Zydeco Flames Still On Fire Three Decades Later
Bay Area Zydeco Band Keeps True To Zydeco Music Tradition
January 25, 2018
by Paul Liberatore
Marin Independent Journal
How many local bands can you think of that have been active for almost 30 years? Let’s narrow it down even further. How many bands that have been around that long still have all their original members?
The only one I’ve heard of that fits both those criteria is a long-lived quintet called the Zydeco Flames. Since they were formed in January 1990, they’ve recorded and released seven albums and have won awards from the West Coast Blues Society and the West Coast Cajun and Zydeco Association.
In Marin, they’ve played for dancing crowds almost every Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve for nearly 20 years at Rancho Nicasio, the rustic roadhouse that’s home to the Bay Area’s top roots and Americana bands. The Flames return there for a show on Feb. 10.
“It’s not easy to carry on for decades as a regional group,” says Rancho owner Bob Brown. “They’re special.”
During this time of racial tension, with its disturbing rise in white supremacy, it’s uplifting to see an integrated group — three black and two white members — that has had such a long run.
“I hope that when people see us up there on stage being friends and family and working and creating together that it might mean something to them,” says Flames’ guitarist Frank Bohan. “You can’t put it on your promo sheet, but it means something to us, too. I’m hoping there are more integrated bands now, but I can’t tell you if there are.”
Bohan, who lives in San Anselmo, was strictly a blues/rock guitarist when accordion player Bruce Gordon and singer Lloyd Meadows invited him to join them in a new band they were forming that would specialize in zydeco music, a genre that was created by French Creole-speaking musicians in southwest Louisiana in the early 20th century. Instrumentally, the band would follow the model of Clifton Chenier, “the King of Zydeco,” with accordion, electric guitar, a conventional bass-drum rhythm section and a singer playing a percussive “rub board,” which is like a washboard worn like a vest and often scraped with thimbles on the fingers or with any object that will give it its distinctive metallic ring.
UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY
A gumbo of Cajun music, waltzes, two-steps, R&B, country and soul, zydeco has its roots in house parties and dances in Louisiana, but it was unfamiliar territory for Bohan, who had his own blues group at the time, Freeway Frank and the Hot Wires.
“I didn’t really know about zydeco,” he recalls. “I knew about Clifton Chenier and I thought it was like blues with accordion. But it’s not like blues at all. There’s a lot of up-stroking guitar and muting. It’s a music with a different rhythm that wasn’t easy for me in the beginning. I had to work on that.”
What convinced him to join the band and master this exotic musical style was the fact that it had a genuine lead singer in Lloyd Meadows, who had studied opera in college and can sing rock and pop and jazz with the best of them.
“That’s always a weak point in bands,” Bohan says. “You can have great musicians, but good singers are hard to find. Lloyd Meadows is a great singer. When I first heard his voice, I went, ‘Oh my God. I have to be in a band with that man.’”
With bassist Timm Walker and drummer William Allums Jr., the Zydeco Flames started off with three top-notch gigs right out of the gate, including a slot in a show at the Concord Pavilion.
“I thought, wow, these guys are serious,” Bohan remembers. Two years into his tenure with the group, he took over as its business manager.
BIG LOCALLY
The Flames were a headliner at the Sacramento Jazz Festival for 18 years, and they made one trip to Louisiana to perform, but as the zydeco resurgence leveled off nationally, they settled into being a solid Bay Area working band.
“When I started with the Zydeco Flames, I had a feeling we were gonna be big,” Bohan says. “We ended up being big, but not as big as I’d hoped. Sure, it would have been nicer to make more money, playing bigger festivals, but I don’t have any bitterness about that. I don’t think anybody in the band does.”
He credits the band’s longevity and continued popularity to its musical versatility, an example local groups would be wise to follow if they’d like to be on the scene for as long as the Flames have been.
“Because we’re a zydeco band, we have that niche,” he says. “But we can really play just about any style of music — blues, rock, jazz, Cajun, R&B. That’s what has endeared us to people and made it possible for us to stay together as a band.”
Over three decades on the local scene, the band’s built a loyal fan base gig by gig, playing clubs, festivals, weddings, fundraisers, special occasions, you name it. Bohan figures they’ve done something like 5,000 shows in 28 years.
“In those 5,000 performances, there are hundreds of fans who have seen us 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 times,” he estimates. “With that kind of support, you can guarantee you’re going to make some kind of income, fund your life and continue to play music.”
Like many of the Bay Area’s professional musicians, Bohan, one of Marin’s most understated and underrated guitarists, held down a responsible day job to bolster whatever he made playing music. A graduate of Northwestern University, he has a master’s degree in education of exceptional children from San Francisco State and worked as a speech and language pathologist for the South San Francisco Unified School District for nearly 40 years. Now 64, he retired last year.
YOU GIVE UP A LOT
When he isn’t on stage with the Flames, he’s a mainstay of the Treble Makers, a band that has been a weekly fixture at Marin Coffee Roasters in San Anselmo, playing for the morning bike and breakfast crowd for more than a decade.
Being a working musician has its joys, but they don’t come without a price, as Bohan well knows.
“You give up a lot,” he says. “There are a lot of things you don’t get a chance to participate in because you’re rehearsing or gigging or recording.”
What keeps bands like the Zydeco Flames going for such a long time ends up being a combination of things — chemistry among the members, timing, opportunity, luck. But in the end, they all share a single trait: the musician gene.
“If you’re going to be in a band eight months, let alone 28 years, you’ve got to love music,” he says. “We were all musicians who started as children and played our whole lives. It’s something you choose to do, but you’re also driven to do it. You have to do something every day that feeds your soul, and music feeds your soul.”
If you go
What: The Zydeco Flames
When: 8:30 p.m. Feb. 10
Where: Rancho Nicasio, on the Square, Nicasio
Admission: $15
Information: ranchonicasio.com
Bay Area Zydeco Band Keeps True To Zydeco Music Tradition
January 25, 2018
by Paul Liberatore
Marin Independent Journal
 |
Lloyd Meadows, left, and Bruce Gordon of the Zydeco Flames get into it a performance at the Marin County Fair a few years ago. (Jeff Vendsel/Marin Independent Journal)
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The only one I’ve heard of that fits both those criteria is a long-lived quintet called the Zydeco Flames. Since they were formed in January 1990, they’ve recorded and released seven albums and have won awards from the West Coast Blues Society and the West Coast Cajun and Zydeco Association.
In Marin, they’ve played for dancing crowds almost every Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve for nearly 20 years at Rancho Nicasio, the rustic roadhouse that’s home to the Bay Area’s top roots and Americana bands. The Flames return there for a show on Feb. 10.
“It’s not easy to carry on for decades as a regional group,” says Rancho owner Bob Brown. “They’re special.”
During this time of racial tension, with its disturbing rise in white supremacy, it’s uplifting to see an integrated group — three black and two white members — that has had such a long run.
“I hope that when people see us up there on stage being friends and family and working and creating together that it might mean something to them,” says Flames’ guitarist Frank Bohan. “You can’t put it on your promo sheet, but it means something to us, too. I’m hoping there are more integrated bands now, but I can’t tell you if there are.”
Bohan, who lives in San Anselmo, was strictly a blues/rock guitarist when accordion player Bruce Gordon and singer Lloyd Meadows invited him to join them in a new band they were forming that would specialize in zydeco music, a genre that was created by French Creole-speaking musicians in southwest Louisiana in the early 20th century. Instrumentally, the band would follow the model of Clifton Chenier, “the King of Zydeco,” with accordion, electric guitar, a conventional bass-drum rhythm section and a singer playing a percussive “rub board,” which is like a washboard worn like a vest and often scraped with thimbles on the fingers or with any object that will give it its distinctive metallic ring.
UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY
A gumbo of Cajun music, waltzes, two-steps, R&B, country and soul, zydeco has its roots in house parties and dances in Louisiana, but it was unfamiliar territory for Bohan, who had his own blues group at the time, Freeway Frank and the Hot Wires.
“I didn’t really know about zydeco,” he recalls. “I knew about Clifton Chenier and I thought it was like blues with accordion. But it’s not like blues at all. There’s a lot of up-stroking guitar and muting. It’s a music with a different rhythm that wasn’t easy for me in the beginning. I had to work on that.”
What convinced him to join the band and master this exotic musical style was the fact that it had a genuine lead singer in Lloyd Meadows, who had studied opera in college and can sing rock and pop and jazz with the best of them.
“That’s always a weak point in bands,” Bohan says. “You can have great musicians, but good singers are hard to find. Lloyd Meadows is a great singer. When I first heard his voice, I went, ‘Oh my God. I have to be in a band with that man.’”
With bassist Timm Walker and drummer William Allums Jr., the Zydeco Flames started off with three top-notch gigs right out of the gate, including a slot in a show at the Concord Pavilion.
“I thought, wow, these guys are serious,” Bohan remembers. Two years into his tenure with the group, he took over as its business manager.
 |
Zydeco Flames
|
BIG LOCALLY
The Flames were a headliner at the Sacramento Jazz Festival for 18 years, and they made one trip to Louisiana to perform, but as the zydeco resurgence leveled off nationally, they settled into being a solid Bay Area working band.
“When I started with the Zydeco Flames, I had a feeling we were gonna be big,” Bohan says. “We ended up being big, but not as big as I’d hoped. Sure, it would have been nicer to make more money, playing bigger festivals, but I don’t have any bitterness about that. I don’t think anybody in the band does.”
He credits the band’s longevity and continued popularity to its musical versatility, an example local groups would be wise to follow if they’d like to be on the scene for as long as the Flames have been.
“Because we’re a zydeco band, we have that niche,” he says. “But we can really play just about any style of music — blues, rock, jazz, Cajun, R&B. That’s what has endeared us to people and made it possible for us to stay together as a band.”
Over three decades on the local scene, the band’s built a loyal fan base gig by gig, playing clubs, festivals, weddings, fundraisers, special occasions, you name it. Bohan figures they’ve done something like 5,000 shows in 28 years.
“In those 5,000 performances, there are hundreds of fans who have seen us 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 times,” he estimates. “With that kind of support, you can guarantee you’re going to make some kind of income, fund your life and continue to play music.”
Like many of the Bay Area’s professional musicians, Bohan, one of Marin’s most understated and underrated guitarists, held down a responsible day job to bolster whatever he made playing music. A graduate of Northwestern University, he has a master’s degree in education of exceptional children from San Francisco State and worked as a speech and language pathologist for the South San Francisco Unified School District for nearly 40 years. Now 64, he retired last year.
YOU GIVE UP A LOT
When he isn’t on stage with the Flames, he’s a mainstay of the Treble Makers, a band that has been a weekly fixture at Marin Coffee Roasters in San Anselmo, playing for the morning bike and breakfast crowd for more than a decade.
Being a working musician has its joys, but they don’t come without a price, as Bohan well knows.
“You give up a lot,” he says. “There are a lot of things you don’t get a chance to participate in because you’re rehearsing or gigging or recording.”
What keeps bands like the Zydeco Flames going for such a long time ends up being a combination of things — chemistry among the members, timing, opportunity, luck. But in the end, they all share a single trait: the musician gene.
“If you’re going to be in a band eight months, let alone 28 years, you’ve got to love music,” he says. “We were all musicians who started as children and played our whole lives. It’s something you choose to do, but you’re also driven to do it. You have to do something every day that feeds your soul, and music feeds your soul.”
If you go
What: The Zydeco Flames
When: 8:30 p.m. Feb. 10
Where: Rancho Nicasio, on the Square, Nicasio
Admission: $15
Information: ranchonicasio.com
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