NATCHITOCHES – A blues musician, a filé maker and a pine needle basket maker were inducted into the Louisiana Folklife Center’s Hall of Master Folk Artists during an induction ceremony held at Northwestern State University as part of the 46th Annual Natchitoches-NSU Folk Festival. Inductees included blues musician Wayne “Blue” Burns, who also served as honorary Festival chair, filé maker Dustin Fuqua and Choctaw basket maker Becky Thomas-Meziere. Dr. Shane Rasmussen, director of the Louisiana Folklife Center at NSU, led the induction ceremony.
Burns has been playing music all his life. He is a world-famous bassist, but the blues guitar is his thing. A native of Lafayette, Burns credits Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller as two of his favorite musical influences. Burns has performed with many artists but is most famous for nearly 20 years as bassist for Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco. He has also performed with Ernie K-Doe, The Larks, Betty Wright, Buckwheat and the Hitchhikers, Lil Buck Senegal, Jude Taylor, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas, Walter Junior, The RoadDoctor and a decade with C.J. Chenier, Clifton Chenier’s son. In his career, Burns has performed in all 50 states and in South America, Europe, Asia and Africa, and is one of the first African Americans to perform in East Berlin after the Wall came down. Burns’ proudest moment came in 1982 when he played bass on Clifton Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band’s Grammy-winning album, “I’m Here!”
With roots in Avoyelles Parish and formal training as an anthropologist, Fuqua has spent over two decades documenting and commemorating the living traditions of Louisiana’s diverse communities. Whether through cultural resource management, oral history interviews, or work with museum collections and material culture, he brings a deep reverence for sense of place in all things he does – particularly
in his efforts to elevate the importance of traditional ecological knowledge. His research and hands-on work explore the links between nature and culture, ecology, seasonal cycles, and traditional food preservation – all rooted in a respect for the Native, Creole, and African diasporic contributions to the gumbo filé legacy.
Becky Thomas-Meziere is a traditional pine needle basket maker of Choctaw descent currently living in Natchitoches parish, Louisiana. Becky is also an enrolled member of the Clifton Choctaw Tribe with family ties to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. As a young child Becky’s mother handed down the traditional Native American methods and techniques of gathering long leaf pine needles from the local forest, how to use raw material to make baskets, and the art of weaving. A renowned master basket weaver with over 30 years of experience, Becky has received numerous awards, the most recent being The Diverse Heritage Award from The Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation (LTHP). Her baskets are in private and public collections throughout the world including The Grand Village of the Natchez Indians and The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. She has demonstrated her traditional art form of pine needle basket making in multiple juried art shows and festivals such as The New Orleans JazzFest Native American Village and the annual Tunica Biloxi Tribe Intertribal Basketry Summit. She is currently active in promoting awareness of traditional pine needle basket making and the importance of passing down this rare art form to younger generations.
There are now 145 members in the Hall of Master Folk Artists, which was started in 1981. This year’s festival theme was “America the Beautiful.” The festival is held annually in air-conditioned Prather Coliseum on the Northwestern State University campus. Next year’s festival, to be held on July 17, 2027, will recognize many artists young and old who are keeping tradition alive in Louisiana, and will feature Cajun music by the Holiday Playgirls and T Marie and Bayou Juju, zydeco by Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners, bluegrass by the Spring Chickens, Celtic music by Emerald Accent, country and western swing by Hugh Harris and the Dancehall Disciples, western and Americana music by The Western Troubadours and a special performance by Danza Azteca, as well as the annual Louisiana State Fiddle Championship. For more information, call the Louisiana Folklife Center at (318) 357-4332, email folklife@louisiana.edu, or online at http://louisianafolklife.nsula.edu/.
Support for the Festival was provided by grants from the Cane River National Heritage Area, Inc., the Louisiana Division of the Arts Decentralized Arts Fund Program, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Natchitoches Historic District Development Commission, the Natchitoches Convention and Visitors Bureau, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, the Shreveport Regional Arts Council and the State of Louisiana.
Support also came from generous sponsorships from Alliance Compressors, Atmos Energy, C&H Precision Machining, City Bank, the City of Natchitoches, Cleco, Evans Family, LLC, the Family Doctors of Natchitoches, the Harrington Law Firm, Ronnie’s Auto Glass and Collision Center, Natchitoches Wood Preserving Company and Young Estate, LLC.
The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the program did not necessarily represent those of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.