Happy birthday to Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Dural Jr.), who is 65 today. Here he is with his band (whose full name is Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Son Partis Band), with a live TV performance of 'On A Night Like This'. The show's front man, knowing nothing, says at the end that we never heard Bob Dylan played like this; but as any fule kno, Dylan's own Planet Waves recording already vibrates, if more subtly, with just the same spirit. To put it another way, it's no surprise at all that Buckwheat Zydeco should have found this song. It was waiting for them all along:
More than you might have expected, I enjoyed your line "The show's front man, knowing nothing...". Australians will recognise him as insufferable former tabloid TV presenter Ray Martin. No targets were too small for his fearless crusades. In the 90s, he was the scourge of the unemployed members of the Paxton family (incidentally I later worked in a call centre with Shane Paxton). You may enjoy a clip where Ray at last gets some of his own medicine at the hands of Shane and Australian satirist John Safran:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsbcScp9wpU
A favourite memory which I cannot confirm anywhere on the net is of Ray modestly stating after he had received a national honour that he had accepted it not for himself but for the many great Australians who had received the same honour before him. Quick as a flash, the interviewer asked: "And which Australians are they?" Of course Ray had no idea. What a beautiful moment of false humility laid bare.