Some folks are having racist conniptions about Beyoncé venturing into the country music realm, where she is now topping Billboard’s Hot Country chart with her song “Texas Hold ‘Em.” Her fans, mom, and ethnomusicologists are quick to point out that Bey was born and raised in Houston, Texas, where she was steeped in the country culture of rodeo, zydeco, and Black trail-riding cowboys and cowgirls.
RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: Exploring the Black roots of country music
Much of the real history of Black cowboys has been erased, to the point that when most people think of American “cowboys,” they likely visualize white screen actors, like John Wayne or Gary Cooper.
However, there are thousands of Black trail riders carrying on the Black cowboy tradition—and zydeco is their music of choice. Zydeco, a music birthed in southwest Louisiana by Black Creole people, was popularized in the 1950s. Since then, it has spread far from its geographic home.
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
Before diving into zydeco history, this 2020 KQED production offers a 6-minute glimpse into zydeco and its integral role in the culture of Houston.
From the KQED video notes:
Houston’s zydeco dance scene brings joy and a driving rhythm to partner dancing, and in this episode, we explore the dance’s deep roots in Creole culture and music. What was called La-la in Southeastern Louisiana Creole communities became known as zydeco in Houston with the influence of R & B and the ‘King of Zydeco’, Clifton Chenier. Houston is where zydeco is thriving, evolving and reaching a broader audience, around trail-riding clubs who dance together after their rides to the accordion-driven sounds of zydeco bands with a touch of hip-hop. As infectious as zydeco is, it’s grown popular worldwide, but what hasn't changed is how zydeco brings community together in Houston.
So just what is zydeco? Zydeco Crossroads offers “A Short History of Zydeco.”
The rollicking dance music called zydeco is a quirky invention that could only have happened in Southwest Louisiana, where descendants of French and Creole-speaking African Americans (who today call themselves Creoles) merged their ancient songs with a rhythm and blues beat. The essential instruments are an amplified accordion, and a frottoir or scrub board, a corrugated sheet-metal vest played with bottle openers that is surely one of the loudest percussion instruments every invented. Electric bass, electric guitar and a drum kit provide the propulsive groove.
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The origins of zydeco are difficult to trace. In 1929, the Creole accordion player Amédé Ardoin and the Cajun fiddle player Dennis McGee made the first recordings of Louisiana Creole music. Their melodies remain a touchstone both for Cajun and zydeco players, as the shared legacy of their intertwining cultures, but the driving rhythm of zydeco is not there. A closer antecedent might be the call-and-response music called juré, with its syncopated hand clapping, but the only glimpse we have of this traditional style is on a few recordings made by the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in 1934.
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In the early 1950s, two musicians fused traditional Creole dance music with rhythm and blues instruments, resulting in the music that we recognize today as zydeco.
Clifton Chenier, widely recognized as the King of Zydeco, was a virtuoso of the piano accordion, an instrument with a full range of musical possibilities. He brought his own band, the Zodico Ramblers, to the recording sessions in Los Angeles that produced his 1955 Specialty Records hit, “Ay-Tete Fee.” When he teamed up with Arhoolie Records producer Chris Strachwitz in the 1960s, he single-handedly brought zydeco music into popular consciousness, eventually winning a Grammy® award.
One of the earliest musicologists to research zydeco and its roots was Maud Cuney Hare.
She’s the subject of a 2-minute bio from The Center for Texas Music History.
From the video notes:
This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll learn about one of the state’s first African-American folklorists. Maud Cuney-Hare was born in Galveston, Texas, on February 16, 1874. Her father, Norris Wright Cuney, was chairman of the Texas Republican Party and one of the most prominent African-American politicians in the South. During the 1890s, Maud studied at the New England Conservatory of Music before returning to Texas to teach. She devoted much of her time to the musical folklore of French-speaking African Americans living along the Texas- Louisiana border. These black creoles, who were the descendants of French-owned slaves, blended African and French musical influences into what would eventually become known as zydeco.During the 1920s and 1930s, Maud Cuney-Hare published books on African-American music, wrote a column for the NAACP journal The Crisis, and authored a biography about her famous father.
I could write an entire story about Cuney-Hare, and perhaps I will one day. If you’d like to learn more, check out “Maud Cuney-Hare: Musicologist and Black Activist”
Though she is mostly forgotten, her scholarship lives on in “Negro Musicians and Their Music.”
But where did the name “zydeco” come from? There will probably never be one definitive answer, and scholars will continue to debate it. but here’s one take, from a Herbie Hancock Masterclass.
The term "zydeco" has unclear origins. Some music historians believe it comes from the French phrase "les haricots sont pas salés," which translates to "the snap beans ain't salty.” Functionally, this serves as a figure of speech meaning, "times are tough." When spoken quickly, the French phrase sounds a bit like "zydeco."
Other historians believe the word is a variation on the West African word for "music making." This theory was partially embraced by famed twentieth-century music historian Alan Lomax and his son John Lomax. Clifton Chenier, the vocalist and accordionist commonly known as the king of zydeco, also credits himself with inventing the term, citing his 1955 song "Zodico Stomp" and the follow-up "Zydeco Sont Pas Salés." The current spelling of the term was popularized by Houston musicologist Mack McCormick on the 1960 compilation, A Treasury of Field Recordings.
Ben Sandmel of 64 Parishes profiled Amédé Ardoin—“one of southern Louisiana's first great recording artists.”
By the 1930s, the accordion had been popular in Louisiana for some sixty or seventy years. In southern Louisiana, it adapted well to a combination of European song forms and African rhythmic approaches such as swing and syncopation. Ardoin personified this cultural blend and enhanced its development through his deft technique and his ability to improvise. Ardoin was a lively, inventive accordionist who could keep a crowd dancing while playing alone. He was also a soulful singer whose emotional style made dramatic use of elongated, high-pitched notes. Some of his lyrics, such as “Les Blues de la Prison,” were based on medieval French songs, or snippets of them. Other numbers, such as “La Valse de Chantiers Petroliperes” (“The Waltz of the Oilfield Workers”) reflected the socioeconomic changes afoot in southern Louisiana as a predominately agrarian culture began to experience industrialization.
Ardoin’s music was widely disseminated in southern Louisiana through a series of commercial recordings released by the Columbia label between 1930 and 1934. Some of these records found Ardoin accompanied by the great Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee. Such an interracial collaboration was unusual during an era when the two would almost surely have been barred from performing together in public. Ironically, a racial incident ended Ardoin’s career, around 1939, when he was severely beaten after a white woman wiped his face with her handkerchief. Mentally incapacitated from the attack, Ardoin spent the rest of his life in a state mental hospital.
Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax documented the tragedy of the racist attack on Ardoin that resulted in his death.
Regardless of who takes credit for the name, Clifton Chenier is responsible for zydeco catching on. Kevin Fontenot wrote this bio of Chenier for 64 Parishes:
He was influenced by the recordings and live performances of the celebrated Creole accordionist Amédé Ardoin and the almost forgotten Sidney Babineaux, who was one of the earliest Creoles to play the larger piano accordion, which Chenier made famous. Scholars have debated whether Chenier ever publicly played the smaller diatonic accordion associated with Cajun music, but evidence seems to suggest that he at least learned to play that instrument from his father. During the 1940s, Chenier absorbed the “jump blues” style of Louis Jordan and was soon fusing rhythm and blues (R&B) with Creole music. Out of this potent mixture came modern zydeco.
Chenier and his brother Cleveland started playing dances in the 1940s in Louisiana and, by the early 1950s were operating along the Texas border. After losing a job at an oil refinery in Beaumont, Texas, Chenier entered the music profession full time. He designed the vest-style frottoir, based on the washboard that his brother used to provide a rhythmic accompaniment to the accordion, thus giving birth to the basic percussive sound identified with zydeco. The Cheniers worked on the “chitlin circuit,” a loose network of juke joints and dance halls in the southern United States that catered to an African American clientele.
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Chenier’s music was highly danceable, hard driving, and propulsive in nature, as demonstrated by his cover of Jordan’s “Let the Good Times Roll” (written by Louisianan Sam Theard). He also demonstrated a great ability with blues material, including songs like “I’m a Hog for You,” which became major parts of his repertoire.
James Nadal documented Chenier’s success for All That Jazz.
R. Fulbright, a black recording pioneer, spotted the Chenier brothers and asked them to record for his Elko label, which released a 78 rpm recording of "Louisiana Stomp" and "Clifton's Blues." In 1955, Clifton signed with Specialty Records, and his first release for that label, "Ay 'Tit Fille" ("Hey Little Girl"), was a rhythm and blues hit throughout the South. It became a hit in other regions of the country, allowing Chenier to quit his construction job, buy a Cadillac, and hit the road with his band, then known as the Zydeco Sizzlers. A teenage Etta James was the band’s vocalist for a period. Chenier capitalized on his popularity and for the next eight years he recorded with several other regional labels. Records for Chess, Zynn, and other labels were less successful. It wasn't until 1963, however, when he recorded with Arhoolie, a California-based label, that he attained national acclaim. Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie, heard Clifton play in Houston, and the next day he recorded "Ay Ai Ai" and "Why Did You Go Last Night?" for Arhoolie at a local studio. The following year Chenier recorded his first album, “Louisiana Blues and Zydeco,” and quickly became Arhoolie's top-selling artist. In 1976, Chenier recorded one of his best albums, “Bogalusa Boogie,” and formed a new group, the Red Hot Louisiana Band, featuring tenor saxophonist "Blind" John Hart and guitarist Paul Senegal. If people only had to get one Chenier record this would be it. In 1984, Chenier won a Grammy in the Ethnic Music category for his album “I'm Here!” recorded on Chicago's Alligator label.
Folk Alliance International has a 7-minute bio of Chenier and his rise to fame:
Here’s Chenier singing “'Zydeco sant pas sale' in 1969.'
Though the entire film is not available on YouTube, here’s the trailer from the Les Blank documentary about Chenier, “Hot Pepper.”
I enjoyed this 28-minute montage of zydeco performances in local venues. It gives a real sense of not just the music but also of the interaction between musicians and the people.
Zydeco is pretty male-dominated, but there are some women who lead bands—most notably “Queen” Ida Guillory.
From the National Endowment for the Arts:
"Queen" Ida Guillory was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, into a family of Creole rice farmers. As a child, Guillory helped cook for 30 to 40 field hands and later drove a tractor during the planting season. She grew up hearing French lullabies as well as zydeco, the vigorous blues-inflected music played at weekend fais dos dos (dance parties). When she was 18, her family moved to San Francisco along with many other Louisiana emigrants to pursue work in the shipyards. After marrying Raymond Guillory, she raised three children and drove a school bus for a living. As the children grew, she pulled out her accordion and began to sit in with her brother’s band. Combining auditory and gustatory arts, Guillory would also cook big pots of gumbo for the band’'s club dates. In 1975, she was chosen as Queen of the Mardi Gras at a church celebration and a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed her 'Queen Ida."
John Morrow wrote her biography for Musician Guide:
Queen Ida differs from the great zydeco player Clifton Chenier and Cajun accordion players in that she plays neither the piano accordion nor the button accordion with only 11 keys. Queen Ida's accordion has 31, allowing her to play more melodically because she can play notes from more than one key. She also tends to use the treble side of the accordion, as many Mexican accordionists do, to better blend with the other instruments in the band. The Bon Temps Zydeco Band also incorporated a fiddle player, which is unusual for a zydeco band though common in Cajun music. Traditional tunes were part of the group's repertoire in addition to Queen Ida's own songs, including "Rosa Majeure," or Rosa of Legal Age.
Queen Ida's music is an eclectic mix of rhythm and blues, Caribbean, and Cajun, though the presence of her accordion always keeps it traditional. She explained in Keyboard: "It was Zydeco music I started with. It was Zydeco music my parents--my mother especially--asked my brothers to keep alive. And now we have a following for Zydeco music. There are songs that I play that are not totally Zydeco. But Zydeco has always been a musical gumbo because it's got all the elements. It's not rock, it's not country, it's not blues, but it has all those elements. Also, the nature of the accordion carries a lot of its weight into making whatever we play sound like Zydeco." Queen Ida has become an ambassador for the accordion, which is now often used in pop music by such artists and groups as Paul Simon, John Mellencamp, and They Might Be Giants.
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In 1978 Queen Ida met her agent, John Ullman, and things began to change. The following year she was nominated for a Bammy, or Bay Area Music Award. She lost out to Taj Mahal, though it was he who suggested she tour Europe and had his agent arrange for Queen Ida's first two-week European tour. Her brother Willie joined the band as washboard player for the tour, and, though her brother Al eventually left the band to resume his own career, it has remained a family business. Her husband Ray left his job as a truck dispatcher in 1986 to become the group's manager, while her son Myrick replaced Willie on washboard, in addition to providing help on the accordion and vocals. The group was soon touring Europe several times a year, performing for appreciative audiences.
Give this queen a listen:
Inspired by Queen Ida, Rosie Ledet is now the female face and sound of zydeco. Here’s some background from Ledet’s website:
Attracted to rock music, she started singing and performing rather early in life. It is no wonder then, that by the age of 15, Rosie was so good at music and dance that she would be called for many performances at school and in her district too.
She grew fascinated with Creole music at the time. Dressed in a Creole costume, she remembers singing many songs. In fact, at one of the performances with a co-singer, she remembers how the other singer stepped aside, for the limelight to fall on her. The hall thundered with applause for her song. Since then there was no looking back for Rosanne, who went from one performance to another, singing Creole with ease and beauty.
Life doesn’t go as smoothly as one would like it, and there was a testing phase in Rosie’s life too. A road accident at the age of 20, left her bedridden for a couple of months. ‘It was music that kept me company during the darkest days of my life’, she shares. And so, after she recovered, both physically and mentally, she decided to take the message of music to as many people as possible during her lifetime. Since then, Rosie has performed in many shows, both in Louisiana and other cities.
“Rosie’s in the House Tonight” is a film by Robert Mugge, is centered around a Ledet performance outside Philadelphia.
The production is a bonus film on the DVD for “Zydeco Crossroads: A Tale of Two Cities,” which was reviewed on Micheal Doherty’s Music log in 2016.
The film begins at WXPN, where the station’s manager and assistant manager talk about their plan and desire to expose their audience in Philadelphia to other musical genres. The resulting project is Zydeco Crossroads, with the aim of bringing that music to Philadelphia through a series of concerts. And in addition to concerts, the station is involved in dance lessons and so on, in an effort to expose the people of Philadelphia to that culture. David Dye, host and producer of the radio program “World Café” travels to Lafayette to broadcast live performances from the home and heart of zydeco, to kick off the project.
This documentary features interviews with many zydeco musicians, including C.J. Chenier, Rosie Ledet, Sean Ardoin, Andre Thierry, Louis Michot, Corey Ledet, Buckwheat Zydeco, Nathan Williams, Chubby Carrier and Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr. The interviews are conducted by David Dye. Sean Ardoin provides some interesting information on the music and its terms. And there are concert performances by C.J. Chenier And The Red Hot Louisiana Band, Rosie Ledet And The Zydeco Playboys, Creole United (they do a really sweet original song), Soul Creole, Sid Williams, Nathan And The Zydeco Cha Chas, Buckwheat Zydeco, Chubby Carrier and others. Vasti Jackson plays “Zydeco Crossroads” outside El Sid O’s, along with Chubby Carrier and Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr. (some cool footage). As in The Kingdom Of Zydeco, these songs (for the most part) are presented in full, rather than in snippets – something I really appreciate. Also, this documentary actually identifies the songs and the songwriters on screen as each number starts.
You can watch the full “Zydeco Crossroads” film below.
As noted earlier, zydeco is interwoven with the Black trail-riding tradition, which both men and women enjoy. Nowness highlighted the women-led Texas Regulators in January.
Portrait of a Place: Interrupting the Earth
Through zydeco music and their Creole heritage, female-led club Texas Regulators take Gwendolen von Einsiedel inside the trail riding tradition in Eastern Texas
The upbeat rhythms of zydeco – a distinctive music played on accordion and scrub-board – carry a strong rural tradition in America’s southern states. Rooted in the Black Creole communities of southwest Louisiana and eastern Texas, zydeco music and the trail riding scene that emerged from it assemble people from across the region in a thumping celebration, as families mount horseback and ride out to a soundtrack of zydeco, hip hop and soul music.
A ritual for sharing food, drinking, and dancing, the rides turn a weekly party into an energetic symbol of cultural heritage, connecting the community in a shared appreciation of the pulsating music that drives the procession forwards. Connecting with female-led trail ride group the Texas Regulators while living in Louisiana, director Gwendolen von Einsiedel captures the essence of zydeco trail riding for Interrupting the Earth – co-produced with Creole filmmaker and lifelong trail rider Drake LeBlanc.
“As women of similar ages, the Texas Regulators took me under their wing. Their commitment as a trail ride group or ‘family’, was nothing short of inspirational. Interrupting the Earth became a participatory film project – to redefine knowledge production as a collaborative process.”
Have a watch:
As far as the whole “Black musicians in country music” issue? This 2014 clip from The Grand Old Opry offers a rousing, crowd-pleasing performance from Nathan Williams and the Zydeco Cha Chas.
Here is some background on Nathan Williams and the Zydeco Cha Chas, from The Kennedy Center:
Growing up in a Creole-speaking home in St. Martinville, Nathan eagerly sought out the music of zydeco originators such as Clifton Chenier. When he was too young to actually attend a Clifton Chenier dance at a St. Martinville club, he hovered by the window-sized fan at the back of the building to hear his idol, only to have the bill of his baseball cap clipped off by the fan when he leaned too close. Later, while recovering from a serious illness, Nathan decided to dedicate himself to learning the accordion. That dedication blossomed into an illustrious career, encompassing seven albums and spanning close to two decades. The music of Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas is the expression of a remarkable South Louisiana family.
Enjoy this hourlong set, at the Cajun Zydeco Festival in 2021.
Watching and listening to the Cha Chas took me back to when my family moved from New York City to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That’s where I first heard zydeco, met some creole cousins on my mom’s side, and saw my first Black cowboys, rounding up Black Angus cattle.
According to their Facebook page, the 42nd Annual Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival will take place on Saturday, August 31. I’ll close out today’s story with this great video from the 39th installment of the festival, which went virtual during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Join me in the comments for even more zydeco—but do excuse me if I get up outta my chair and two-step around the house!
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