Preview: Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience with Special Guest Keith Pray’s Mohawk Brass Band, Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025

 Terrance Simien excitedly ushered me into his band’s dressing room trailer on a years-ago Thursday at Alive at Five.

We’d met before, in phone interviews and backstage hangs; but this was special. He had something he wanted to share.

Simien grabbed up a miniature Anvil case – you know the kind, those stout, metal-cornered bullet-proof protectors of instruments and amps. Popping it open with a smile wide as its opening, he pulled forth a glistening, heavy model of an antique gramophone, a talisman bright with honor.

The first; well, the only, Grammy award I ever held in my hands.

It was also the the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album the Academy ever awarded, in 2008. Renaming it the Best Regional Roots Music Album Award in 2014 didn’t stop Simien. He won that, too.

Not that he needed the affirmation, much as he enjoyed showing it off and sharing it around.

Terrance Simien at Cohoes Music Hall 2019, with Grammy

Simien started his decades-long career by echoing his heroes and mentors on tribute albums honoring zydeco pioneers Clifton Chenier, John Delafose, Boozoo Chavis, Rockin Dopsie and Rockin’ Sidney. In addition to heartfelt tributes to these close-to-home (Louisiana) influences, he has increasingly looked beyond zydeco for inspiration, to Art “Poppa Funk” Neville, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Earth Wind and Fire and the Commodores.

In other words, he dove into the funk, simmered with soul, bantered around with the Bard’s lyrics and harmonized with every tradition he ambitiously explored.

Simien is mostly seen grinning or singing or both behind an accordion, which a witty Albany musician who played one himself calls “musical luggage.” He also sings in the finest voice in zydeco and entertains with wild, engaging gusto. Even Simien’s toes get into the act. Without missing a note at the squeezebox or the mic he can kick Mardi Gras beats far from the stage to happy fans.

Tossing beads at Cohoes Music Hall

He started his first band while still in high school, and his Mallet Playboys (Mallet, LA is his hometown) grew into the Zydeco Experience, paralleling his evolving ambition. He was 19 when he answered Paul Simon’s call to play on “Graceland” – arguably earning a bite of Simon’s Album of the Year Grammy. 

Stirring soul, funk and singer-songwriter innovations into a thick zydeco gumbo, Simien  has cooked up over time a traditional-contemporary recipe. His peers find this mix so compelling that jam-band stalwarts the Dave Matthews Band, New Orleans funk masters the Neville Brothers and other major box office stars have asked him to open their shows. 
 
Singing and playing accordion, Simien leads The Zydeco Experience. He played his first area show in Proctors former Mardi Gras Festival and has also played here in Washington Park in Music Haven impresario Mona Golub’s previous free concert program, also at the former College of St. Rose’s Massry Center among doubtless others. At the Massry, longtime fans Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield – yeah, Ben and Jerry – turned up to campaign for Bernie Sanders and dance barefoot alongside the barefooted Simien.

At Jazz Fest in New Orleans, he plays the big stages and I’ve seen him foot-fling Mardi Gras beads deep into happy crowds.

When he played the Cohoes Music Hall in 2019, he invited openers Professor Louie onstage with his Zydeco Experience band.

Terrance Simien at the Cohoes Music Hall 2019; Simien center, in hat; Danny Williams at right

This versatile veteran band pumps traditional waltzes and two-steps; rocking everything and pouring on rich funk, jazz and soul spice. The Experience’s secret weapon is tiny keyboard titan and singer Danny Williams, Simien’s bandmate for 30-plus years. Bassist Stan Chambers has been aboard for 15-plus years while drummer Ian Molinaro-Thompson, trumpeter Michael Christie and saxophonist Noah Boshra are newer additions.

Saxophonist, organist, educator and bandleader Keith Pray opens Sunday. He formed the Mohawk Brass Band in 2011, leading its evolution from a mentorship program for Schenectady middle- and high-schoolers into a professional ensemble playing traditional New Orleans brass band music: Steve Lambert, trumpet; Keith Pray, saxophone; Ben O’Shea, trombone; Adam Streeter, tuba; and Chad Ploss, drums.

Terrance Simien at The Merch Table

Depending on who’s counting, he’s made nine or 11 albums, enough to crowd the merch table. Some favorites:

“The Dockside Sessions” (2001) has three Bob Dylan songs and the Grateful Dead’s “Franklin’s Tower.”

“The Tribute Sessions” (2001) includes not only Rockin’ Sidney’s straight zydeco swamp-pop classic “My Toot Toot” but also “Waiting in Vain,” one of Bob Marley’s best songs, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” by the Carter Family and “It Makes No Difference.” This one takes real nerve for any singer to tackle since the late, great Rick Danko made this one of The Band’s most plaintive tunes ever, on their debut “Music From Big Pink.”

“There’s Room for Us All” (1993) similarly includes “I Shall be Released,” another Dylan classic that Manuel sang wonderfully, achingly on “Music from Big Pink.”

Positively Beadhead (1999) uncorks “Jolie Blonde,” the “Cajun national anthem,” plus Hedy West’s “500 Miles,” a longtime onstage favorite; also “Mardi Gras in the Country.” Simien explained this over the phone years ago: On Mardi Gras day, country kids roam farm to farm in cars or on horseback; residents feed them and everybody dances with the lady of the house. The late Anthony Bourdain filmed this high-alcohol-content ramble in “Cajun Mardi Gras” – Season 11, episode 7 of “Parts Unknown.”

By the 2000s, Simien was recording most of his albums live at Jazz Fest, which shows his energies shifting from studio to stage.

Terrance Simien at Jazz Fest in New Orleans 2015

His “Live! Worldwide” won Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album in 2008, and “Dockside Sessions” won Best Regional Roots Music Album in 2014.

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