Boogaloo Swamis

The Boogaloo Swamis

The Boogaloo Swamis is the original New England based zydeco band, playing the traditional soul driven accordion dance music that is played in the dance halls and clubs of southwest Louisiana. They also play great Cajun band music with it's beautiful plaintive and haunting melodies.
The Boogaloo Swamis have been touring through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York for 27 years.

What the reviews say about us

“When the Boogaloo Swamis announced their last song, they were met with groans and protests from the crowd, everyone wanted more" 

The Lancaster NH Times

“Generally recognized as the New England’s veteran and most exciting Cajun band and Zydeco band .” 

Dirty Linen Magazine

"A beautiful combination of soulful Cajun and Zydeco rhythms with just a touch of blues and gospel thrown in for good measure. Whether you're at home cookin' up some Jambalaya or hosting an all out Bayou Bash, the Boogaloo Swamis are just the ingredient you'll need in New Hampshire to heat things up."                                                                                               New Hampshire Sunday News

"When the BOOGALOO SWAMIS are playing, the audience comes along for the party."                                                                                                                                                              Vermont News

"When that driving beat starts up, every room turns into Mardi Gras -- a joyful reunion of clapping, jumping, swinging people who are having the time of their lives. With their unique, mix of traditional Creole and Cajun elements along with the contemporary sounds of blues, funk and Afro-beat, the Boogaloo Swamis are taking the Zydeco tradition into the future, and making friends in Maine and New England everywhere they go."                                                                                                Portland Press Herald, Portland Maine 

“This amazing collection of musicians and singers are sometimes referred to as the Cajun Kings of New England.....adding shuffling CAJUN tempos and swinging ZYDECO beats to the mix means a clapping, dancing and a rocking good time.”

Providence Phoenix - Providence RI

Band Members

Accordion, fiddle, froitoir (rubboard) and vocalist,  Mickey Bones has been playing ZYDECO and Cajun music for 27 years, and formed the Boogaloo Swamis when he was 26 years old. Bones has played side by side with Cajun and Zydeco artists such as D.L Manard, Steve Riley, Lawrence "Black" Ardoin, and Rockin (Toot-Toot) Sydney (on drums) and played as opening act with the Boogaloo Swamis for Clifton Chenier (one time), C.J.Chenier ( 5 times), Boozoo Chavis (3 times), Queen Ida (one time), Buckwheat Zydeco (4 times), Balfa Toujours (one time), as well as a New England / New York ( look out NY ! ) tour with Aaron Neville, Dr. John and John Fogerty. He is a graduate of Essex Agricultural and Technical Institute in Hawthorne MA

Guitar, vocalist Joe Pete Weatherbee plays in the old school guitar style that you can't learn at Berklee Music School. Spoon fed on soul, he apprenticed on guitar backing up the legendary Sleepy LaBeef. Joe Pete met Mickey Bones during those crazy  early 80's and they have been musical pals ever since. Joe Pete sings his spirited cajun French vocals and plays solid zydeco band rhythms and incredible swamp infused lead on his guitar. When he is not too busy, he likes to spend time in VERMONT visiting his parents. He is a Graduate of Colby College in Waterville, MAINE

Drummer Ted Larkin beats on the drums for the band. Ted is a singer songwriter from Nashville, now residing near Providence, Rhode Island via Saratoga NY . He started out as a drummer playing blues, country, rock and other various styles of roots-music. He loves the road and tours with us from RI toMassachusetts , through NH , ME , VT , NJ , CT and just about anywhere in NEW ENGLAND the road and our ZYDECO BAND will take him.

Bassist Steve Bigelow has been playing Bass since he was old enough to hold one in his hands, he has played all over New England. Hailing from RI now, but raised on a dairy farm in the Barre Montpellier area in VT . Mickey Bones met him through Craigslist so as it turns out, Craigslist is a good thing. He is our newest band member.

Fiddler extraordinaire Joe Kessler  loves zydeco band music and started playing violin at an early age before switching to fiddle , inspired in his love of ethnic folk music, he began to study theCajun band fiddle styles in earnest. He is steeped in the culture of New Orleans, southwest Louisiana and Mexico. He has toured all over the world and now resides in MA . 

What Is Cajun Music?

Cajun music has a long and complex genealogy. Acadians in pre-expulsion Nova Scotia preserved a musical heritage rooted in medieval France. After the expulsion, those seeking refuge in subtropical South Louisiana apparently carried no instruments, though they had obtained fiddles by the dawn of the nineteenth century. The exiled Acadians performed not only old compositions that had survived the expulsion, but they also composed new tunes, often concerning themes of death, loneliness, and ill-fated love — a reaction to their harsh exile and rough frontier experience. 

In Louisiana the Acadians shortly began to encounter and intermarry with other ethnic groups, fostering their evolution into a new ethnic group called, the Cajuns. Creoles of African descent exerted a major influence on CAJUN BAND music. Later in the century local merchants imported affordable, durable accordions, which spurred the instrument's rise in popularity among Cajun bands. In 1928 phonograph companies began to record CAJUN music in an effort to sell more players. Standard versions of classics like "Allons à Lafayette," "Hip et Taïaut" and "Jolie blonde" emerged from these early commercial recordings. 

What is Zydeco?

Zydeco is a popular accordion-based musical genre hailing from the prairies of south-central and southwest Louisiana. Contrary to popular belief, it is not Cajun in origin; rather, zydeco is the music of south Louisiana’s Creoles of Color, who borrowed many of the zydeco band's defining elements from the Cajun band. (In turn, Cajun music borrowed many of its traits from Creole music.) The word zydeco (also rendered zarico, zodico, zordico, and zologo) derives from the French expression les haricots, meaning "beans." Folk etymology holds that the genre obtained this name from the common Creole expression "Les haricots sont pas salés" ("The beans aren’t salty"). This phrase has appeared in many Creole songs, and serves as the title of a popular zydeco recording (also called "Zydeco est pas salé"). 

Typical events we might travel to and perform

Night club - New York, NY

Wedding - Hartford, CT 

Mardi Gras Party - Cranston, RHODE ISLAND

Stratton Mountain Ski Resort - Stratton, Vemont 

Mardi Gras Party - Manhattan, NY

Resort - Laconia, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Party in the Park - Newport, RI

Festival - Portsmouth, NH

Corporate Party - Atlantic City, New Jersey

Private party - Bangor, ME

Nightclub - Boston, MA 

Birthday party - Portland, ME

School concert - Amherst, Massachusetts

Mardi Gras Party - Providence, Rhode Island

Parade float - Bridgeport, Connecticut

Cajun Dance - Burlington, Vermont

Festival - Asbury Park, NJ

Nightclub - Northampton, MA