Clifton Chenier Centennial. In this centennial year of the birth of Clifton Chenier, many events and projects are celebrating the zydeco music pioneer and his international impact.

Wednesday, June 25, Chenier’s 100th birthday, sees the release of a vinyl and digital single featuring the Rolling Stones and Steve Riley romping Chenier’s 1965 classic, “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés.” A co-release from the Eunice-based Valcour, Smithsonian Folkways and Arhoolie labels, the single features Chenier’s original Arhoolie recording of the song on the flipside.

On June 27, the all-star A Tribute to the King of Zydeco album will be released in vinyl, digital and CD formats. In addition to the Rolling Stones, the album’s starry lineup includes Lucinda Williams, Taj Majal, Steve Earle, Charley Crockett, Jimmie Vaughan, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, Shannon McNally, Augie Meyers and more.

Louisiana musicians form the tribute album’s backbone, blending Bayou State flavors with the national acts’ interpretations of Chenier’s repertoire. For instance, Cajun accordionist Steve Riley accompanies the Rolling Stones for “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés,” and zydeco musicians Nathan Williams Sr. and Keith Frank respectively complement Charley Crockett’s “Easy Easy Baby” and Taj Mahal’s “Hey, ’Tite Fille.”

Joel Savoy, the Eunice-based Cajun fiddler and Valcour Records founder, co-produced most of A Tribute to the King of Zydeco with Los Lobos saxophonist- producer Steve Berlin. Acadiana guitarist and bandleader C.C. Adcock produced the album’s Rolling Stones track as well as the duet by Lucinda Williams and Tommy McLain of “Release Me.”

Before his death in 1987 at 62 years old, Clifton Chenier earned international fame and many honors. Launching his recording career in 1954 in Lake Charles on the small Elko label, Chenier appeared on many labels, including Specialty in Los Angeles, Chicago’s Chess and Alligator labels and Berkeley, California’s Arhoolie. He won a Grammy award for his 1983 album, I’m Here!, and received a NEA National Heritage Fellow honor in 1984. His 1976 album, Bogalusa Boogie, entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Recording Academy bestowed a Grammy lifetime achievement award upon him 2014.

“What I did was to put a little rock and roll into the zydeco to mix it up a bit,” Chenier told Rolling Stone magazine. “You see, people been playing zydeco for a long time, old style, like French music, but I was the first one to put the pep to it.”

Although tribute album producer Joel Savoy, 44, never witnessed one of Chenier’s marathon performances, he’s known Chenier his whole life. Savoy’s mother, Ann, interviewed Chenier for her book, Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. Volume 1. Savoy’s father, Marc, an accordion maker and player, maintained Chenier’s accordions and sat in with Chenier’s Red Hot Louisiana Band at a dance. The elder Savoy was also best friends with Chris Strachwitz, the founder of the label Chenier did most of his recording for, Arhoolie.

“I knew about Clifton’s legendary status, and his music was all around us,” Joel Savoy said from Eunice in advance of this week’s tribute releases. “Zydeco on weekends is a normal thing here.”

Valcour Records is releasing A Tribute to the King of Zydeco. The Rolling Stones single is a co-release from Valcour, Smithsonian Folkways and Arhoolie. In November, Smithsonian Folkways will issue Clifton Chenier: King of Louisiana Blues and Zydeco, a four-CD or six-LP vinyl box set featuring 67 tracks and a 160-page book.

For the A Tribute to the King album, Savoy enlisted Louisiana musicians steeped in Chenier’s music. Lee Allen Zeno and Sonny Landreth were members of Chenier’s band. Marcia Ball, Johnny Nicholas and Jimmie Vaughan knew Chenier from Antone’s, the music venue in Austin, Texas, that booked Chenier for its grand opening. Chenier’s Texas-raised son, CJ Chenier, appears on the album along with many Louisiana musicians, including Dickie Landry, the saxophonist who accompanied Mick Jagger at a Clifton Chenier dance in Los Angeles.

“The house band I enlisted to play on the record,” Savoy said, “Roddie [Romero] and Eric [Adcock] and Derek [Huston] and Lee Allen [Zeno], Jermaine [Prejean], they’re the real deal. Sherelle [Chenier Mouton], who plays rubboard on the record, is Clifton’s brother Cleveland’s granddaughter.”

John Leopold, then interim director of the Arhoolie Foundation, invited Savoy to co-produce the tribute album with Steve Berlin a few months before Arhoolie Records founder Chris Scrachwitz’s death in 2023.

“I said ‘yes’ instantly,” Savoy recalled. “But I realized it would have to not only be bands from the Americana world that wanted to pay tribute in their way, but also a cast of the zydeco legacy families and musicians.”

Working together closely, Savoy and Berlin matched vintage Chenier selections with contemporary singers and musicians. “We dovetailed nicely,” Savoy said. “Steve allowed me to be the expert on our local music scene, and he found the people from outside of Louisiana who needed to be part of the project.”

Country singer Charley Crockett was among the non-Louisiana artists who lobbied to join the project. “I didn’t know anything about Charley Crockett,” Savoy said. “But Steve said Charley is Clifton’s biggest fan, we’ve got to have him on the record. I love the way his track turned out.”

Most of the A Tribute to the King of Zydeco recording happened in January 2024 at Dockside Studio near Lafayette. Some artists were recorded remotely, including David Hidalgo [‘Hot Rod’] and C.C. Adcock’s productions of Lucinda Williams and the Rolling Stones.

Savoy brought Adcock to join the project, suggesting that he produce “Release Me” with Williams and Tommy McLain.

“I wanted C.C. to be a part of the project right away,” Savoy said. “And he started dreaming big right away, saying, ‘Man, we gotta get the Stones.’ C.C. really came through for us.”

“I got hip to a lot of roots,” Adcock explains in a Valcour Records statement, “right here in my own Louisiana backyard, [by] searching out original versions of licks and songs I first heard on my favorite Stones records. Now, I imagine that the Stones so convincingly rocking Clifton’s ‘Zydeco Sont Pas Salés’ is going to be responsible for turning on virgin souls around the world to what we’ve got bubbling up from the mud and moss down here.”

On first hearing Adcock’s Stones production, Savoy knew their “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” would be the tribute album’s lead track.

“Hearing Mick Jagger singing in Creole French, saying those words, it sounds like the beginning of a great adventure into this music,” he said.

Jagger recorded his vocals in Paris and Ronnie Wood added his part in London. Accordion player Steve Riley and a rhythm section consisting of Robert St. Julien, Dave Ranson and Curley Taylor cut their parts at recording engineer Tony Daigle’s Electric Comoland studio in Lafayette.

Adcock met Keith Richards at the Hit Factory in New York City to record the Stones co-leader’s guitar. It was a thrilling experience for the Lafayette musician who himself has an international career.

“It was fantastic to see it all come full circle and hang out with my hero and make Louisiana music with him,” Adcock said this week.

To get “a vibe together” at the Hit Factory, Adcock recalled, he imported gumbo, jambalaya and bread pudding from a local restaurant to the studio. Richards amplified the Louisiana connections by emulating the great Shreveport guitarist James Burton.

“Keith came in and immediately annilhilated it,” Adcock said. “He approached it in a way that probably would get you fired from any Louisiana zydeco band, but it was exactly right. I never heard anyone do it like that, but it works perfectly. It’s the new way to do it, I think.”

Jagger’s attention to detail and ability to completely inhabit the Chenier’s “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” likewise impressed Adcock.

“Mick did a deep dive into the dialect and how to sing in midcentury Creole French,” Adcock said. “This cat, he doesn’t really have to or need to take the time, but he did that so he could make the right tribute for Clifton.”

The Stones cut two songs, Adcock revealed, but the other recording has yet to be released.

“I’m just so proud to have been involved and have it turn out so cool,” Adcock said of the Stones’ tribute contribution. “When I make records, sometimes I don’t want to listen to them—but I can’t stop listening to this one.”

Proceeds from A Tribute to the King of Zydeco will benefit the Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

“Because everyone was coming together to celebrate Clifton,” Savoy said, “and putting their hearts into this thing, I wanted it to have a deeper meaning. So, all the proceeds are going to this fund to further the study of zydeco music in South Louisiana.”