Curley Taylor, right, will perform with his band Zydeco Trouble on Saturday and Sunday at the Bayou ’n’ Boogie Fest in Smithfield.

It’s long been said that one of the obstacles to becoming an artist isn’t failure; it’s finding success at something else, and the distractions that causes. Zydeco accordionist Curley Taylor, leader of Zydeco Trouble, faced a similar situation.

The son of Jude Taylor, of Jude Taylor and the Burning Flames, Curley Taylor found his initial success as a drummer with CJ Chenier. When he got the notion to step up and play accordion, he had to wait until he was off the road to get serious about studying the new instrument — which took a while. Soon thereafter, he got the call to play drums with Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie. He took the gig, and that set back his accordion career a few more years.

But he persisted, because he wanted not only to play the accordion but to sing and be a frontman. “I had been in the back for so long, it gives you time to analyze the whole thing. And [I thought] ‘I could do that!’ I’d listened enough times.”

He’s one of a long line of accordion players who started out as drummers. “Drummers have got the energy, and they’re paying attention to a lot of things,” he says.

Most of the drumming accordionists were already playing accordion when they took up the drums. Taylor’s one of the few who didn’t get the idea to switch until later, and part of it was the desire to build up a long-lasting career as a bandleader and songwriter. “I just realized that once I got old, 60 or whatever, and I was still stuck playing drums, even though I’d made a good living playing drums, there would have been nothing for me to fall back on,” Taylor says. “I better get out front and try to make some money and sell some records.”

Since switching, he’s put out three records with Zydeco Trouble and has established himself as one of the bright new stars of the genre. Taylor is among the younger breed of zydeco players (he’s 37) who incorporates elements of soul and R&B into his zydeco. The title song of his first record, 2004’s Country Boy, is pure sleek soul with accordion, and his latest, last year’s Nothing Feels Like This, includes covers of Ray Charles’s “Hallelujah I Love Her So” and James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”

He says that it’s part of the natural evolution of zydeco, which follows the path of all kinds of music. Modern blues doesn’t sound like traditional blues, he says; modern rock doesn’t sound like ’50s rock.

“After you’ve heard ‘Deacon Jones’ or ‘Dog Hill’ 10 million times,” Taylor says with a laugh, “you can’t go back to the club and listen to it.”

It may seem like a tricky path to walk between the traditional and the new, but Taylor says the realities of playing zydeco in Louisiana, where they’ve already heard it all, demand new sounds.

“The thing is, the people like the traditionalists, who were listening to Clifton Chenier and Boozoo [Chavis], imagine how old they are. So they’re not coming out to the club. They got older, and they got married, and their bones are starting to hurt.

“So in order to keep people coming to the club locally, we have to do something that’s going to catch their ear. And they want to hear something they can relate to, so that’s why we go into something with the soul and the hip-hop and the R&B.”

And his father likes what the younger Taylor is doing. Curley Taylor explains that it’s a reflection of his musical upbringing, which contained a good mix of music even with a zydeco star as a father. “Like I tell everybody, it’s pretty much what I was brought up listening to — the blues, soul, that’s what was in me. So that’s what comes out.”

Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble play both nights of the Second Annual Bayou ’n’ Boogie Festival, Saturday and Sunday at the Smithfield Elks Lodge, 326 Farnum Pike, Smithfield. Tickets are $35 per day or $60 for both. Call (401) 965-0849 or go to www.bayounboogiefest.com.

Stepping Stone is back

The Stepping Stone Ranch was a major outdoor music venue back in the day, most notably hosting the Cajun and Bluegrass Festival (the predecessor to the Rhythm and Roots Festival) as well as the New England Reggae Festival and various country shows. Co-owner Heidi Waldron says that repair work and financial difficulties slowed the music schedule at the ranch in recent years, but that they are looking to re-enter the concert calendar in a big way.

They’ve got a two-day Cajun/Nashville Festival scheduled for August and a three-day Columbus Day weekend country bash with The Harwoods. They start off the season with a free barn dance on Saturday with bluegrass locals The Bourbon Boys. It’s a lovely place for a show and it’s good to see them back. And did I mention it’s free?