An eighth-generation, French-speaking Creole from Mallet, Louisiana, Simien took up the accordion as a teenager; at 16 he formed one of only two teen zydeco bands in the world, and by 21 he was signed to a national booking agency and touring Europe with Fats Domino and Sarah Vaughan. In 1986 his band became the first zydeco group ever seen on the big screen, in The Big Easy — for which Simien co-wrote “Closer to You” with Dennis Quaid for the film’s love scene.
The accolades followed: two Grammy Awards (2008 and 2014), a Rolling Stone “Zydeco Master” nod, and studio and stage time with Los Lobos, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Dr. John, and the Dave Matthews Band. But Simien’s longest-running work may be his education outreach: in 2000 he and his wife Cynthia launched Creole for Kidz and the History of Zydeco, a K–12 program that has reached more than a quarter of a million students, parents, and educators.
These days Simien leads an intergenerational band — veteran masters alongside rising Gen Z players — and the tradition keeps finding new rooms. He collaborated with Randy Newman on Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (2009), the studio’s first Black princess story set in 1920s New Orleans, and zydeco is now baked into the Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. The mission hasn’t changed since the dances of his youth: dance away your miseries.
