Louisiana Music

Louisiana music is the regional field formed where French, African, Caribbean and Anglo traditions met in Louisiana: Cajun dance music and zydeco from the prairies and bayous, New Orleans rhythm and blues and funk, swamp pop, swamp blues and the second-line brass tradition. Accordion and fiddle face piano and horn sections across the field, but a shared dance-first purpose and a French-language thread bind it together. Its emblematic figures, *Clifton Chenier* in zydeco, *Fats Domino* and *Professor Longhair* in New Orleans R&B, *Dr. John* and *The Meters* in funk, carried Louisiana's sound into the foundations of American popular music.