At the The 31st “Blues Music Awards” on May 6th, accordionist Buckwheat Zydeco won in the category of Instrumentalist of the Year. The Blues Music Awards are recognized as the highest honor given to blues artists.

Buckwheat Zydeco is the stage name of Stanley Dural, Jr., an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He is one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group is formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Son Partis Band, but often they perform as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.

The New York Times says, “Stanley ‘Buckwheat’ Dural leads one of the best bands in America. A down-home and high-powered celebration, meaty and muscular with a fine-tuned sense of dynamics…propulsive rhythms, incendiary performances.”[ USA Today calls him “a zydeco trailblazer.”

Buckwheat Zydeco has performed with a large number of famous musicians from Eric Clapton (with whom Buckwheat also recorded) and U2 to The Boston Pops. The band performed at the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics to a worldwide audience of three billion people. Buckwheat performed for President Clinton twice, celebrating both of his inaugurations. The band has appeared on The Late Show With David Letterman, CNN, The Today Show, MTV, NBC News, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition.

Dural was born in Lafayette, Louisiana. He acquired his nickname as a youth, because, with his braided hair, he looked like the character Buckwheat from Our Gang/The Little Rascals movies. His father, a farmer, was an accomplished, non-professional traditional Creole accordion player, but young Buckwheat preferred listening to and playing rhythm and blues. Dural became proficient at the organ, and by the late 1950s he was backing Joe Tex, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and many others. In 1971, he founded Buckwheat & the Hitchhikers, a funk band that he led for five years before switching to zydeco. They were a local sensation and found success with the single, “It’s Hard To Get,” recorded for a local Louisiana-based label.

He began backing Clifton Chenier, one of the most legendary zydeco performers. Though not a traditional zydeco fan when growing up, Buckwheat accepted an invitation in 1976 to join Clifton Chenier’s Red Hot Louisiana Band as organist. He quickly discovered the popularity of zydeco music, and marveled at the effect the music had on the audience. “Everywhere, people young and old just loved zydeco music,” Buckwheat says. “I had so much fun playing that first night with Clifton. We played for four hours and I wasn’t ready to quit.”

Buckwheat’s relationship with the legendary Chenier led him to take up the accordion in 1978. After practicing for a year, he felt ready to start his own band under the name Buckwheat Zydeco. They debuted with One for the Road in 1979 on the Blues Unlimited label and then recorded for New Orleans’ Black Top label. In 1983, they were nominated for a Grammy Award for Turning Point and in 1985 for Waitin’ For My Ya Ya after switching to the Rounder Records label. The band then signed to Island Records, becoming the first zydeco act on a major label, and released On a Night Like This, a critically acclaimed album that was nominated for a Grammy as well. The band appeared in the movie The Big Easy in 1987.

In 1988, Eric Clapton invited the band to open his North American tour as well as his 12-night stand at London’s Royal Albert Hall. As even more doors opened, Buckwheat found himself sharing stages and/or recording with Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, David Hidalgo, Dwight Yoakam, Paul Simon, Ry Cooder and many others, including indie music stalwarts Yo La Tengo on the soundtrack to the Bob Dylan bio-pic, I’m Not There. His music has been featured in films including The Waterboy, The Big Easy, Fletch Lives and Hard Target. BET’s show Comic View, used his live version of “What You Gonna Do?” as theme music for the program’s 10th anniversary “Pardi Gras” season. He also wrote and performed the theme music for the PBS television series Pierre Franey’s Cooking In America. Buckwheat won an Emmy for his music in the CBS TV movie, Pistol Pete: The Life And Times Of Pete Maravich.

Buckwheat Zydeco has played many major music festivals, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (numerous times), Newport Folk Festival, Summerfest, San Diego Street Scene, Bumbershoot, Montreaux Jazz Festival and countless others.
During the 1990s and early 2000s Buckwheat recorded for his own Tomorrow Recordings label and maintained an extensive touring schedule. Buckwheat Zydeco’s latest album, Lay Your Burden Down, was released on May 5, 2009 on the Alligator Records label. It was produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and included guest appearances by guitarists Warren Haynes and Sonny Landreth, Trombone Shorty, JJ Grey and Berlin himself. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award. Sonicboomers.com says, “The CD is a vastly entertaining and appealingly diverse package. Bandleader Dural remains an ever-engaging vocalist and a whiz on any keyboard he touches. So, for Buckwheat Zydeco fans, Lay Your Burden Down finds the maestro and his group near the top of their form. For listeners with less interest in the ol’ accordion get-down, the collection supplies enough interesting wrinkles to get the good times rolling.

Buckwheat’s especially powerful and haunting version of the classic “Cryin’ in the Streets” appears on the benefit album for Hurricane Katrina recovery, Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast.

The Blues Foundation, based in Memphis, held the organization’s 31st annual Blues Music Awards on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at the Cook Convention Center in Memphis. The annual event is an amazing event usually running more than seven hours and featuring performances by the various nominees. The presenting sponsor was The Gibson Foundation. 2010 BMA sponsors include ArtsMemphis, BMI, Casey Family Programs, Eagle Rock Entertainment, FedEx, Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

The Blues Music Awards are produced by The Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization established to preserve Blues history, celebrate Blues excellence, support Blues education and ensure the future of this uniquely American art form. The Foundation consists of a worldwide network of 185 affiliated Blues societies and has individual memberships spanning the globe. In addition to the Blues Music Awards, the Foundation also produces the Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, the International Blues Challenge and the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards. It fosters education through its Blues in the Schools programming, supports the medical needs of Blues musicians with its HART Fund, and offers health insurance access through its Sound Healthcare program. Throughout the year, the Foundation staff serves the worldwide Blues community with answers, contact information and news.

The Blues Music Awards honor those professional artists and recordings that stand out within the eligibility period, which runs from November 1 through October 31 of each year. In addition to the awards for the past year’s top recordings, additional categories honor individual, actively touring artists for their overall excellence and accomplishment in that year. On Thursday, May 7 the Blues Foundation awarded Alligator recording artist Tommy Castro four 2010 Blues Music Awards, including the coveted B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year Award. With his four wins, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Castro took home more awards than any other artist at the 31st Annual Blues Music Award ceremony held in Memphis at The Cook Convention Center. He also won the award for Band Of The Year, Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year (for his Alligator debut CD, Hard Believer), and for Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year. Labelmate Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr. (of Buckwheat Zydeco) won the award for Best Instrumentalist – Accordion. The band recently won the Grammy Award in the Zydeco category for its Alligator debut, Lay Your Burden Down.