Houston Press Music Awards Preview – The Zydeco Dots

By Mark Towns
Published: Houston Press, Thursday, July 10, 1997

Still commonly known as Pierre and the Zydeco Dots, these perennial Music Award winners have been largely Pierre-less for quite a while. It’s been at least two years since accordionist Pierre Blanchard left the band and moved back to Louisiana, leaving the Dots temporarily without an accordion player. After trying out various unsuccessful replacements, good fortune arrived in the form of Li’l Jabo, son of the zydeco legend Jabo. At 22, Li’l Jabo is the real deal, even if he is a couple of decades younger than the rest of the Dots, who are all in their forties. But zydeco has never been just a young player’s game, and creeping middle age has done nothing to reduce the Zydeco Dots’ rigorous performance schedule, which, according to guitarist Tom Potter, generally involves playing live 300 days a year. And while the older guys may not have any delusions of sudden grandeur, one has to wonder about the young and ambitious Jabo. Who knows? Before long, we might be seeing “Li’l Jabo and the Zydeco Dots” on nightclub marquees all over town.

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