovich’s desire to line up artists who broadened the boundaries of country music.

“I didn’t want to sign things that would only go up Billboard country charts that are built on just 150 (country radio) stations,” Popovich said. “I wanted something that could happen worldwide.

“I’ve always loved accordions. . . . I felt Wayne had a shot to take accordions to a wider audience. I think Wayne stands above a lot of the other Cajun and zydeco musicians because of the energy, he’s all over the stage. . . . In fact, after I left PolyGram, I think the Nashville office didn’t feel comfortable handling something like Wayne.”

Thus, Toups was shifted from the country division over to the company’s rock promotion department. Actually, Toups cites none of the great Cajun accordionists as his chief role model: “I’ve always wanted to play the accordion the way that Duane Allman played the slide guitar,” he said from Boise, Ida., where he was opening for King.

Like most U.S. youths--even those in rural Louisiana’s Cajun country--Toups grew up listening to rock ‘n’ roll. He was also enamored of such soul greats at Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and James Brown, influences that are quickly apparent in his dusky vocals.

On “Blast From the Bayou,” the major-label debut of Toups and his Zydecajun band, several rollicking, upbeat tunes typical of zydeco (the R&B-infused; cousin of the more countrified Cajun style) are interspersed with a couple of rather bold covers: Aaron Neville’s 1966 hit “Tell It Like It Is” and Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey.”

Why on earth take on rock standards originally recorded by two of pop music’s finest singers? Toups said it was a case of genuine love for the songs, rather than any cocky attempt to improve on the original versions: “The record company definitely wanted some cover tunes. ‘Tell It Like It Is’ is a fabulous tune. It’s been part of our act for a while, and if I didn’t think we could do it justice, I never would have done it.”

For most of the audiences Toups has been playing to with King, the Cajun accordion he wields is a curious contraption. Resembling in bellows only the more familiar piano accordion (picture Myron Floren and “The Lawrence Welk Show”), the unusual Cajun variety features a single row of 10 buttons for the right hand. Like a blues harmonica (“only more expensive,” Toups quipped), the Cajun accordion plays in just one key, though they can be built in any number of keys.

Though he has been playing the accordion since he was 14, he quit in the late ‘70s when got married and had a son. To supply his family with the steady income that was not available to him then as a musician, he went to work in the oil fields, ran a backhoe and for a while worked as a gravedigger.

“I’ve done enough physical labor,” he said, “to say I’ve worked for a living.”

About 1982, he formed a band to play gigs at night and on weekends, and by 1985, performing three or four dances a week, he was earning enough to quit the day jobs. Before the PolyGram album, Toups released two albums for independent labels.

For all his desire to create a rock-based Cajun-zydeco hybrid that is more commercially potent, Toups still gets some of his greatest rewards from playing the old-fashioned way.

He turned in one of many highlights at the 1989 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival during an informal performance and lecture that teamed him with fellow accordionist Steve Riley. Each demonstrated his approach to the same material--Riley using a seamless, traditional Cajun technique and Toups (dressed in his trademark tank top, headband and flowery Bermuda shorts) countering with a more muscular, rock-conscious style.

“I love the traditional music,” he said last week. “I love to do that when we are at home, and I always sing (some songs) in French. But I also think the music has to expand. You can’t just keep the old--you also need the new. It’s like the folklorists say: You can’t cut all the branches off, or the roots will die.”