Take 5 With Clifton Chenier

This edition of Take 5 brings us a short playlist of Clifton Chenier, The King of Zydeco who left us so many years ago. Zydeco is the music of the Black Creole French Speaking People of Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas. A musical cousin of Louisiana Cajun music, zydeco's roots also included blues and Caribbean influences. The accordion is the lead instrument. Unlike cajun music where a button accordion is used, Zydeco accordion players vary in the type of accordion they play. In the case of Chenier, he played a piano accordion and often came off sounding liking like a one-man big band. The Louisiana born Chenier was based in Texas Cities like Port Arthur and Houston as bayou communities like Lake Charles and Lafayette.

His first recordings were made for the small Elko label, but in the mid-50s he recorded for Specialty and with Specialty had his first hit record, "Ay Tete Fee," with a band that included guitarists Lonesome Sundown and Phillip Walker.

Clifton had an up and down musical career until Lightnin' Hopkins took Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records to see Hopkins' cousin, Clifton Chenier at a Houston bar. It would lead Strachwitz to record Chenier which began a long-standing relationship. Also, bu this time Clifton had reunited with his brother Cleveland who would play the frottoir, a fabricated aluminum rubboard that Clifton invented that replaced the washboard as a percussion instrument. For Arhoolie, Clifton recorded some of the rhythm and blues he performed and Strachwitz got him to record half of the album, "Louisiana Blues and Zydeco" in French. Here is "Louisiana Blues" sung in French.

There are so many recordings I could highlight by Chenier, but one of my favorites is his rendition of Big Joe Williams' "Baby Please Don't Go," with his uncle Morris Chenier on the gut-bucket fiddle.

Just with a drummer or his brother on frottoir, Clifton could fill a ballroom up with dancers. There are many two-steps and other hot numbers. Here he revives a big band number associated with Glenn Miller, "In the Mood."

Finally, we close with the bluesy slow dance, "I'm Coming Home."  

There is so much more Clifton Chenier one could choose. He still remains one of my favorites.