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Album Liner Notes

Hot-Steppin — recorded in April 2026 — delivers a full hour of Cajun and Zydeco in the true Louisiana dancehall tradition. Joyful and hypnotic, driving and deep: this is music made to move people, played with faithful reverence for the source.

The repertoire spans the canon. John Delafose's "Joe Pete Got Two Women," Preston Frank's "Why You Wanna Make Me Cry" and "Soileau Hot-Step" — these are cornerstones of the tradition, and ZydeGroove plays them that way. The album opens with "Horse With No Shoes," first recorded by Keith Frank, and moves straight into Amédé Ardoin's "Amédé Two-Step." Accordionist Laren Droll has long been the keeper of ZydeGroove's repertoire, and his deep knowledge of the music shapes everything here.

The album's most extraordinary track may be "Mr. Montgomery." This rendition has never before been recorded. Laren first encountered the tune in 1990, when he visited legendary Creole fiddler Calvin Carrière — a man best known for his work with the Lawtell Playboys — and captured it on a field recording. That original recording appears on the album immediately before ZydeGroove's interpretation, a deliberate and moving juxtaposition. Calvin Carrière turns out to have played accordion as well as fiddle, carrying forward the legacy of his father, Eraste Carrière, who made some of the earliest recordings of Creole music alongside Bébé Carrière. "Mr. Montgomery" is strange, singular, and ancient-feeling — a genuine relic from deep in the tradition, and a tribute from Laren to the man who unknowingly preserved it.

One of ZydeGroove's defining characteristics — and one that sets them apart from most Zydeco bands working today — is the presence of the fiddle. Roger Weiss weaves his playing around Laren's accordion with a fluency that makes the two instruments feel inseparable, each lifting the other. This isn't an innovation; it's a restoration. The old Creole bands almost always featured fiddle alongside accordion — Canray Fontenot and Bois Sec Ardoin, Calvin Carrière and Delton Broussard in the Lawtell Playboys, Preston Frank and his late uncle Carlton Frank in Preston Frank and the Swallow Band. Somewhere along the road to a more modern Zydeco sound, the fiddle got left behind. ZydeGroove intentionally retains the fiddle and accordion style.

Extended liner notes are included with the Album Download