BRUCE "SUNPIE" BARNES

                    

Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes (1963–)

Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes is a musician, writer, naturalist, park ranger, ethnographic photographer, and actor from Saline County. He also played for National Football League (NFL) for a time. Along with his band, the Louisiana Sunspots, Barnes pioneered a unique mixture of zydeco (a créole musical style originating in Louisiana), blues, gospel, jazz, and African and Afro-Caribbean music into a musical gumbo that he dubbed “Afro-Louisiana” music. Barnes plays accordion, harmonica, piano, trombone, rub board, and various other instruments.

Bruce Barnes was born on May 18, 1963, in Benton (Saline County). The tenth of eleventh children, (five whole and five half siblings), Barnes grew up in what is now Benton’s Ralph Bunche community. Barnes’s parents were sharecroppers who worked on various plantations in southern Arkansas and the Delta before migrating north to find work in Saline County’s open-pit bauxite mines. In Bauxite (Saline County), Barnes’s family lived in tar-paper shacks in what was known then as “Africa Camp” before moving to Benton.

Barnes’s first exposure to music came through his father, Willie Barnes Sr., who was a blues harmonica player. Willie Barnes Sr. was raised on plantations around fellow musicians such as “Big Bill” Broonzy, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and Roosevelt Sykes. Because his father was reluctant to pay for piano lessons for him, he taught himself instead, taking the name “Sunpie” from an uncle who routinely visited from Bastrop, Louisiana. In junior high at Benton, Barnes worked nights at a nearby ice factory to help his mom buy his first instrument, a trombone. Barnes later learned the harmonica from his father. Soon, Barnes was playing songs by his father’s favorite bluesman, Sonny Boy Williamson.

In high school, Barnes played football for the Benton Panthers and ran track. He was also first-chair trombone in the junior and high school bands. Barnes graduated in 1982 and received a football scholarship to Henderson State University in Arkadelphia (Clark County). While at Henderson, Barnes earned All-American status as a defensive end, in addition to majoring in biology with a focus on ichthyology and serving as president of the Biological Honor Society. Barnes conducted biological fieldwork in local lakes, rivers, and streams as a part of his coursework at Henderson. Barnes’s biological studies led him to the National Park Service (NPS), where he worked for three seasons on the Buffalo River.

Soon after starting his work with the NPS, Barnes caught the attention of professional football recruiters. In 1985, he accepted a contract with the Kansas City Chiefs. He played a single season with the Chiefs and was later offered a chance to play in the Canadian Football League. In 1986, however, Barnes decided that football was not for him.

Barnes started working with the NPS again in 1987, becoming a park ranger and naturalist at the Jean Lafitte National Park and Barataria Nature Preserve, respectively; both are located just outside New Orleans, Louisiana. He conducted educational tours of the 23,000-acre wetland preserve, and he played in local venues in the evenings. The left-handed Barnes played the accordion upside-down and backward while he sang, although he later trained himself to play it right-handed and right-side-up. He appeared in Sprite and McDonald’s commercials with his accordion.

By 1991, Barnes had formed his band, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, which became a fixture at the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival. After more than twelve years with the Barataria Preserve, Barnes went to work at the New Orleans Jazz National Park in 1999, where he played music while educating visitors about the culture and traditions of his adopted home. Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots have released six albums and played in over fifty countries across Africa, Europe, Central America, and South America.

                      

Barnes and his music have been featured on several television shows, including Point of No Return (1993), Under Cover Blues (1993), The Big Easy (1998), and Treme (2010), as well as films, including Déjà Vu (2006) and Jonah Hex (2010). He has also collaborated in documentaries about New Orleans and Louisiana culture, beginning as a narrator on Reconstructing Creole in 2006 (which won the 2007 Hollywood Documentary Award). In 2012, he voiced Barney Bigard in The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America. In 2015, he appeared as himself in the documentaries Nola and Won’t Bow Down. In 2016–2017, he served as producer/narrator for Skull and Bone.

In August 2010, Barnes succeeded Chief Albert Morris as leader of the Northside Skull and Bones Gang, continuing a tradition that dates to 1819. Every Mardi Gras, members of the gang dress in homemade skeleton costumes and call on ancestral spirits from New Orleans and Africa. The gang gathers before dawn, and prior to marching through street, sings songs in Créole French and English, waking the citizens of New Orleans. On June 28, 2011, the Times-Picayune reported that Perseverance Hall, a former Masonic Hall in Armstrong Park, New Orleans, would begin hosting free hour-long music classes taught by professional musicians from the area every Saturday morning; the paper called the weekly event the “brainchild of U.S. Park Ranger Bruce ‘Sunpie’ Barnes.” This program has resulted in the book co-authored by Barnes, Talk That Music Talk: Passing on Brass Band Music in New Orleans the Traditional Way.

Barnes lives and works in New Orleans. He toured with Sting and Paul Simon from 2014 to 2016.

For additional information:

Barnes, Bruce “Sunpie,” and Rachel Breunlin. “The Last Brass Band? Musical Mentorship and Social Justice Organizing.” Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, Winter/Spring 2015. Online at http://www.folkways.si.edu/magazine-winter-spring-2015-the-last-brass-band-musical-mentorship-and-social-justice-organizing (accessed June 1, 2017).

———. “PasajsPassages for San Malo.” South Writ-Large, Spring 2017. Online at http://southwritlarge.com/articles/pasajs-passages-for-san-malo/ (accessed June 1, 2017).

“Bruce Barnes.” Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2812502/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 (accessed June 1, 2017).

Pecoraro, Gia. “Sunpie.” Times-Picayune, June 29, 2010. Online at http://www.nola.com/entertainment/music/nolaradio/index.ssf/2010/06/sunpie.html (accessed June 1, 2017).

Ramsey, David. “The Life and Times of Bruce ‘Sunpie’ Barnes.” Arkansas Times, June 19, 2014, pp. 14–18. Online at http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-life-and-times-of-bruce-sunpie-barnes-andmdashzydeco-superstar-naturalist-full-time-park-ranger-former-nfl-player/Content?oid=3351562 (accessed June 1, 2017).

Cody Lynn Berry

University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Last Updated: 03/02/2020  INFO :   ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARKANSAS 

               

La palabra zydeco ( /ˈzaɪdəˌkoʊ/ en inglés, con la "z" sonora, como en catalán o francés) hace referencia a la música originada por la combinación de la tradición musical cajún y elementos del blues. Es la música propia de los afroamericanos de Luisiana de lengua francesa.
Etimología
El término zydeco proviene, según la tradición, de como los hablantes de inglés percibían la expresión Les haricots (las alubias, habichuelas o frijoles, en castellano), pronunciado en francés de Luisiana "les /zaRi'ko/", que según algunos autores era la forma en que se denominaba, despectivamente, a los negros del delta,1​ y según otros derivaba de una canción popular de origen francés llamada Les haricots sont pas salé,2​ que tenía el significado, no literal, de Estos son malos tiempos. Algunos autores3​ apuntan la tesis de que provenga de la palabra suahili zaré (danza).

Origen musical

Músicos de zydeco en New Iberia (Luisiana, 1938), con acordeón y washboard.
La música cajún tiene muchos rasgos propios de las zonas francesas de origen de los primeros inmigrantes, especialmente de Poitou y Saintogne, aunque enriquecida por las aportaciones de origen alemán, irlandés y mexicano. Las primeras grabaciones de música cajún se remontan a 1928 (Joe Falcon, con el tema Allons a Lafayette). Se trataba de música de baile, llamada popularmente Fais Dodo. (en el lenguaje infantil, "duérmete"). Por su parte, los esclavos liberados en las zonas cajún, se consideraban franceses y, aunque con un estatus social más bajo, mantenían una relación bastante buena con los cajún blancos, frente a lo común en otras zonas del sur. La música de ambos apenas presentaba diferencias, como se constata en el primer disco editado por un cajún negro, llamado Amédé Ardoin4​ y en sus siguientes grabaciones, todas ellas muy similares a las de Falcon. Fue a partir de finales de la década de 1930, cuando la relación entre blancos y negros cajún comienza a degradarse, hasta el punto de que el propio Ardoin fue asesinado por el Ku Klux Klan al finalizar una actuación.

En esta tesitura, la música cajún blanca comienza a derivar hacia el country, mientras la de los negros lo hace hacia el blues. En esta época, a su música se le llama La-la, aunque paulatinamente esta denominación se va sustituyendo por la de zydeco

Las primeras grabaciones de campo de música cajún negra, hechas por John Lomax en Luisiana, incluyen un tema denominado Cajun Negro Fais Dodo Tune, interpretado por Ellis Evans (armónica) y Jimmy Lewis (tabla de lavar o washboard), y la primera versión conocida de Les haricots sont pas salé, interpretada por Austin Coleman y Joe Washington Brown, cantada a capella. 

Evolución
Al comienzo de los años 40, el zydeco seguía conservando una fuerte influencia cajún: Preponderancia del acordeón, presencia del violín y utilización de temas tradicionales (valses, pasodobles, baladas francesas...). Sin embargo, de forma creciente, el blues y otras músicas negras se fueron introduciendo en la temática zydeco, especialmente cuando el centro de gravedad de los músicos cajún negros se trasladó a Houston.6​ Convencionalmente, se considera que el primer tema plenamente zydeco es Bon ton orla (1950) compuesta por el disc-jockey de Beaumont (Texas), Clarence Garlow,7​ a la que se añaden pronto otras grabaciones históricas como Paper in my shoe del acordeonista Boozoo Chavis (1954) y, por supuesto, las primeras grabaciones de un joven aparcero llamado Clifton Chenier.

Chenier introdujo, además, un cambio importante respecto a la tradición cajún, sustituyendo el acordeón diatónico simple de botones alemán, de cuatro llaves en do, por el acordeón-piano moderno, que le permitió tocar blue notes.8​ Estableció, además, una línea predominante en el desarrollo del zydeco, a la vez comercial y respetada, que marcó las dos décadas siguientes y le valió el sobrenombre de Rey del zydeco.

Zydeco contemporáneo

Rosie Ledet.
La posición dominante de Chenier, puede haber ocultado la gran riqueza de opciones musicales del zydeco. Por un lado, se ha mantenido durante muchos años, al menos hasta los años 80, la línea más cajún que representaba Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin, un primo del malogrado Amadée, y después, por su hijo Lawrence Ardoin, que mantienen aún el acordeón de botones. Por otro lado, la línea hillbilly, representada por Conray Fontenot (Bee de la manche, 1981); la tradición de las salas de baile de Houston, representada por Sidney Babineaux y Albert Chevalier; y, por supuesto, los bluesy, como Alton "Rockin' Dopsie" Rubin, Fernest Arceneaux, Joe Walker, John Delafose o el propio hijo de Clifton, C. J. Chenier. Entre los más jóvenes, Nathan Williams o Rosie Ledet


Los músicos más recientes de zydeco han ido perdiendo parte de la influencia blues, sustituyéndolas por influencias de gospel, soul, música disco o rap, por lo que es una de las pocas (si no la única) música rural negra que sigue siendo auténticamente popular y viva