Buckwheat Zydeco [ tickets ] will celebrate his 30th anniversary and the recent release of "Lay Your Burden Down" with a summer run of North America.

The zydeco legend made his first stop Friday night (6/26) at Milwaukee's Summerfest, and follows that with festival and theater visits in 31 cities across the nation. A handful of Canadian appearances are sprinkled throughout the schedule, including a July 18 performance at Mont Tremblant, Quebec's International Blues Fest. The road trip continues through the end of the summer, wrapping up Sept. 26 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Details are shown below.

"Lay Your Burden Down," Buckwheat Zydeco's first new studio album in four years, hit shelves last month and peaked at No. 5 on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart.

Bandleader Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural, Jr. recorded the effort at Dockside Studios in Maurice, LA earlier this year with producer Steve Berlin (Los Lobos). A handful of special guests--including slide guitarist Sonny Landreth, Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes and JJ Grey-- added to the record, which features a mix of new material and covers by the likes of Bruce Springsteen ("Back in Your Arms"), Jimmy Cliff ("Let Your Yeah Be Yeah") and Memphis Minnie ("When the Levee Breaks").

"It's very relative to all the hardship that's going on back in Louisiana," Dural explained of the Memphis Minnie cover in a recent NPR interview. "It's hard when you see thousands and thousands of people that have been in one place for so many years and now have no place to stay. That really touches the heart."