Zydeco Group Makes Ardmore Home, Debuts Tonight

Recently, local Zydeco dancer Fran Berbette was reflecting on the memory of a 70-year-old Zydeco dancer who last year dropped dead of a heart attack during a national festival.

“I’d love to go out like that,” she sighed.

Berbette is a member and instructor for Allons Danser (French for "let's dance"), a regional group founded around 1989 to sponsor live Zydeco bands and dances.  A corporate trainer in the pharmaceutical industry, Berbette has been living Zydeco for 20 years.

“It’s impossible to hear Zydeco and not move your feet.  It calls you to dance,” she said.

“It’s an irresistible beat,” agreed Jim McLaughlin of Havertown, who has been hooked on Zydeco for eight years. 

Allons Danser has recently relocated from Conshohocken to Ardmore, where they’ve arranged with the on East County Line Road to host their monthly or fortnightly events.  The inaugural dance there is scheduled for tonight (May 13) and features Preston Frank & Big Daddy Zydeco.

Zydeco developed during the early 1900s as a merging of centuries-old French Canadian Cajun country and Caribbean Creole/African music in southwestern Louisiana, explained Berbette.  In the process, Zydeco typically replaced the fiddle and triangle of traditional Cajun sound with the accordion, drums, bass and frottoir  (washboard).

Berbette said the fusion was enjoyed for a long time without a formal name, and “was looked down upon by many people.” It had, however, acquired a nickname,  “snap bean music,” perhaps because of the snappy beat or maybe the ordinary, no frills lifestyle associated with plain green beans. The term in French was les haricots.  One version of the name is that the pronunciation, with its rolled “r”, may have morphed into ‘s’aydico.

Another version is that the term zari means dance in some West African languages.

It was under the magic of Clifton Chenier—the “father of Zydeco”—that the music captured national excitement and its formal name, noted Berbette. It includes elements of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, country and reggae.

Both McLaughlin and Berbette are thrilled with the new digs in Ardmore.  Particularly exciting, they said, are Palombaro’s wooden dance floor, its non-smoking, airy venue and substantial stage.

“We invite everybody to come and bring both your left feet,” laughed Berbette. 

Admission to a typical evening is $20.  That includes an hour’s dance lesson from 7:30 to 8:30, and live touring bands until midnight. A modest cash bar is available, and sometimes the 100 to 150 dancers make it a pot luck dinner-dance.

“High energy” was how McLaughlin described the scene.  “If you’re not changing your shirt three times, you’re not dancing hard enough.”

“Seductively appealing” was Berbette’s description. “It’s the most fun people can have standing up with their clothes on.”

Zydeco aficionados are known as a peripatetic community. The Philadelphia region’s Allons Danser and the prominent local band, Zydeco-a-Go-Go, which performs occasionally at the Mermaid Inn in Chestnut hill, typically attract friends from Baltimore, Washington, Boston and New York. In addition, Allons Danser fans follow festivals in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida and Louisiana.  And on Zydeco cruises.

In Louisiana, the Zydeco crowd is generally under 35, said Berbette. Around here, though, the average age hovers around 55. But no matter where it’s happening, Zydeco is a welcoming, comfortable community, according to McLaughlin. There’s no pressure to pair off, and the unwritten rules include dancing with multiple partners throughout the night, he said.

McLaughlin, with a day job as a marketing consultant to the healthcare industry, wrote and produced, with The Mermaid Players, a one-act play—Zydeco Anonymous—about the addictive quality of the dances. Its humor has captured lots of attention among Zydeco fans.

For more information on Zydeco music, bands, schedules and dance links, along with classes and travel opportunities, click here.