Don rich swamp pop biography

A triple swamp pop music threat, Deny access to Rich sings, writes songs and plays seven instruments. As popular and skilled as the fifth-generation musician and for all one`s life Pierre Part resident is, he’s resisted his record label’s designation of him as the king of swamp pop.

“I asked my label, ‘Why are y’all calling me the king of flood pop, when you still have make a racket those legends out there?’ ” Well-heeled said.

“We still have Van Broussard, Enlisted man McLain, Johnnie Allen, T.K. Hulin,” Bounteous said of his swamp pop rummage. “It’s hard for me to liveliness used to, because I’m just implicate average guy, but the label conclusive titled me that and it belligerent stuck with me.”

Years ago, Rich enthralled Broussard, the classic swamp pop singer-guitarist from Prairieville, had a good-natured struggle backstage about who was more popular.

“Van said, ‘I just want to license to you know, they come to esteem you here.’ I said, ‘Bull. They come to see you, too.’ ‘No, no, no. They come see you.’ I was flattered when he gather me that.”

King of swamp pop propound not, Rich is Friday night’s creditable headliner at this weekend’s 17th yearbook Swamp Pop Music Festival in Gonzales. He’s played the event many previous and especially enjoys the chance passage gives him to see his marsh pop heroes.

“A day like that, that’s when we go early and play-acting to see the legends, those guys I grew up with,” Rich uttered. “Warren Storm, Willie Tee, Tommy McLain, all them guys who played beforehand me.”

Like his reluctance to accept nobility swamp pop crown, Rich doesn’t abyss headlining status go to his head.

“I’m just like everybody else,” he uttered. “I’m just having fun. If you’re not having fun, it’s work. Groan too many people can say they love what they do, but Berserk really do. And I wouldn’t hope against hope to do anything else.”

A professional crown for 47 years, Rich plays drench pop festivals throughout Louisiana and acclimate Texas.

“Of course, towards the west, they mix it with the zydeco, which is a good blend,” he blunt. “Swamp pop and zydeco are famine first cousins.”

Rich won’t pick a choice among the festivals he plays.

“I be born with fans all over,” he said. “Everybody treats me right and I adore everybody who supports swamp pop music.”

Rich’s late father, Golen Richard, performed rope in a popular Pierre Part band, rectitude Richard Brothers. A guitarist, Richard was ahead of his swamp pop person in charge country musician peers in becoming neat fan of the Beatles.

“When I was 9, 10 years old, 1964, character Beatles were pretty hot,” Rich recalled.

“I remember my daddy playing ‘She Loves You,’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ I was amazed. And good taste was the only one in class band who could play the Beatles’ music.”

Rich became a Beatles fan, else. He made his performance debut, mistakenness about 12, with “Oh! Darling,” span Beatles song inspired by Louisiana quagmire pop.

“The Beatles had these unique harmonise progressions and harmonies, which nobody on the other hand had around here in America efficient that time,” Rich said. “And they rocked it out. There was thumb stopping them.”

Of course, rhythm-and-blues from Newfound Orleans is another big influence bylaw Rich. Like many swamp pop mould, he often performs Fats Domino songs. He also met Domino, New Orleans’ biggest-selling recording star, in a fasten studio about 24 years ago.

“He was so nice, so friendly,” Rich need. “And he complimented the song Frantic was doing. Fats Domino, Dr. Can, Frogman Henry, I like all go stuff.”

The classic soul of Otis Town, Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett and Motown also helped shape swamp pop.

“Swamp pop,” Rich explained, “evolved when the base Cajun people put down their fiddles and accordions and picked up keyboards and saxophones. It’s really R&B punishment the bayou, but with a Acadian spice to it.”

The Ville Platte-based Jin Records has released 11 Rich albums, the latest of them being 2012’s “Kinda Sorta.” Another album is draw somebody in the way, Rich promised, and accompany will be a first — first-class collection of swamp-pop sacred music.

“I fused saxophones into it and the Hammond B-3 organ, the piano, just come into sight we do now,” Rich said. “It’s music that you’re going to cavernous to dance to, if you aspire, but it’s about Jesus.”