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Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, December 29, 1998 Clifton Chenier put zydeco music on the map>by Jim BradshawClifton Chenier was born June 25, 1925, near Port Barre in St Landry Parish. His father, Joseph, played the accordion and he took his sons, Clifton and Cleveland, to local house parties where he performed. The two boys started playing themselves at a young age, Clifton on the accordion given to him by his father, and Cleveland on his mother's rub board. In the 1940s, they performed with Clarence Garlow's group in clubs around Lake Charles. In 1947, Clifton moved to Lake Charles, and he and his brother later moved to Port Arthur, Texas, where they worked in the oil refineries. They formed the Hot Sizzling Band and played along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast during the late 1940's and 1950's. J.R. Fulbright, a talent scout for Elko Records in California, met Chenier in 1954 and made the first recording of his music. During the middle and late 1950s, Chenier recorded for the Imperial, Specialty, Chess, Argo, Checker and Zynn labels, and he and his band toured nationally, particularly on the West Coast and in Chicago. In those days, and until the 1960s, he was known mostly as a rhythm and blues singer but he returned to his south Louisiana roots in 1964 and began recording zydeco music. Michael Tisserand, in his book The Kingdom of Zydeco, calls Clifton Chenier "the most influential musician in zydeco history." He describes how the brothers, Clifton and Cleveland, recorded what became the "anthem" of zydeco.. It was on May 11, 1965 ... that Clifton and Cleveland Chenier entered the Gold Star studio, in Houston. The tape rolling, the brothers shared a few words in Creole French. ... Then the pair, backed by drummer Madison Guidry launched into what would become Chenier's signature piece, Zydeco Sont pas Salé. On it, Chenier strips down his piano accordion and treats it like a single-key button model. ... Over his mighty rhythm he sings some lines about two mischievous dogs named Hip and Taiaut that date back to a 1934 Cajun record by Joseph and Cléoma Falcon, Ils la volet man trancas (They Stole My Sled). ... Chenier couples the old song with. ... lines about snap beans. 0 Mammal! Quoi elle va faire avec le nègre? Oh Mama! What's she going to do with the man? By the 1970s, Chenier's name had become synonymous with zydeco, and he and his Red Hot Louisiana Band, toured the world playing music that one critic described as "urban zydeco, a highly percussive, soulful sound." It's not clear what "urban" as opposed to "non-urban" zydeco might be, nor is it always clear whether a song might be zydeco, rhythm and blues, or just a spirited two-step played by a black man. The music shares common origins, and sometimes common lyrics, with Cajun music, but traces a different path of evolution. Tisserand explains, "By the middle of the twentieth century, the Cajuns and Creoles started to take their music on divergent paths. Cajuns began to listen to country western, with musicians such as Jimmy C. Newman striking off for Nashville. Creole artists were more interested in blues and R&B, and Clifton Chenier was packaged in tours with the Cadillacs and Lowell Fulson. Today the most obvious difference between the two sounds is in the instrumentation: The fiddle shares the lead in Cajun music but is rarely heard in zydeco. The rub-board is predominantly a zydeco instrument. Zydeco bands are also more likely to include a horn section. Cajuns have more lyrics in French. Yet spirit of both a zydeco dance and Cajun fais-dodo continues to reflect the music's common origin." A part of that common origin is that both Cajun and Creole music until recently has been handed down in an oral tradition, so that there is no standard written version of most of it. Also, even with written words and notes, neither Cajun nor Creole has ever felt bound to follow them. Tisserand says, "Defining 'zydeco' is a matter of considerable contention; the remark that some is or isn't playing 'real zydeco' is today frequently heard at dances. In fact, it is likely that musicians will never agree on the borders of zydeco, because, in true improvisational spirit, they set out to redraw the map in every performance," It was his improvisations that made Chenier the "King of Zydeco," (he often performed wearing a crown) and made him world famous. He played all across the United States, and, in his own words, "went to London, Paris, Oslo, Norway, Switzerland, Copenhagen, Vienna, Lyons, France - - I went all the way to Israel. I took French music that far, I took it all the way. In an interview printed in Ann Allen Savoy's book, he says, "I'm the one that started zydeco, well, the old generation had it (a) long time ago, but it died out, you know." He was asked to describe zydeco, and did it this way: "Well, zydeco is rock and French mixed together, you know, like French music and rock with a beat to it. It's the same thing as rock and roll but it's different because I'm singing in French. But some of the music is sometimes identical, so that's why I say, a lot of people say they can't dance zydeco. If you can't dance zydeco, you can't dance, period." Chenier said in that interview, "(When I first started), I never though I'd ever hit Europe, but, I knew one thing: the way I was playin' that accordion it was going to go somewhere. I mean I ain't bragging' about it, but I knew what I had goin' was goin' to go somewhere, and that's what it did. It took me all the way from here to Israel. I been to all kind of countries ... and what makes me feel good, every country I hit, I ain't never heard anybody say, 'I don't like that music.' Never." Poor health from a kidney infection plagued him in the late 1970s, but Clifton Chenier returned to better health in the 1980s and, though sometimes so enfeebled that he had to be helped onto the stage, performed until just before his death in 1988. |