Queen Ida

Ida Lewis “Queen Ida” Guillory (born January 15, 1929) is a Louisiana Creole accordionist. She was the first female accordion player to lead a zydeco band. Queen Ida’s music is an eclectic mix of R&B, Caribbean, and Cajun, though the presence of her accordion always keeps it traditional.

Born Ida Lee Lewis to a musical family of rice farmers in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, her family were Louisiana Creole people and her first language is French. Her family moved to Beaumont, Texas, when she was ten and eight years later moved to San Francisco, California.Although her mother was an accordion player, women were not encouraged to play in public, and Queen Ida learned mostly from her brother Al Lewis, later known as Al Rapone. After marrying Raymond Guillory she raised their three children and worked as a bus driver but occasionally sat in with her brother’s Zydeco band, also cooking Louisiana cuisine for the band members. She was dubbed “Queen Ida” after being chosen queen of a Mardi Gras celebration. A year after her first appearance on stage Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Band signed with the record label GNP/Crescendo,and her first record Play the Zydeco demonstrated her style combining Zydeco with a Tex Mex sound.

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