“I’m a chance taker, you might say,”
says Geno Delafose from his ranch in Eunice, Louisiana. “Traditional tunes are
what I do best and nobody else was doing them. I play the music that I love. I
believe in myself.” Delafose is talking about a decision that he made in 1994
when he took over leadership of his father John’s band. He was 22 and had
already been playing music in public for 15 years. He had decided to sing and
play modern Creole music.

Since the 1950s zydeco had been
evolving out of Creole, but the older musical style endured. In the last 20
years it has even enjoyed a revival helped, in part, by the popularity of Geno
Delafose and his band, French Rockin’ Boogie. They play between 150 and 175
dates a year and their January 15 appearance at the Harmony House in Webster
will be the end of a short tour that begins at the Birchmere in Virginia.

Anyone who has seen the 1992 John
Sayles’ film Passion Fish has seen
John Delafose and the Eunice Playboys in action, featuring a teenaged Geno on
drums. Two years later, just before his father’s untimely death at 55, Delafose
began fronting the band on the accordion. He gave up his seasonal job as a
truck driver for a crop-dusting service and became a fulltime musician.

Between 1994 and 1998 he made three
albums for Rounder Records, each one including progressively more traditional
tunes and songs. His latest album, Everybody’s Dancin’, was released in 2003 on Times Square Records and he
has another one in the works. He and the band work out the arrangements on the
road and then essentially record the music live in the studio.

The latest addition to French Rockin’
Boogie is his young cousin, Gerard, the drummer. “He’s coming up just like I
did with my dad’s band.” Otherwise the lineup has been stable for a while now.
Which is how they can get away with not using a set list. Delafose says he
doesn’t want to get stale. He decides on the first couple of tunes ahead of
time and then just wings it from there, based on what he thinks the crowd is in
the mood for. “Sometimes I don’t even have to say anything. I just start and
the others are just right there.”

Although he writes a lot of songs,
Delafose claims he is “not a real songwriter. We’ll be at a sound check or
something, and somebody will start messing around with a little piece of
something and it’ll just grow,” he recounts. “Just give me a little foundation
to start with and I’ll build a mansion. But I need that foundation there
first.”

Delafose doesn’t listen to a lot of
recorded music, especially not accordion music. His favorite disc of the moment
is actually a DVD: Merle Haggard: Live at
Billy Bob’s Texas. Although he loves country music, in particular older
country, his tastes are completely eclectic, as the choice of cover songs on
his own albums reveals. His first album, French Rockin’ Boogie, includes a transfixing version of soul legend
Charles Wright’s “One Lie (Leads to Another).” His second album, That’s What I’m Talkin’ About, ends
with Los Lobos’ “Let’s Say Goodnight.”

But the lion’s share of Delafose’s
songs is sung in French. He grew up in a French-speaking household and his
grandmother, who lived next door, spoke no English.

“There weren’t a lot of other kids in
my neighborhood,” he says, “so I was always with a lot of older men, like my
father and my grandfather, and they spoke French to each other all the time.”
Delafose’s immersion in the traditional language of Creole music is an
important factor in his embrace of the older songs. Many Cajun musicians his
age speak little or no French and sing the traditional songs phonetically. The
repertoires of most younger zydeco musicians are entirely in English. Delafose,
in contrast, is writing some of his own songs in the Creole dialect.

“But I don’t have anything against
what the other guys are doing,” Delafose is quick to say. “I grew up with Keith
Frank and I really admire where he’s taking the music. It’s just not where I’m
going.” In fact, he suggests, his sound may owe more to that of Preston Frank,
Keith’s father. When asked about Boozoo Chavis, who died in 2001 at the age of
71, Delafose corrects my pronunciation and says gravely, “Boozoo was great. I
miss him.” He pauses. “Beau Jocque” — who died at 42 in 1999 — “is the
reason that zydeco is big now. He brought the funk into it, with that big bass
and the kick drum.” He is quiet for a moment. “I’m more country.”

I was warned that Delafose might
forget to call because at home he can become really focused on his cattle, his
horses, his new tractor, and his family. In fact, he called on time, and was
engaged and engaging throughout. Apparently, wherever he is, he’s right there,
and then some.

“On stage I go with the flow of the
audience,” he says, “trying to feel what they want to hear. If they want to
hear the story that goes with the song, then that’s what we’ll do. And if they
want to dance, well, OK.”

Geno
Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie will appear Saturday, January 15, at
Harmony House, 58 East Main Street, Webster, at 8 p.m. Dance lesson at 7:15
p.m. with Esther Brill. Tix: $12 (advance); $15 (door). 586-0476

This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2005.