Wayne Toups Concerts Setlist

Wayne Toups is an American Cajun singer and songwriter. He was born on October 2, 1958 in Crowley, Louisiana. Cajun is the traditional music of the people by the same name, living in the state of Louisiana in the US. Toups was born into a family of rice farmers in Louisiana. He learnt to play the accordion at age 13, and went on to win a few local accordion contests. He also started to perform early Wayne Toups concert shows around Louisiana as a teenager.

He decided to fuse the traditional Cajun music with features from the modern genre of R&B and the traditional French Creole genre of zydeco, to create a new style of music he called “zydecajun”, with both French and English lyrics. His first album, “Wayne Toups and the Crowley Aces”, was released in Europe sometime in the mid-1970’s, a record that very little information is known about.

He gained significant popularity in the United States in the early 1980’s, performing live Wayne Toups concert shows at festivals such as the Festivals Acadiens in Lafayette, Louisiana. His first album released in the US was "Cajun Paradise" in 1979. It took 7 years for him to release his second one, “Zydecajun”, through the label Mercury (first time he got the backing of a major label). He released a total of 15 studio albums during his career. There is no information about his album sales on the internet, but the only one of his records that made it into the Billboard 200 chart was “Blast from the Bayou” from March 1989 - it peaked at the #183 spot. The latest new Wayne Toups album is the self-titled “Wayne Toups” from 2016.

The most famous Cajun musician’s biggest hits to date are “Tupelo Honey” (1989), “Take My Hand” (1995), “That's What I Love About My Baby” (1997), and “New Orleans Ladies” (2000).