Boozoo Chavis's two-beat stomp has so thoroughly conquered the world of zydeco that you can travel from dance hall to dance hall across South Louisiana on a Saturday night and hear the same groove and same squeezebox riff almost everywhere you go. That's why the versatile Geno Delafose is the most interesting figure in zydeco today. Oh, he can do the Boozoo stomp as well as anyone, as he proves on his new album, "Everybody's Dancin'," with a sweaty version of Rockin' Sidney's "Good Time Woman." But Delafose refuses to limit himself to that one model.

The cowboy-hatted, always-grinning singer-accordionist also draws from the song-oriented style of his father, John Delafose, and of Clifton Chenier. Just listen to how Geno makes the lyrics and melody as important as the rhythm on his daddy's bilingual "Gotta Find My Woman"; listen to the way he retrofits such R&B standards as Sam Cooke's "(What a) Wonderful World" and Tyrone Davis's "Can I Change My Mind" to a zydeco two-step.

Delafose calls his band French Rockin' Boogie, and he does more to keep the French influence alive than anyone in zydeco today. He sings convincingly in the language and retains the lilting sense of melody that marked such Creole-music pioneers as Canray Fontenot and Amede Ardoin. When Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet of Beausoleil guests on Dewey Balfa's "Port Arthur Blues" and Nathan Abshire's "Belizaire Waltz," he and Delafose explore the area where African American zydeco and European American Cajun music overlap, and there they find an exhilarating chemistry.

-- Geoffrey Himes

Appearing Monday at the Birchmere. • To hear a free Sound Bite from Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie, call Post-Haste at 202-334-9000 and press 8105. (Prince William residents, call 703-690-4110.)