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“C’mon let me ride that donkey!” Leon Chavis shouted as he squeezed his single row accordion in time to shouts of the donkey’s response: “Heeee! Hwyaaah!” Dancers whirled in Creole two-step on the parquet floor of Mid City Lanes Rock ’n’ Bowl and the band churned out a spirited zydeco session. The sound was in keeping with the tradition of family patriarch Boozoo Chavis, whose songs resonated with scenes from the farming lifestyle he practiced on Dog Hill when he wasn’t making music. But young Leon is a new generation of zydeco musician.
“I’m on the World Wide Web,” he announced at the end of the show. “Check me out on MySpace!”
The kid is stocky and plays the accordion with a solid, heavily syncopated groove. He’s got a great voice with nice range, a tonal presence and the sound of unself-consciousness. Every now and then he picks up the trumpet and plays a passage. His band, led by his dad on keyboards and vocals and including several younger players, is deeply rooted in the African trance rhythms that run through zydeco in ways that resemble ska most directly but also call to mind genres from reggae to salsa to Tex-Mex, the various African diaspora elements all over the Gulf Coast and Caribbean. Chavis grabs a riff and drives it over and over, hefting the beat like a sledge to keep the dancers going strong.
“I’m the great-great nephew of Boozoo Chavis,” Leon said proudly.
Boozoo was the last of the Zydeco Kings, last crowned out of this same dancehall/bowling alley back in the days when he competed with Beau Jocque for the title in the last of the “Beau vs. Boo” events promoted by club owner John Blancher.
“We had three of them,” Blancher recalls. “I would do them on the final Sunday of Jazz Fest billed as Beau vs. Boo. I heard there was a zydeco club that had done a Beau vs. Boo and I thought it would be a good idea because I had booked them both in here. It seemed like a natural to put them together. We did it and it was an amazing success. It was as much fun as anything I’ve ever done.”
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Blancher arranged to have Boozoo carried out to the stage on a regal litter, then after he was declared king, he would be carried off, displaying the crown. The challenger, Beau Jocque, would emerge from the bowling lanes in a cloud of smoke to the tune of “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”
“It was show biz,” admits Blancher, “like championship wrestling.”
Though Beau Jocque saw the contest as the promotional stunt it was, Boozoo took it seriously.
“He firmly believed that he was playing for the title of King of Zydeco,” says Blancher. “Beau Jocque just played the part. Beau never wanted to be King of Zydeco. He told me that he looked at Boozoo as the true king. He would say, ‘I don’t want to get that old man all worked up’ and I would tell him, ‘Don’t worry. When it’s all over, we’ll make sure he wins.’”
One night, Blancher decided to declare the musical contest a tie and propose a bowl-off for the title.
“That was magical,” he says. “It was unplanned. We put the bumpers on lane 18 and I said, ‘We’re going to have a bowl-off. One ball takes all for the King of Zydeco.’ Boozoo was going, ‘I don’ know how to bowl.’ This is right after Boozoo lost the fingers on his left hand in a barbecue pit accident. He was legendary for losing the fingers and playing a gig the next day. The fingers he lost weren’t the button fingers; they were the ones he pushed with. But when he picked up the ball, he said, ‘I can’t bowl. I got no fingers.’
“I told him to just roll the ball because there were bumpers in the lane so he’s going to hit some pins. I told Beau Jocque, ‘It doesn’t matter what he knocks down. Just take the ball and throw it into lane 17. We’ll make sure Boozoo wins.’
“I couldn’t have planned this better. The drummer can see lane 18 and he put a drum roll on and Boozoo went up to the line and he stopped. He came back, the drum roll starts, he goes back to the line and he stops. The third time he comes up to the line he just drops the ball down and it goes so slow, right down the middle of the lane, and it hit the headpin and every pin went down. People just hit the floor when he made that strike. I was not expecting that. After he does it he genuflects and makes the sign of the cross.
“I told Beau Jocque, ‘Take your best shot’ and he threw it so freakin’ hard and the pins exploded and eight pins went down.
“So Boozoo was the King.”
Though Boozoo has passed away, his music is alive and well. His son Poncho Chavis has stepped up into Boozoo’s spot in the family band and will appear on the Fais Do Do Stage at Jazz Fest May 6 playing the songs Chavis was famous for.
But one thing you will not hear Poncho or Leon Chavis do is declare themselves the King of Zydeco.
This break from tradition is particularly noteworthy because of all the blood relatives to former royalty such as the Chavis cousins—C.J. Chenier, son of the first Zydeco King, Clifton Chenier; Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr.; Geno Delafose, son of the influential John Delafose; and Chris Ardoin, a descendant of zydeco pioneer Amadee Ardoin.
The younger generation has not picked up the gauntlet that elders such as Clifton Chenier, Rockin’ Dopsie, Buckwheat Zydeco and Boozoo himself once dueled for. But, as Michael Tisserand’s indispensable history The Kingdom of Zydeco details, the battles for supremacy over a mythic principality whose borders stretched from southwestern Mississippi through East Texas were real and often bitter.
“The older guys had that ego thing that says, ‘I can play better than you,’” says Morris Ledet, who leads the family band that backs his wife Rosie Ledet, “The Zydeco Sweetheart.”
“With this younger generation, everybody’s really great. I don’t know why it is, but I guess times change and people aren’t into that anymore.”
Terrance Simien, one of the most popular zydeco musicians and another Jazz Fest staple, has another theory.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about that stuff,” he says. “The competition thing, I hate to say it, goes back to slavery. If you were a musician on the plantation, you got to get out of the field and get a job in the house and had an easier life than working in the field. I’ve done a lot of research on this myself and it goes back to that. We didn’t write a lot of stuff down in our community so there’s been a lot of old history that’s been handed down about musicians being poisoned by somebody who couldn’t outplay them that wanted that one position in the house for a musician. You had to kill him, get him out the way, to get that job. So it seems like a simple thing, but it’s years of conditioning of the mind handed down from generation to generation. Music is art, not a contact sport, and all that other stuff is somebody else’s battle to fight.
“The other thing is that there was a big generation gap in music,” Simien says. “When I started, me and the Sam Brothers Five were the only young players out there. The rest were all the older guys. There was a point where the music almost died out, but now you’ve got more younger bands than ever before and these musicians are picking up the accordion and starting at a level where some people are who’ve been playing for twentysomething years.”
One of the big differences in the generations is that events such as the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival have brought zydeco out of the black clubs and before huge multi-racial audiences.
“With more people to play for and a much wider range of places to play now, there’s not as much competition for the gigs,” says Morris Ledet. “It’s not just west Louisiana now. People like Buckwheat and Terence and Chubby Carrier go out all over the world to do their thing, so it’s not like they’re fighting over the same gig every weekend in four or five clubs in western Louisiana.”
In fact, zydeco has grown so far from its roots some of the old-timers might have a hard time recognizing it. There are bands in New England calling themselves zydeco acts, and Australia has 11 working groups playing to one of zydeco’s most avid fan bases. There are even Japanese zydeco bands.
“It’s those two instruments, the accordion and the rubboard,” says Simien. “Clifton Chenier invented the rubboard (the corrugated metal percussion instrument that hangs over your shoulders) and the rubboard is the foundation of the music. When you’ve got the combination of the accordion and the rubboard, you’ve got zydeco. When you’ve got a Creole from Louisiana playing an accordion and a rubboard you got zydeco.”
Simien’s use of the term “Creole” is crucial. In Jelly Roll Morton’s time, 100 years ago, Creole meant anyone born in the Americas to a parent of European background. Now, it refers specifically to Americans with African ancestors.
“If you listen to Amadee Ardoin, you’re hearing the juré,” says Simien. “That was the earliest form of the Creole music, just the clapping of the hands and the stomping of the feet and the people’s voices. The Germans brought their accordions to Louisiana. The Creoles got their hands on them, they turned them into their own music. That’s what you hear with Amadee. Then when Clifton put his hand on it, he combined blues, jazz, and rock ’n’ roll, which was a new sound. I played with Clifton Chenier in Chicago not too long before he died. He sat through my show and said afterward; ‘You’re doing your own thing, keep doing that. That’s what separates art from just being an act or a performer.’”
Simien is a textbook example of the new generation of festival-style zydeco players. He is an active and charismatic stage presence, mixing elements of reggae, second line and even southern rock to his zydeco, always engaging the crowd to the point of throwing Mardi Gras beads into the audience and stage diving. He’s as likely to offer a salute to Jerry Garcia as Clifton Chenier. It’s as effective a way of reaching a large live audience as Buckwheat Zydeco’s turbo-charged R&B or the contemporary rock and hip-hop elements that inform Chris Ardoin’s nouveau zydeco group, Double Clutchin’.
This is music to be heard live, music for dancing and celebration, but the key to the success of the individual bandleaders is the quality of the songwriting they produce or the persona they project from the stage. The is where the strength of Chris Ardoin really emerges, with the powerful groove his band develops, his facility on diatonic and triple row accordions, and the strong point of view in his songwriting. He was born to the tradition, making his fabled debut at a Texas gumbo party when he was four years old singing Rockin’ Sidney’s “My Toot Toot” with his father Lawrence’s band. It wasn’t long before the youngster was ready to graduate from the old school.
“I tried to get Chris to go with the music we were doing, but he wasn’t interested,” says the elder Ardoin, who still manages Chris’ band.
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Of all the current zydeco performers playing Jazz Fest, Rosie Ledet is the one most likely to appeal to non-traditional crowds. The voluptuous Creole beauty begins her shows modestly, reflecting her upbringing in western Louisiana where women have played an understated role in the culture for generations. As the relentless zydeco rhythms churn away, Rosie visibly loosens up and within minutes she’s transformed into a sultry sex goddess singing, “I’m Gonna Take Care of Your Dog,” commanding the men in the audience to bark “like the dogs you are.” Ledet is every inch the diva, as powerful a stage presence as Tina Turner. She’s a prolific writer who specializes in observational songs about her family and material that presents her stage persona, song like “Little Rosie,” “I Wanta Ride,” “My Joy Box” and “Roll It Over,” where she sings “rock it from behind / I like it like that.”
Morris Ledet has seen Rosie evolve into a powerful stage presence as the music has changed around her.
“We’ve seen it change from the traditional zydeco to what they call the nouveau zydeco,” he says. “It’s changed from a lot of the older people coming to dances to a much younger audience that likes a more varied style. Getting younger people into it has changed the music.”
Zydeco reached a peak of regional popularity in the 1980s following the phenomenal success of “My Toot Toot,” a song every zydeco band included in its repetoire. Ledet believes that zydeco needs a new anthem.
“We’ve seen it do well, but I think we need another big hit to reach the next level we need to get zydeco at. We’re hoping Rosie can write a major hit.”
Blancher is among Rosie Ledet’s fans, including her in the mix of bands he books for his regular Thursday night zydeco shows at Mid City Lanes.
“She’s one of those acts that makes people pay attention to zydeco around the country,” he said. “It’s a shame she’s not appreciated as much as she should be locally. There are jealousies, and there’s resentment about a woman being in a man’s world. Some women don’t like to see an attractive woman leading the dance. You hear the criticism that she’s not really strong enough to play good zydeco. I think she’s one of the best performers. She’s enigmatic in ways. She’s a good songwriter and she has a good stage presence. I find her nice and pleasant to deal with, but on a personal level she sometimes seems painfully shy. Some people take that shyness as aloofness. It seems to me over the past few years that she’s developed a really soulful vocal delivery.”
The younger zydeco players are looking to open their music to include new audiences, even building a bridge across the traditional racial rivalry with Cajun music. Simien is spearheading a campaign to create a special Zydeco/Cajun Grammy award category.
“I always looked up to Clifton Chenier and Queen Ida,” he said. “When I first started out, they won Grammy awards and I thought ‘The sky’s the limit for this music’.”
