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BITS INTERVIEW: COREY LEDET

BiTS: Let’s make a start then, if we may. Tell me something about your early upbringing. What I’m
particularly interested in is when you became aware of your musical culture.

CL: I’m Creole. The Creoles are like the black people of colour of South West Louisiana. I come from
that line, but music always was there growing up

for us, and my dad always told me the stories of
my grandfather being a drummer. He showed me
his original drumsticks, so I started kind of
playing on the drumsticks and then he introduced
me to zydeco music with a Clifton Chenier

cassette and that’s pretty much where my love for
zydeco and creole music started from and it just
grew from there. As time went on and as I grew
up, I just wanted to be around it as far as going to
dances and I’m originally from Houston, Texas.
My dad is from Parksville, Louisiana, but he
moved to Houston like a lot of people from

Louisiana. They left looking for work and they
went to Houston, which is a big city, and they had
a lot of jobs, so he moved there, met my mother
and then I was born and that’s kind of where it
started from. Like I say, just going to the dances

and the music was always in the house. Of
course, coming back and forth to Louisiana all my
life. I just knew at an early age this was what I
wanted to do.

BiTS: Your grandfather was Buchanan, that’s right, isn’t it?

CL: Correct.

BiTS: Is he your father’s father or your mother’s father?

CL: He’s my father’s father.

BiTS: Okay. Did you ever know him?

CL: No, unfortunately, he passed in 1978, and I wasn’t born until 1981.

BiTS: Ah, just missed him then [chuckling].
CL: Yeah, just missed him.

BiTS: When did you actually start playing? You obviously were engaged by the music at a very
early age. When did you actually start playing?