Deux Familles Cajun Band

The 15th Annual Ballincollig Winter Music Festival, 21st to 26th January 2025 is proud to present Deux Familles Cajun Band!

Soulful, Driving Cajun dance music!

Two families with a musical bond in a new band playing the music that first drew them together. Dirk and Amelia Powell are a daughter/father duo with strong roots in the bayous of Louisiana and the mountains of Kentucky. Amelia’s grandfather Dewey Balfa was known as a premier Cajun fiddler and cultural ambassador. She grew up experiencing the deep center of that tradition while simultaneously exploring the old-time music of her Appalachian heritage with her father, Dirk, who learned banjo, fiddle, and guitar from his own grandfather, J.C. Hay.

Amelia is known for her hard-driving guitar playing and soulful vocals. Dirk has been regarded as a “musician’s musician” for the last several decades. His solo recordings, with a focus on exploring the emotional depth of tradition, have proven very influential on younger generations. He’s been a frequent part of Transatlantic Sessions and toured with artists such as Joan Baez, Eric Clapton, Loretta Lynn, Levon Helm, and Rhiannon Giddens.

Together, they perform music of their heritage, write and craft original songs, and bring audiences the kind of soulful connection that comes from family playing together with trust, humour, and love.

Jock Tyldesley and Vera van Heeringen have been playing Cajun and old time music together for 25 years, in The Flatville Aces and with touring Louisiana legends such as Eddie Lejeune, Sheryl Cormier and Courtney Granger. Vera comes from a bluegrass and country music background and has released three critically acclaimed albums of her own material. A soulful songwriter as well as a powerful multi-instrumentalist. Jock picked up his childhood fiddle again at 19 years old, transfixed by the fiddling of The Balfa Brothers, Dennis McGee, Tommy Jarrell and James Bryan. He went on to be a mainstay of the European Cajun and old time scene and a frequent musician in touring US acts.

Jock and Dirk have been having musical adventures since 1995, at the Shetland Folk Festival, Glasgow’s Celtic Connections, Baltimore Fiddle Fair, Fire in the Mountain and at concerts and dances in Mexico, France Ireland and Louisiana.

Lucas Tyldesley grew up just down the hall from Jock and Vera and has been playing drums since before he could walk, piano since he was 7 and now jazz and funk keyboards and organ with his trio The Boutang Chiefs.

“a rip-roaring Thursday night set, setting the tone for the weekend…” Deux

Familles at Fire in the Mountain – festival review – KLOF Mag

“One of the most respected Americana-Folk musicians of his generation, with four Grammys to his name, and a decade as Joan Baez’s ‘band’, Dirk Powell has more laurels than you can shake a banjo at. He’s not resting on them, he’s building a legacy. That legacy takes the form of Amelia Powell, daughter, and granddaughter of legendary Louisiana fiddler Dewey Balfa. The younger Powell’s talents are immediately clear. She has just the right potent, soulful voice for the job, coupled to a burning passion for the music. Dirk’s instrumental skills and Amelia’s evocative voice made for a night of masterfully performed Cajun and Appalachian music hosted by two charming, and deeply likeable human beings.” The Quintessential Review, Edinburgh, Scotland

“Dirk Powell is a badass. To the bone. He is, in addition to being the greatest old-time banjo player alive, a graduate student of both mountain and Cajun fiddle styles, and diatonic button accordion, an instrument that fights you back, take it from me, I’ve tried. He is a singer, songwriter, producer, recording engineer and, all in all, an artist of unique vision and unbending integrity. As far as I can tell there is no genre of American roots music that Dirk doesn’t understand, no primordial mode he can’t master, no polyrhythmic code he can’t crack.” Steve Earle