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Louisiana and global artists explore UL Lafayette music archives for new documentary series
Joanna Brown·7 min read·Aug 16, 2026
Left to right: Paul “Bird” Edwards, Jourdan Thibodeaux, Tiffany “Teddy” Lamson and Cedric Watson recording for Dry Bones.
What happens when you set a bunch of musicians loose in the world’s largest archive of Cajun and Creole music and folklife recordings?
You get moments when Louisiana music history becomes something new — like getting to see Nathan Williams’ family (of Nathan Williams and the Zydeco Cha Chas) re-record a song originally written by Williams’s uncle, Creole blues musician Harry Hyppolite.
The filmmakers behind Louisiana music documentary “Roots of Fire” are premiering a new project this fall called “Dry Bones” — a documentary series that follows musicians from Louisiana, Canada, the United States and Europe as they uncover gems from the Cajun and Creole Folklore Archives at UL Lafayette’s Center for Louisiana Studies.
“I was always fascinated, because you never knew what an artist was going to pick, or what they would find in the archives. It said a lot about their particular personalities and interests,” said filmmaker Jeremey Lavoi.
The series has plenty of local connections. In the first episode, influential Louisiana artists Cedric Watson and Tiffany Lamson of The Givers bring their musical worlds together.
Prominent artists like Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, Kelli Jones and Megan Constantin, and Joel Savoy and Linzay Young feature in other episodes, digging through the archives and putting their own spin on what they find — but this series is also unique in who it brings in from the broader world.
Left to right: Dennis Paul Williams, Nathan Williams, Sr. and Naylan Williams record a song for the “Dry Bones” documentary that was originally recorded by Harry Hyppolite, a Creole blues musician and Nathan Williams’s uncle.
Swedish musician Thor Ahlgren is fascinated by the relationship between Cajun music and European folk traditions, and he explores those links in his episode of “Dry Bones.” In another episode, native fiddler Nokosee Fields, who is from Stillwater, Oklahoma, brings his celebrated traditional style to the recordings. The series is about uncovering what makes Louisiana roots music special, while bringing its contemporary resonance to life in surprising ways, according to filmmakers Lavoi and Abby Berendt Lavoi.
“In the Thor Ahlgren episode, it’s kind of a religious song,” Jeremey Lavoi said. “You could tell he was very interested in Christian folk history, and how that translates across different countries and across an ocean. He gravitated to that. Each selection really said something about the artist.”
The archive itself becomes a character in the series, with roughly 12,000 recordings and other materials dating to the 1920s.
“A lot of it is in Louisiana French, like Cajun and Louisiana Creole, but there’s also other kinds of music that was recorded and that existed in Louisiana over the years. Older French songs, older instrumental traditions, American string band music — that was here in Louisiana too,” said Dr. Joshua Caffery with the Center for Louisiana Studies, which produced “Dry Bones” with the Lavois.
Artist Nokosee Fields is pictured looking through the Cajun and Creole Folklore archives at the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
“A lot of the musicians that came in, we were able to say, ‘Hey, do you know that you’re in the archive? Why don’t we watch some of the videos we have of you playing?’ We’ve had students come in over the years who have worked with recordings of their grandparents. It’s like having an attic, where you can store things that you don’t necessarily have room for in the living room of mainstream everyday culture.”
“Dry Bones” will premiere in Lafayette on Oct. 8 at Acadiana Center for the Arts, as part of the community programming lead-up to Festivals Acadiens et Créoles from Oct. 9-11 in Girard Park.
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Teach me Jedi Master. 
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An article about one of the people mentioned, Paul “Bird” Edwards, as written by Herman Fuselier back in 2017. Thankfully the Daily Disappointment’s paywall didn’t pop up to read this one.
Why musicians flock to a man named Bird
In the midst of classes with well-known musicians at Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week is a daily session simply titled “Rhythm with Bird.”
An unassuming man sits in the center of a group of aspiring musicians who want to play just like him. Their rubboards sound tight and repetitive as soldiers marching in Siberia.
The man doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t have to. The rapt listeners watch his hands and hang on every word. With spoons bearing Saturday night scars, he scratches out a rhythm that’s warm, sexy and loosens the hips.
Paul Edwards, 51, is a native and lifelong resident of Eunice. To his students, and most everyone, he is simply known as Bird.
His name has never appeared on the cover of a CD. But through the years, he’s provided the beat for Geno Delafose, Roy Carrier, Horace Trahan, Balfa Toujours, Steve Riley and other well-known names.
Bird never finished school, yet he converses in English and Creole French.
He can’t read music, but he’s been on more zydeco and Cajun music recordings than he can remember.
Bird has to catch a ride with others wherever he goes. Yet, these people from places he’ll never visit flock here to imitate and record his every move on rubboard and drums.
“Certain people are just part of the fabric of the culture we have here,” said musician Christine Balfa. “Bird is an example of what a lot of people around here have, but they don’t realize.
“We have so much. We’re so rich here. Bird is so willing to share that.”
‘If I hear it, I can play it’
Campers from as far as New Zealand are at Vermilionville this week for Balfa Week. They’re learning local music, dance, language and more from legends and Grammy nominees, such as David Greely, Ed Poullard and Jimmy Breaux.
But Bird is a beloved figure here and the South Louisiana Blackpot Festival, where he’s been a rhythm teacher, dance partner and barbecue chef.
Bird treats his students like chicken on the grill — with plenty of time and a gentle touch.
“I tell them to listen,” said Bird. “If I hear it, I can play it.
“That’s mostly what I tell my students. Take your time. One of them today said, ‘I can’t do it.’ You can. Trust me. Just take your time.”
Bird learned to play drums as a kid, banging on a five-gallon drum with pecan tree branches.
The older people didn’t teach him French. But he figured out the secret language they drifted into when children were present.
He grew up around zydeco and convinced a musician friend from Eunice, Geno Delafose, to show him how to play rubboard.
“He said, ‘If you listen to me, we can do things together,’” said Bird. “I used to watch him play drums and rubboard.
“He always did tell me, ‘You listen to the timing.’ The accordion always kicks it off first. But that drummer, (that’s how) everybody’s got to know when to start and when to stop.”
‘When he’s in class, he’s in his element’
Carole Schaefer of Seattle listened and watched Bird so much at last year’s Balfa camp that she was playing air rubboard before she knew it.
She rushed to Lafayette Music Company for a rubboard and has been playing ever since.
Schaefer, an award-winning children’s author, is back this year to watch Bird even more. He’ll be a character in her forthcoming book, “Three in a Tree,” which will also include local musicians Sam Broussard and Anya Burgess.
“He’s got his own charisma,” Schaefer said about her rubboard guru. “I want him to tell me as much as I can get him to tell me.
“When he’s in class, he’s in his element. When he’s away from it, there’s almost this gentle, shy person.”
Bird is shy when talking about himself as a teacher. But he enjoys having friends and fans around the world, even close to home.
“I have nephews and nieces at the house, before I left to come here. My little niece grabbed my rubboard, she said, ‘Unc, where you going?’ I said, ‘Unc going to work.’
“I told her I was gone for the whole week. What broke me down, she said, ‘Unc, I love you.’ I said, ‘I love you, too.’”
Back in 2022, five years after this article was written, Bird did come out with a song of his own that got quite a bit of radio play on KBON, and is still played from time to time on the station. “One Fine Day”.
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Very interesting article. Thanks for posting.
Cajun / Zydeco music is an interesting spot right now with younger musicians coming into the music scene over the past 10 years or so. It will be interesting to see where it goes in the next 10 years.