Passing: Bois Sec Ardoin, Musician and Nurturer of Creole Tradition (NY Times)

From The New York Times:

By Jon Pareles
Published: May 20, 2007

Alphonse Ardoin, a Louisiana Creole accordionist and singer nicknamed Bois Sec whose music stalwartly sustained South Louisiana tradition, died Wednesday May 16 of natural causes in Eunice, La., where he had been living in a nursing home, said his son Morris. He was 91 years old.

For five decades, Alphonse Ardoin worked regularly with the fiddler Canray Fontenot, trading quick-fingered passages on some of the oldest known Creole tunes and infusing Cajun waltzes with the blues. English speakers sometimes called the style “la la music,” but it was known by its players simply as “la musique Creole.”

Eventually, the Creole waltzes and two-steps would be punched up, plugged in and fused with rhythm and blues, creating the zydeco music that still fills South Louisiana dance halls. In 1986, Mr. Ardoin and Mr. Fontenot (who died in 1995) both received from the National Endowment for the Arts the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest American award for traditional arts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/arts/music/20ardoin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin