Singer Rediscovers Simple Rhythms of Native Bayou

It all started, Zachary Richard said with a laugh, “when Paul burned that first fish.”

The bad boy of Cajun music is referring to Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme’s famed blackened redfish, which in the mid-1980s triggered a nationwide Cajun cooking craze. Cajun music was next, prompting Richard--born and raised in Southern Louisiana’s bayou--to belatedly rediscover his own musical roots.

“Southern Louisiana is really a cultural world of its own,” said Richard, who will appear tonight at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa. “First of all, there’s the Cajun-French language, and then there’s the geographical isolation.

“Only within the last 30 years has this area even been open to the outside world, with the construction of (former governor) Long’s bridges and roads. The food created an awareness of the culture, and the music followed.”

At the time when Cajun music began enjoying mainstream popularity in the United States, Richard was living in Paris, singing, writing, and recording French pop songs. He had moved there in 1984, after a decade of experimenting with various music styles in Louisiana and Montreal.

“I was just getting tired of the Paris scene when I started hearing all these rumors that Cajun music was beginning to take over in the U.S.,” Richard recalled. “So I came home in 1986 and decided to create a very precise image that would reflect my musical heritage.

“I digested all of my digressions and what came to the forefront was Cajun, zydeco (Cajun’s black Creole offshoot), and New Orleans rhythm and blues--Southern Louisiana dance music is how I perceived it.”

After placing several songs on “The Big Easy” soundtrack, Richard landed a contract with Rounder Records. His first Rounder album, “Zack’s Bon Ton,” came out in 1988. It was a mix of traditional Cajun folk tunes, covers of vintage Louisiana swamp-pop hits, such as “See You Later Alligator” and “The Battle of New Orleans,” and Cajun-influenced originals.

Last September, Rounder released Richard’s second album for the label, “Mardi Gras Mambo.” He describes it as “sort of a Cajun boy’s version of traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras songs. I dusted ‘em off and shined ‘em up.”

Richard’s third Rounder album, “Women In the Room,” is scheduled for a May release.

“It’s still focused on Southern Louisiana dance music, but I’ve expanded my horizons a little bit,” Richard said. “A lot of the songs are topical, such as ‘No French No More,’ a tune about the trauma my parents’ generation went through with the suppression of the French language in Louisiana.

“Cajun and zydeco music is not known for its lyrical content; it’s known for its infectious rhythms. I tried to keep that, but at the same time, say some things I felt were important to say.”

Ironically, Richard--now 39 and perhaps the bayou country’s pre-eminent musical ambassador--discovered Cajun music relatively late in life.

“Until I was 21, I hadn’t been exposed to it very much,” he recalled. “I grew up in a very middle-class American family, listening to black rhythm and blues, Jerry Lee Lewis and Robert Parker, and then the Beatles and the Stones.”

By the time he graduated in 1971 from Tulane University in New Orleans with a bachelor’s degree in history, Richard had settled on a career as a country-rock singer and songwriter. The following year, he moved to Connecticut, where one of his former history professors worked as a radio deejay.

“He helped me make a demo tape that got me signed to Elektra Records,” Richard said. “I recorded an album of country-rock--Neil Young, the Byrds, and Crosby, Stills and Nash, that style of music--that got lost in the corporate shuffle and never came out.

“But with the advance they gave me, I bought some guitars and a Cajun-French accordion. I had always been interested in the accordion, but I had no idea how important the instrument would become for me.

“As soon as I got it, I started to learn some old Cajun tunes, and it just opened up a whole new world for me.”

In 1973, Richard returned to Louisiana and formed the Bayou Drifter Band, which played a mix of country-rock and “traditional Cajun music with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude,” he said.

The same year, Richard made his first visit to France, which came about through odd circumstances.

“My cousin picked up a hitchhiker in New York City who was from France,” Richard said. “He was a musician and an instrument builder, and he had no idea there was a French community in the U.S.

“So he came down to Louisiana and we met. He ended up taking me back with him to France to play some festivals. The reception was very good, and, from that point on, there was no doubt in my mind that my future was to sing in French. My style of music didn’t really change; I just translated my lyrics.”

Gradually, however, Richard’s music did change. After moving to Montreal in 1975, he said, “I began to stretch farther and farther away from Cajun music--to the point where many of my songs had no accordion on them at all.

“I saw myself simply as a French-Canadian pop singer, and I was experimenting with Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, jazz--stretching my craft and incorporating lots of influences.

“I still remember an article on me in Montreal. The photo showed me standing with a pile of hats, which in French implies a lot of styles.”

Richard remained in Montreal for five years, scoring a string of gold albums and hit singles. By 1980, however, he had tired of Montreal winters and returned to Louisiana, forming a dance band similar to the Bayou Drifter Band. In 1984, he moved to Paris with songwriter Claude-Michel Schonberg, who would later compose the music for the play “Les Miserables.”

“We recorded an album that was very eclectic--it was sort of the end of my period of experimentation,” Richard said.

Two years later, Richard once again returned to Louisiana, picking up Cajun music a third time and, at last, finding mainstream acceptance.

“The reason Cajun and zydeco are so popular, I think, is that until recently, they’ve been relatively unknown and are therefore very novel,” Richard said. “Plus, it’s real simple music.

“I think in this day and age, people are attracted to simple things. American culture is complicated enough as it is, and there’s a real need for simple, unpretentious music.

“I don’t know if it’s going to continue being as popular as it is at the moment, but just from the amount of exposure it’s received in the last couple of years, I’m sure it will become a recognizable musical form that will take its place in the pantheon of American musical styles.”