Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Stomp is a nationally touring Creole, Cajun, and Zydeco band bringing the best in Louisiana French music and culture to audiences of listeners and dancers across the USA and Canada.  Formed and led by French speaking Cajun/Creole Accordionist and Fiddler Dennis Stroughmatt, Creole Stomp is striving to not only entertain, but also to educate audiences about American French culture.   Having lived in Louisiana and Quebec, Canada (and still touring with many Louisiana based Cajun and Creole-Zydeco bands in and out of Louisiana on occasion), Dennis only knows how to play it "down-home" and always has a sound that is fresh and "straight from the bayous and prairies" of southwest Louisiana.  The Creole Stomp sound pulls from many influences but is noted for a style similar to the famed Ardoin Family Band and The Lawtell Playboys.

Dennis and Creole Stomp have been seen and heard on radio and television with PBS-TV, WGN-TV, NPR's "Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keilor," CNN's "World Beat" on Mardi Gras, and on many stages including the Illinois State Fair, "The Louisiana Folklife Festival," the "Big Spring Jam" in Huntsville AL, the St. Louis Soulard Mardi Gras, "The Cajun French Music Awards" in Lafayette, LA, and  "Mardi Gras World" in New Orleans, LA.  The new CD by Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Stomp "Enfin...At Last" was nominated "Best Album" by a Cajun/Creole band based outside of Louisiana by the Cajun French Music Association for 2003.

Dennis Stroughmatt was first introduced to American French culture as a teenager near Old Mines, Missouri. It was there that he spent two and a half intensive years recording, observing, and learning many of the Creole French traditions still alive in "Upper Louisiana." The knowledge that he gained there included a centuries old French Creole fiddling style from fiddlers Roy Boyer and Charlie Pashia, fluency in Illinois-Missouri Creole French, and a wealth of stories and songs from story tellers and singers like Rose Pratte, Annie Pashia, Kent Beaulne, and Eli Robart; all of which have been handed down generation to generation in Missouri and Illinois for nearly 300 years.

Dennis went on to live and work in southwest Louisiana as an assistant curator at the Vermilionville Folklife Center in Lafayette, LA and also became fluent in "Lower Louisiana" Creole Music and Cajun/Creole French. There he encountered fiddlers Canray Fontenot, Faren Serrette, and Black Allemand and quickly grasped old-style Cajun and African Creole fiddling with fervor.

After earning a Masters Degree of History at Southern Illinois University and eventually a certificate of Quebecois Studies and Language at the University of Quebec, since 1999 Dennis has been a touring French Creole musician and speaker working across the United States, Canada, and Europe. He keeps in constant contact with Creole populations in Missouri and Louisiana and still tours with Louisiana Creole greats Morris Ardoin and Dexter Ardoin when time allows. Dennis can also be seen performing publicly in Old Mines, MO the first Sunday of October, every year at the "Fete d'Automne." Not only a musician, Dennis is a preservationist who focuses on creating an understanding of French Creole culture and music, and why cultural diversity is one of the greatest gifts we have in the United States.

Go take a tour of Creole Stomp Central at http://www.creolestomp.com/

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