HOUSTON — Houston is home to all kinds of music and music often tells the stories of a city's diverse communities.
Zydeco is no different. It's created by age-old instruments played by modern men -- those who keep the French-Creole culture alive.
Step Rideau, a southwest Louisiana transplant living in the Bayou City, is one of Zydeco's most popular musicians and he's a master of the accordion.
"Zydeco music is a happy, festive music. It's the type of music that makes you move. It's paired with a dance," Rideau said.
The accordion has been around for hundreds of years. It takes a special musician to be able to play it.
"The style I play is the diatonic accordion ... the push-buttons. It's a heck of a workout," Rideau said.
In Zydeco, the accordion is accompanied by a more modest instrument, the washboard.
"That's the key ingredient to playing Zydeco, is that washboard rhythm," Rideau said.
The combination of sounds has filled rural Louisiana French-speaking farm families' homes since the early 20th century. Folks back then knew it as "La-La Music." Generations of Creole families of color brought La-La with them to Houston after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. When they got here, they established French Town in the Fifth Ward.
"At the time French Town was created, Houston had a really booming economy," Professor Tyina Steptoe said.
The transplants found work with Southern Pacific Railroad. Together, they established their own enclave with their own traditions within just a few square miles. They built shotgun houses and established Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church and patronized businesses like the Deluxe Theater.
Steptoe, a native Houstonian, writes about music, history and the Black experience. She said Houston's French Town is where La-La Music evolved into Zydeco.
"The sounds changed a lot with that migration into Houston. You see people swapping out instruments ... taking new ones," she said.
With the new instruments came a new name. Zydeco flourished and grew in popularity, but by the 1980s, the French Town community had faded.
"The construction of the interstate system, I think, divides a lot of Black communities nationwide, but right here in Houston, you especially see the effects of that in Fifth Ward where I-10 cuts through ... 59 cuts through another part," Steptoe said.
While French Town on the northeast side may be no more, the music is still loved and celebrated.
Rideau is currently working on new music and has a long list of spring festival dates. Click here for more information.