A Note About the Transcriptions: In order to expedite the process of putting these interviews online, we are using a transcription service. Due to the challenges of transcribing speech – especially when it contains regional accents and refers to regional places and names – some of these interview transcriptions may contain errors. We have tried to correct as many as possible, but if you discover errors while listening, please send corrections to info@arhoolie.org

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Interviewer 1:

When you go on the road, are there regular towns you stop at every time you travel to play?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Well, when we leave Houston, well, we might stop at Beaumont, Port Arthur, and then we hit Orange, and we come into Lake Charles and we drive into Lafayette. And we go in Breaux Bridge, Saint Martinville, go to New Iberia. And we make them all.

Interviewer 3:

Where’s New Iberia?

Clifton Chenier:

That’s across Lafayette, that’s going towards New Orleans.

Chris Strachwitz:

Southeast of it.

Interviewer 1:

These are mainly towns out in the country?

Clifton Chenier:

No, just regular old towns.

Chris Strachwitz:

They’re all pretty good size.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, they got pretty good size town, yeah. We hit them all and we got a pretty good size town, Abbeville. That’s another town we hit. Yeah.

Interviewer 3:

I really don’t know anything about zydeco or where the roots came from, what it evolved from or anything. Could you get into that?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I tell you what though, ever since I been knowing myself… See, my daddy used to play accordion, you see. Well, he used to play one of them Cajun accordion, the little bitty one. See, I started on the piano accordion and all I ever knew in the city when it’s playing French songs is what they called zydeco, do the zydeco, see. It’s all I ever knew then. We stayed right there with it, so we called it zydeco.

Interviewer 3:

Yeah, but that’s only found in one area right? Or I’m wrong? I mean…

Clifton Chenier:

Well, most of it in Louisiana. Yeah. Now, you see, it’s here now, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you ever hear them refer to it in any other way, like La La?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s another thing they say, La La, let’s do the La La.

Interviewer 3:

What’s the La La?

Clifton Chenier:

Long time ago, see, when I was a little boy, my daddy used to take me along with him, and they used to have this, they called that surprise dances. People be living out in the country, and they’d all get a whole bunch of them and take the accordion along with them and the rubboard … [inaudible 00:02:28] … hit, and get on a porch and just surprise. I mean just started playing and they scare them to death. And then they just get on up and open the house and go to dancing. They just called it surprise dance. I was a little boy then, I was about round eight years old.

Chris Strachwitz:

What sort of pieces did they play? Can you recall any of them?

Clifton Chenier:

At that time?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Accordion, rubboard, my brother played. And then the line and the square.

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you remember any of the songs they played?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, at that time my daddy used to play a song like Colinda.

Chris Strachwitz:

Colinda?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. And he played Jolie Blond. And let’s see. He had another… Well, he played the Louisiana Two Step. But the accordion wasn’t powerful as mine, but that’s where I got that from, when I hear them.

Chris Strachwitz:

But did you ever hear them play blues at all or that come in later?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I hear them play the Black Snake Blues.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, yeah?

Clifton Chenier:

That’s where I got that from. Yeah. Something like that but… Yeah, that’s the type of music they was playing at that time and they had some songs they called square dance. You know what that is. Yeah. Grab your partners spin them around and this and that. They had all that.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you usually just have them outdoors or was there a hall-?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, at that time they used to give dances in houses.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, this was a house.

Clifton Chenier:

You’d have a dance in your house, then the next weekend would be at the other fella’s house. That’s where they used to do that. That time they had too many halls. No matter what, they wouldn’t go to the hall and regular dance. They’d have the dance in the house, you see. Move all the furniture out of one room and…

Chris Strachwitz:

Would they sell food to people, too and?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. Gumbo. Yeah, they’d make their gumbo.

Chris Strachwitz:

Who were the best gumbo makers? Do you remember any?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, my mother was one of them. Yeah, my mother used to make that gumbo. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Would she sell it then at the house party and make money?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Oh, yeah, she’d sell it. Yeah, she’d sell it. That’s how they made their money.

Interviewer 1:

What’s boudin?

Clifton Chenier:

What boudin is? That’s liver and rice, all ground up together and sometimes you take the hog blood and you mix that boudin with it.

Interviewer 1:

Is it like a sausage?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, like a sausage. You ain’t never had boudin?

Interviewer 1:

No, I saw it at the dance.

Clifton Chenier:

Tell them, Chris, boudin, man. They had some… They had some over there.

Chris Strachwitz:

When it’s made right, it’s great.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, they had some over there last Friday night.

Interviewer 3:

At St. Marks, yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. It was good. Yeah, that lady really know how to make them.

Chris Strachwitz:

One thing, you really have to eat food down there at people’s houses. In the restaurants, you can hardly find any.

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, no, no, no. No, you go to them houses, that’s it. Yeah, they really fix you something out of sight. Yeah.

Interviewer 3:

When did you form your first band?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, my first band was no more than me and my brother, rubboard and accordion. That’s how we started, see. And then I was working in Lake Charles that time and he was, too, see. We used to-

Chris Strachwitz:

What sort of work were you doing there?

Clifton Chenier:

We was working construction. We was working. I would drive in a truck hauling pipes. It was a company that was named [inaudible, company name 00:06:23] Pipeline. Yeah. And then I left from there and went on to Port Arthur. Then I started playing in Port Arthur. And they had a place they called Port Acres.

Chris Strachwitz:

Port Acres?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. We played every Sunday. Then from Port Acres, I got up a little higher. I came into Houston.

Chris Strachwitz:

Still just had your brother with you?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, yeah. Just me and him.

Interviewer 1:

When was all this?

Clifton Chenier:

That was in 194-

Chris Strachwitz:

It was before the war?

Clifton Chenier:

1947, about ’46, ’47

Chris Strachwitz:

So after the war?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). ’47. And then we started playing in Houston, there’s a place they call Irene’s.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, Irene’s in Houston. And we played there, played there, and then I left Houston and came up here in Los Angeles, in Hollywood and made my first record. Not the first one, but-

Chris Strachwitz:

No, you made your first record down there-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah in Lake Charles. Yeah. But my first big record was made right there in Hollywood. See, I made a record in Lake Charles but it was a little record.

Interviewer 1:

What song?

Clifton Chenier:

It was called Clifton’s Blues [Cliston’s Blues] and the Louisiana Stomp, that was my first record.

Chris Strachwitz:

How did Fulbright find you? Did he come to Irene’s one day or what?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, Fulbright find me way down in Cade, Louisiana. Let me see. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did Fulbright scout out of LA-?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. That man was cross country. He traveled everywhere. Yeah, Fulbright. I was playing there in Cade, Louisiana one Saturday night and he came up there. He told me, he said all that. I didn’t know who he was. He sat down and told me, he said, “Man,” said, “What are you doing out here?” I said, “What?” Said, “Man, look at here. Accordion like you can play. You ain’t got no business way out in them woods.” I said, “Well, I live out here, Fulbright.” I said, “I live around this area,” see. Well, you ain’t got no business out here. Said, “Why don’t you come go to L.A. with me.”

Clifton Chenier:

That was in 1946, ’47, I’d been there. I said, “No, man. I ain’t going up to California to starve to death.” He said, “You won’t starve to death. You’ll stay with me.” I said. “No, I’ll stay here.” Okay. Just went along, went along, Fulbright met me again, around ’49. He still kept on asking me come up here. But I wouldn’t. When he met me in 1954 again, I said, “Well, I think I’ll go along with you.” And man, he was so glad he didn’t know what to do. I came up here. We tried Atlanta at first, but Atlanta didn’t go for it, so yeah. We tried two, three companies.

Clifton Chenier:

When we got to Art Rupe, on Specialty. He said, “Well, let me hear how it sound.” He said, “You telling me you can play accordion, but I don’t know that. You got to let me hear you.” I said, “Well, I know I can play. Yeah, you can tell me all day you can play.Telling me don’t mean nothing, you got to show me.” I went to the car and got my accordion. We got an offer, then I played a few numbers. He said, “Well, that sounded pretty good.” Yeah. We went on, we recorded Ay-Tete-Fee, and then went on, that was it. I’ve been recording ever since. Yeah.

Interviewer 1:

Did those records on Specialty sell pretty good?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. That made a number one hit. Ay Tete-Fee did. Boppin’ The Rock.

Interviewer 1:

What was the name?

Clifton Chenier:

Boppin’ The Rock.

Clifton Chenier:

You see when I… Yeah, when I come up-

Chris Strachwitz:

Ay-Tete-Fee is Hey Little Girl.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. When I come up Boppin’ The Rock, everybody in the country come up with rock this, rock that, we’re going to rock the joint, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. But see, you never heard rock until I come up with Boppin’ The Rock. That was in ’55, and… Who that come up with, “We’re going to rock the joint, we’re going to rock this…”?

Interviewer 1:

Rock Around the Clock?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. That’s right.

Interviewer 1:

Bill Haley.

Chris Strachwitz:

That’d be Bill Haley.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.

Chris Strachwitz:

Where did you come up with the title?

Clifton Chenier:

I tell you what, you see, while me and him was traveling in the mountain, I look at them big ole rocks. Yeah. Big ole rocks, man. Scared me to death. Hanging over the car. I said, “This thing might fall and kill me.” I said, “Fulbright, what’s happening?” He said, “Oh, ain’t nothing. We just going up the mountain.” I said, “Looks like them rocks rolling down here, man.” He said, “No.” I start thinking. I said I’m going to make a record with this. I’m going to call that Boppin’ The Rock. That’s how I got that title. Yeah. Just like that. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

When you first went to Irene’s in Houston, was zydeco already going pretty strong there?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, it was. See, zydeco been out there, Chris, zydeco been out there for a long time, but it had nobody really put the pep to it till I took it and worked it up. They had a lot of them playing zydeco, but they didn’t know what was playing.

Chris Strachwitz:

They were all playing the old style with the little accordions.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. See, what I did, I put a little rock and roll into that zydeco, see. Mixed it up a little bit.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah. Well, that’s obviously what sort of put you above all the rest.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right. That’s right. And the-

Chris Strachwitz:

The reason I mention this is because so little is known about it because no zydeco was ever recorded except for Amédé Ardoin.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

He was first Black to ever record it, and I couldn’t really tell him from another Cajun performing.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, well, he’s on the same style with them.

Chris Strachwitz:

Until you told me-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, with them Cajun. See, he played the same type of accordion them Cajuns playing, but one thing he did, he come up with some songs that didn’t, is all original, you see, and that made him rich. He make his own songs.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, he had a little blues in it, didn’t he?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. He had a little blues in some of them. Yeah, and that took it. In all them songs he had them.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you know him personally? Did you see-

Clifton Chenier:

I met him one time, but he was old when I met him. But I met him through my daddy, see. Little man, about …[inaudible 00:13:38] light in color. Yeah. But he really used to play that single little accordion.

Interviewer 3:

Is the accordion really popular down, or really common down in Louisiana?

Clifton Chenier:

Common?

Interviewer 3:

Yeah. Do a lot of people play it?

Clifton Chenier:

Them little bitty ones. Little, them single note accordions.

Interviewer 2:

Just the squeeze box, no keyboard.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

One row.

Clifton Chenier:

One row, yeah.

Interviewer 2:

Not like a concertina though?

Chris Strachwitz:

No, I’ve seen video of a concertina but it’s-

Clifton Chenier:

It’s about that high. It’s one row accordion. They play them.

Chris Strachwitz:

But they can only play in two keys.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s it, they can’t get out. See, the kind I got, well-

Chris Strachwitz:

It’s very common down there.

Clifton Chenier:

… you get all keys.

Chris Strachwitz:

Every band uses the darn thing.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer 2:

Well, to you, the only time I’ve heard accordions has been on polkas or- [crosstalk 00:14:34]

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). That [inaudible 00:14:34]. [crosstalk 00:14:34]

Interviewer 2:

Yeah. It was really the experience hearing the accordion Friday was just really-

Clifton Chenier:

And me, to me, polkas all right, but to me, ain’t no soul in it, look like. I don’t know. It’s [crosstalk 00:14:34]. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah-

Clifton Chenier:

You like polka?

Chris Strachwitz:

Well, I like the Mexicans better than I do polka.

Clifton Chenier:

I do, too. I do, too. Yeah. I dig them Mexican. Yeah, they really can play. But that polka, I don’t know. I don’t see nothing in it.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you ever hear them guys in Houston, like [inaudible name 00:15:13] or those polka bands, can’t think of any other-

Clifton Chenier:

I went one night, Chris, and they didn’t move me, so I left out the joint. I went one night, me and the old boy out there. But I don’t like all this. I can’t understand it, I don’t know what they’re doing. See.

Chris Strachwitz:

They don’t put soul in it.

Clifton Chenier:

See, I know. They just flowing that stuff, then jumpin’ [inaudible 00:15:38]. I can’t understand that.

Interviewer 1:

That real fast rhythm is in that song, Louisiana Two Step, that real fast. I know you did that song Feel So Good, [inaudible 00:15:50], that song, where’d you first hear that, or did you put that rhythm to it, or?

Clifton Chenier:

No. I tell you what, I heard old boy, he was on tour with us, Magic Sam.

Interviewer 1:

I thought so.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. I heard him play that and I said, well, I’m going to try that on my accordion, see how it sounds. And I liked the way, I liked it the way … But I originally got it from Magic Sam because he used to really play that on the guitar. I used to love the way he played that.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, it’s a [inaudible 00:16:22] process.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

You hear something you like and pick it up and he got it off a record.

Clifton Chenier:

Well, it was recorded before he got it off the record. And I used to listen to the record, but I never did.

Interviewer 1:

John Lee Hooker used to do it a lot, that lyric.

Clifton Chenier:

Well, John Lee Hooker do it in a slow motion. See, Magic Sam would do it fast. And I tried it on my accordion and I liked the way it sound. Yeah.

Interviewer 2:

Where do you get most of your material?

Clifton Chenier:

All my stuff, it’s just right in my brains. Direct from my brains, I just record my own stuff. Ain’t nobody writing nothing for me. Nothing like that. It just come natural to me.

Interviewer 2:

Like major sources of inspiration, like records, like Magic Sam’s records, stuff like that?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, see, most of the records I’m recording is, ain’t nobody ever done them. Every now and then I get a record, do something off of somebody else, but it’s very seldom I do that. All my record is my reason and stuff. Something I just think about overnight and just get on to it. Get in my room and rehearse it and…

Interviewer 2:

Over the weekend, you and your band wrote about a five hour repertoire. Is that about as far as it goes? You?

Clifton Chenier:

What?

Interviewer 2:

How big is your repertoire?

Chris Strachwitz:

How long could you go without repeating a song?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, repeating, oh, how long can I go?

Chris Strachwitz:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Clifton Chenier:

Oh man. All them records I have. I can play about… Well, I can play about two dances and it won’t be the same song.

Interviewer 3:

Doing five hour sets? Doing one…

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer 3:

… each day of the weekend.

Clifton Chenier:

Everything will be different. Yeah, I did that. And there’s something else I can do. I can start from since 1946 up to now, with every one of them. Yeah, I might skip a few of them.

Interviewer 2:

And you can remember them all?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. And if you don’t bother me, a lot of people bother you when you play, they confuse you and say, “Play this and play that.” Once you get on an album…

Interviewer 1:

They want to hear that.

Clifton Chenier:

… you know what you got on that album, see. You start from number one down, you ain’t going to miss it. But if they confuse you when they come down and say, well, they take out the other album actually for the play a record on the other album, mixed up with that, that would get you kind of… It’s still your songs, but you get kind of…

Chris Strachwitz:

You sort of memorize them in a sequence? Lance does it with all his songs. They all come in a certain sequence-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. It’ll all come to you.

Chris Strachwitz:

There’s a roll with it.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right.

Chris Strachwitz:

It’s very interesting. Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Interviewer 1:

Is it different playing at a dance down in Louisiana than up here?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-uh (negative). No. It’s no different. People be dancing just like we dance out here. It’s the same way.

Interviewer 3:

Except you said they don’t fight in Louisiana.

Clifton Chenier:

No, they don’t do that. Sometimes they do. Some they get … Sometimes they get with it, but they don’t. I tell you one thing, they sure don’t fight in no Catholic hall. That’s one thing I find funny.

Interviewer 1:

There was a fight?

Interviewer 3:

After we left-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. But them women did that. And they got a little booze up then and they started something. But they don’t, a Catholic hall in Louisiana, they don’t do take it like that because see the priest get up there the next morning and talk about them, you see. Yeah, bring them up there and make them share everything.

Chris Strachwitz:

When you were young, did you ever hear any jazz bands that come out of New Orleans to play around Lake Charles or?

Clifton Chenier:

Jazz band?

Chris Strachwitz:

You know with horns and stuff.

Clifton Chenier:

No. Let me see. No.

Chris Strachwitz:

You just heard mostly the accordion players?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. I used to go listen to… Well, mostly when I was young, Old Fats was kicking at that time, Fats Domino.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, but that was already when you were starting to record.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

I was wondering when you were a little-

Clifton Chenier:

Little boy. No, no. We mostly go to accordion dances and that’s it. Yeah.

Interviewer 3:

Didn’t any blue singers come through?

Clifton Chenier:

Blue singers? Well, no. You see, we live out in.. We was out in the country, we go to country dance. Had a little ole club that we used to go there all the time, but it would be accordion playing. See, they had a lot of accordion player at home, but a lot of them died and they’re mostly gone now. I’m about the only one now that’s kicking. Yeah. And they keep scaring me, talking about, say, “You play so hard. You might take with a heart attack on the band stand.” I say, “Don’t talk like that.” Yeah, they’re telling me that all the time.

Interviewer 2:

Back home though, did the kids dig your music?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. We can play anything. Play that rock and roll and you know what them children like, they like that cha-cha stuff, but I don’t practice it, but I know it. You can get with them. And…

Chris Strachwitz:

You can mix it up …

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. I can mix it up, but you see, people that follow me, they don’t dig that. I got the older generation with me. Them youngsters, man, I don’t have to play for them because…

Chris Strachwitz:

Also, tell them why the clubs like you better down there if you play for the older people-

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. Well, you see down there, see, when you get them youngsters, they’re going to do one thing: they’re going to tear your place up and drink Coke, Coca-Cola, drink that Coke. They won’t spend the money with you. But you see, people that’s following me, well, they’ll just get up there and drink beer, buy whiskey, and spend that money. Them club owners like that, you would, too, wouldn’t you?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, they like that.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah older audiences are obviously much … [inaudible 00:22:31]

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah [inaudible 00:22:35]… They don’t be fighting. They got a good understanding. Them teenagers be fighting and everything. You have to be ducking bottles and all that. Yeah, they tear the place up.

Interviewer 1:

To somebody who didn’t know anything about Cajuns or anything about the people you play for and live with down there, what would you tell them about it?

Clifton Chenier:

If they-

Interviewer 1:

The history with the Cajuns.

Clifton Chenier:

If they don’t know anything about it?

Interviewer 1:

Yeah. If someone said to you what is a Cajun? Where are they from and are they all Black or are they all white?

Clifton Chenier:

They’re white. They’re all white. See, I tell you what. When I was a little boy, at home, you had better not call one of them a Cajun because they didn’t go for that. Just to show you how it goes, now they call they own self Cajun. You see. Yeah, you’d be out there and they’d say, this little nigga here. And it bothered me up. Now, you can call me that all day. It don’t bother me because we done got together, see. See how it goes? Them French out there say, “Well…” In French, they call them Cadien. See. And you call whatever Cadien. Oh, man. You better look out for a fight. But now they call their own self that, you see. They all on the air, on TV. It don’t bother them no more, but man, you had better not say that once a time.

Interviewer 1:

But everyone from-

Clifton Chenier:

Louisiana.

Interviewer 1:

… Louisiana who speaks French, whether they’re white, or Black, are called Cajun?

Clifton Chenier:

No, no, no.

Interviewer 1:

No.

Clifton Chenier:

We Creole people.

Interviewer 1:

Oh, Creole.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, see, Creole. It’s because, that broken language, you see. Creole people. See, you got Creole and they got that Cajun.

Interviewer 1:

The Cajun would be the white people that speak French.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah-

Chris Strachwitz:

Cajun usually refers to white people, and the dark French speaking people, I think they either call themselves Creoles or-

Clifton Chenier:

Creole.

Chris Strachwitz:

… some of them call themselves Frenchman.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, Frenchman, Creole. But you see, the real word is Creole, see. That’s how we call us, Creole. Yeah, but they call themselves Cajun. That’s just the way it goes.

Interviewer 1:

What was the bayou you were talking about?

Clifton Chenier:

Bayou … [inaudible 00:24:59]

Interviewer 1:

Bayou Bom Bom or something?

Clifton Chenier:

Bayou Pom Pom.

Chris Strachwitz:

What’s that?

Clifton Chenier:

That’s a big old bayou. Most of the people from Louisiana, that’s how they learn how to swim in that big old bayou, see. And then it passed right to Louisiana, cut right… Everybody know that bayou. I just call it Bayou Pom Pom. That’s what they used to call it-

Chris Strachwitz:

How do you spell that?

Clifton Chenier:

You got me! Bayou Pom Pom.

Chris Strachwitz:

Pom Pom, there was a song about it.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

There was once a funny comedy record called the Mayor of Bayou Pom Pom. Just thought you’d know, it was kind of a funny talk-

Clifton Chenier:

It’s just a name, they call it Bayou Pompom.

Interviewer 1:

It’s just like a big river or?

Clifton Chenier:

No, it ain’t no big river, just a bayou. It’s so many feet wide, but it’s so deep. And everybody used to go there and learn to swim, so they just gave it a name, Bayou Pom Pom.

Chris Strachwitz:

A bayou is basically stagnant water.

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

It just sits here. Crawfish live there.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. That’s why the crawfish got soul. Funny thing, you think I’m joking. You might meet a crow fish walking, and if he see you, he going to pick his hands up, tell you don’t you hurt me. He do this here. That’s right. Pick his paws up. And if you get close to him, he’ll pat you, see. That’s right. And if you go about your business, he’ll go on about his. That’s a funny thing. Yeah. And you see, they take a Breaux Bridge Louisiana, and they got they place they call… Oh, let’s see now. That’s where all the crawfish, Breaux Bridge, that’s where they have all them big crawfish festival. They got a fella down there, he’s… They have prizes, who can eat the most crawfish. They got a man out there that ate 50 pound. Yeah, ate 50 pound of crawfish. A big fella. And you know what? They had to take him to the hospital, man, that almost killed him, but he won the prize. Yeah. Yeah. That’s every year they have that.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, they used to drink a lot of beer, too.

Clifton Chenier:

The one who can eat the most, they give him so much money and that man sat and ate 50 pound of crawfish, and it almost killed him. That’s right, they had to take him to the hospital. Yeah, that’s in Breaux Bridge.

Chris Strachwitz:

There’s a lot of Indian mixed into some of your people. Aren’t there, you mentioned to me-

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, me? Yeah. My grandma is practically pure Indian. Yeah, my grandma is 108 years old.

Chris Strachwitz:

What language did she speak, do you remember?

Clifton Chenier:

Creole.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, she also speaks-

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). She doesn’t speak nothing but Creole. That’s all.

Interviewer 1:

Creole is the French?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Interviewer 3:

What tribe? What Indian tribe?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, I don’t know.

Interviewer 3:

You don’t know?

Clifton Chenier:

No. [inaudible 00:28:18] about that. I don’t know, but she’s still living.

Interviewer 3:

108.

Clifton Chenier:

One, eight.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, I’d like to visit her next time.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. I’ll sure take you. But she speak only Creole.

Chris Strachwitz:

But your parents are dead?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, yeah. See, they had me, my brother and my sister. It wasn’t but three in the family. And my mother and my dad, well. And I had two niece. Well, my dad died first, then here come my niece. She was 18. And then next one was my sister, went behind her about two years apart. And then my mother, she’s passed. And left just me and Cleveland, my brother. It’s us two now.

Chris Strachwitz:

You should get your grandmother.

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you ever go visit her?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I goes home all the time. Yeah, I go see her, and she enjoys it.

Interviewer 1:

She like your records?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, she- See nowadays I’m on TV on, practically every morning at 6:15, on channel 10.

Chris Strachwitz:

Are you back on now-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

I remember it was off-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, it cut it off a while, but you know what happened? You know what happened? The people kept worrying them so much, that they had to put me back on now.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, good.

Clifton Chenier:

See. And they waiting out for me to cut another film.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

And my grandma, well, she gets up early in the morning and turn it on, see.

Interviewer 3:

What kind of show is that, just the Clifton Chenier Show? You just do music?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah, play all my songs.

Chris Strachwitz:

And you advertise? Who’s your sponsor of it?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, they just call that [inaudible 00:30:15].

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

You know that big ole saw, you saw a log with?

Chris Strachwitz:

Chainsaw?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. They call that [Pots-spa-two 00:30:19] or they call it [Pots-spa-two Pro 00:30:21]

Chris Strachwitz:

A lot of Cajun?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah. Aldus Roger and them with them little bitty accordion. But that’s just a French program early in the morning, you see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Before people go out in the field.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Catching catfish.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, before they go out in the field. Dig them sweet potatoes, you see.

Interviewer 3:

How do you spell [Pots-spa-two 00:30:39]?

Clifton Chenier:

No, I-

Chris Strachwitz:

They had a record on it before that.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Chris got them all. I know it’s [Pots-spa-two 00:30:50]. Who gave you that, Happy Fats?

Chris Strachwitz:

Soileau put it out.

Clifton Chenier:

Soileau?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah, Floyd.

Chris Strachwitz:

But Happy Fats is on the show, isn’t he? Yeah, I think so.

Clifton Chenier:

Chris, Floyd got some records. Got Fats Domino and everybody. He’s pushing that. Why don’t you put your record up there?

Chris Strachwitz:

[inaudible 00:31:10].

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, you see that saw blade, see?

Interviewer 3:

Oh, and this is like the Cajun accordion?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah…. Ain’t nobody write me nothing.

Interviewer 1:

What other instruments do you play? You play harmonica?

Clifton Chenier:

Harmonica, play organ, piano, little piano. Mostly organ, I play organ, harmonica.

Interviewer 1:

Who are some popular musicians that you really dig? Anybody?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I tell you what, I don’t know. Another week ago, somebody put out a record that I really liked, that I digged, but that’s it. James Brown might put out a record I like, if I like it, I like it. Joe Simon or somebody, but Ray Charles. I took a lot of Ray Charles’ song and put them in French.

Interviewer 1:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Fats Domino too.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, Fat Domino.

Interviewer 1:

Where else are there French people across the country that you play for?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, when I went to Paris. We went to Paris. When that was, Chris?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, that’s where they all came from.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, that’s where that, yeah.

Interviewer 3:

How did you get along in France?

Clifton Chenier:

All right.

Interviewer 3:

Did you see a language issue-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, sure. It’s a little different than our language, but you listen to them good, you get it.

Interviewer 1:

It’s pretty much sounds the same, it’s just spelled different, is that right?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. It’s-

Chris Strachwitz:

No, it’s the other way around.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, see, we’re talking that broken language, but they speaking the real stuff. Yeah, but it’s… I still can understand them and they can understand me, you see. That’s why that… Now, a lot of times they might tell me something, I’d have to ask them two, three times what they said. Catch on, though.

Chris Strachwitz:

But basically, in this country, most of the French people live in Southern Louisiana, between, what is it, Lafayette and Houston, and then out here in the Bay area and then Los Angeles.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, you know what? They’ve got just as much French people out here as they’ve got in Louisiana.

Chris Strachwitz:

Same here.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right. Now you take Los Angeles, that’s all they got out there. That’s right, it’s all they got.

Chris Strachwitz:

All who has?

Clifton Chenier:

There’s a lot of French people in Los Angeles.

Interviewer 2:

Did you ever play up in Quebec?

Clifton Chenier:

Quebec?

Interviewer 2:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

I’ll tell you another place I went. I went to Canada in 1957. Now, they talk French, too.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, you did go up to Quebec.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. That’s what you call Quebec?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

I only know about Canada.

Chris Strachwitz:

Who took you up there?

Clifton Chenier:

You see Shaw, Shaw out of New York was booking us there.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Me and Etta James, he booked us over there. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

When you went on show with Etta James that went up there?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Me and Etta James and Jimmy Reed. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Were you sober?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, well. Man, they would be sober. I remember one night we was playing and he got high, see, and he said, “Well, Cliff. I said, “What??” I’ma tear that show up tonight. I said, “Yeah, man. I’m swinging tonight.” I said I know it. He went on, got all boozed up in time for the show. Jimmy Reed got on the stage and he a long cord on his guitar. He kept twisting around and around and the cord was wrapping around his foot all the time, see.

Clifton Chenier:

He went to make a [inaudible 00:35:08] and fell on and bust his guitar to pieces. He had one of them hollow box. Bust it all up. I told him, I said, “You sure turned the show up, Jack.” Yeah, they had to go find him a guitar somewhere. I don’t know where, but they got him one. Boy, I laughed that night. Yeah, he fell around the stage till he bust his guitar. And I told him, I said, “You sure stand them up tonight.” You see, I was on the road, when they first sent me out there on that road, I was with Lowell Fulson. Lowell Fulson, see. That’s really the man that learnt me the hard way.

Interviewer 3:

Did you meet him in L.A.?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. They stuck me out there with him. And boy, he… See, I had a habit of putting a suit on and wouldn’t even shine my shoes, you see. He told me, he said, “I’m going to break you out of that habit.” I said, “What going to do?” He said, “I bet you the next time I see you, you’re going to have your shoes shining.” One night, we was playing in East Texas. He said, Well, tonight is the night, I’m going to fix you.” When they called me up to play, Lowell stepped up there and grabbed the mic. He told us, “Well, look at here, ladies and gentleman. This is a Frenchman from Louisiana. Ain’t he sharp?” Everybody go, “Yeah.” He said, “Well, look at his shoes.”

Clifton Chenier:

And my shoes wasn’t shined. I could have killed the man. He was talking with shame. I said… and I looked at him, boy. And I was so nervous. I wasn’t used to playing amongst a lot of people like that, you see. And then he walked off the stage and started laughing. When I got through with my show, when I went in there, I wanted to jump on him. He said, I bet you.” He said, “Every time, you getting ready to get on the stage, you’re going to think about what I told you, them shoes.” And that’s true. Every time I get ready to get on the stage I got to shine my shoes. That’s right. But if he hadn’t did that, I would still, I would have kept on like that, you see. Next was the, let me see. Next was the Midnighters. We were on the road together. The [inaudible 00:37:27] and then, who else? Me and Joe Tex, that’s another one. Joe Tex was with me when he wasn’t even recording. You ever talk to Joe Tex?

Interviewer 1:

Yes.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. He wasn’t even recording that time. He was on the road with me.

Interviewer 1:

When was it you went to Paris?

Clifton Chenier:

Year before last.

Interviewer 1:

Was that with Chris?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Well, I went to London, Paris, Oslo, Norway, went to Switzerland. We went to Copenhagen, what do you call that?

Interviewer 1:

Copenhagen.

Clifton Chenier:

Copenhagen. Yeah, we went all over there. Went to Germany. We went them all. And the people in Germany, they really dig that French music. You see, they don’t understand you, but you see, that French is something like their language. They just can’t understand you. See, they be talking to me, look like I know what they’re saying, but I don’t. They’ve got that accent. Yeah.

Interviewer 1:

Where did Cleveland get that rubboard he has? Did he make that or did someone give it to him?

Clifton Chenier:

I had it made. I had it made at the Gulf refinery in Port Arthur. And a white fella out there made it for me. And when I went up, we just kept the pattern. But I’m the one told him how to make that rubbing board.

Interviewer 1:

Where’d you get the idea?

Clifton Chenier:

I don’t know. It just come to me. See, they used to have some of them that tied a string around the neck and tie it around the rubbing board to hold it, see. I said, “Well, if it can do that, they can make more like a yoke.” You know what I mean? Cut that around and put, and cut that it’s going to hold on to your shoulder. I draw it for the man and he told me he can make it, so he made it. You don’t have to have no more string around your neck.

Interviewer 1:

Got a nice sound to it, too.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, that’s steel. Yeah, it’s steel.

Interviewer 3:

Your parents spoke French?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. All of them.

Interviewer 3:

Where did you learn English?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, well, see, we talked French and English. My parents talked both of them.

Interviewer 3:

But your grandmother didn’t?

Clifton Chenier:

No, not my grandma. No, see, it was my daddy that well, they could talk English. And that’s where- we learned from them and then from there to school. That’s it. My grandmother can’t. She can understand it, but she can’t talk it. That’s funny. She can understand every word you say in English, but she can’t talk it. Yeah. Just like if you meet one of them Frenchman, one of them Cajuns, some of them can’t even talk English, talk just-

Interviewer 3:

To this day.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

And then you can talk to them, they can understand you, but they can’t speak in English, you see. One night I met two of them, they had a fella, asking him about a highway, what highway to take to go to… He wanted to go to New Orleans. But see, this fella talked English and he talked French. This fella would tell him, he said, “I want the highway to go to New Orleans.” He tell him in French, “Quoi te dis?” Quoi te dis mean, what you say? He tell him again, say, “How about showing me the highway that take to go to New Orleans?” He said, “…. comprende pas”

Clifton Chenier:

He don’t understand that. The fella said, “Man.” Said, “Look,” said, “I want to…” and he showed him. I want the road to go to New Orleans. He sat down and he told him, he said, “You know what.” In French. He said, “I’m just from here and I don’t know nothing from you, so you go away from here.” but he told him that in French and the fella still standing up there and the man getting mad all the time, but he didn’t know. See, that [inaudible 00:42:11]. You should meet them people down there, man. They’re something else. Some of them. Yeah. They can understand you, but you can’t understand them. Yeah.

Interviewer 3:

Were there any other kind of music styles, like zydeco and Cajun around Louisiana when you were learning music?

Clifton Chenier:

No. That’s all they got there, Cajun music and zydeco. They might name it something else, but I don’t know nothing about it. But that’s all the same. My record, the only record was different than this, see, because the type of accordion I’m playing is a bit different than what they’ve got, you see.

Interviewer 1:

Zydeco means zydeco pas-

Clifton Chenier:

Pas sale.

Interviewer 1:

Pas sale. Is that a food that you have all the time down there?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. You know what snap bean is?

Interviewer 1:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Well, it’s no salt in your snap bean.

Interviewer 1:

Are they fried or?

Clifton Chenier:

No.

Interviewer 1:

Just raw?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Snap bean, you break some and cook them, and just like you break them snap bean and just put them in a pot and don’t put no salt in it. You ain’t got no taste, you see. So it’s just les haricot sont pas sale mean no salt in your snap bean. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Okay, that’s…

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer 1:

But that’s a real popular food down there, at all the parties they eat that all the time?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. Everybody eats that all the time, you see. At them races there out there.

Interviewer 1:

What are some other dishes that you eat at parties down there?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, well. You’ve got all kinds, I tell you. I don’t know. It’s about same as here. Just regular food, that’s all I can say.

Interviewer 1:

That boudin sounded pretty-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Well, they make it out here too, but most the Frenchman here. You see? You don’t see it in no cafes or nothing. But they got them in them houses, you see. They mix it for their self. Chris know about it. Man, Chris come out there and look for boudin.

Interviewer 1:

When did you first meet Chris?

Clifton Chenier:

I met Chris… let’s see how’d I meet Chris, man. I forgot. I think Chris met me in Houston. I was playing that night. Well, let me see when that was. I met Chris about ’61, ’62, somewhere around there. Something around there. I’ll ask him when he get off but I’m thinking about ’61.

Interviewer 3:

He’ll remember it.

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Interviewer 3:

He’ll remember it clearly.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. He know. I forgot.

Interviewer 3:

Clifton, you and Lightning friends?

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Interviewer 3:

You and Lightning friends?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Well, shit. Lighting, me and Lightning have been buddies for years. Yeah, we’re good friend. Yeah, we really one of those [inaudible 00:45:24]. You met him in Houston, too.

Interviewer 1:

He ought to be coming out here pretty soon.

Clifton Chenier:

He told me he was going to meet me out here. I don’t know.

Interviewer 1:

He usually comes out around…

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Chris Strachwitz:

He just been out here.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s what he told me. But he sure… Man, I sure wanted to be there when you get there. We could have had us a good time together. I said that’s the way it is. He might make it back because they wanted him back here. He might-

Interviewer 1:

He’s got a brother out here.

Clifton Chenier:

Out here?

Interviewer 1:

Yeah, in Oakland.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. I believe so. I don’t know. I think so.

Interviewer 3:

Do you think you’re going to be getting back here more often now?

Clifton Chenier:

Who that?

Interviewer 3:

You.

Clifton Chenier:

Am I going to be able to do what?

Interviewer 3:

You’re going to come back or?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. I’ll be back. Oh, yeah. I’ll be back. I could have been back here, but I had so much down there, I didn’t have to move. And it’s still like that.

Interviewer 1:

How do you like playing in the clubs here in Berkeley?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I tell you what, I ain’t really hit the real clubs yet, see. All I’ve been playing, last night, well, over at that hippie joint, but they don’t dance. Now, the only place… I like playing for them all right, but see they ain’t like in Louisiana. In Louisiana, they’ve got all kinds of clubs you can dance. When the people dance, it gives you more of a feeling to play, you know what I mean?

Interviewer 1:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer 3:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

And when they’re just sitting there staring at you, you know what I mean, you don’t know if they’re enjoying you. What’s going on? Only way you know is when they’ll applaud for you. But-

Interviewer 1:

Which club was that you played at? Was it New Monk?

Chris Strachwitz:

[inaudible 00:47:02].

Interviewer 1:

Palo Alto?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, Palo Alto. Palo Alto, the name of the club. That little club-

Interviewer 1:

They dance a lot more up here than down there.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Well, see, we played the Catholic Hall. See, I enjoyed that because you see, everybody was dancing.

Interviewer 3:

You won’t see nothing like that in the clubs.

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Interviewer 3:

They don’t dance in none of the clubs.

Clifton Chenier:

They don’t dance, huh?

Interviewer 3:

No.

Clifton Chenier:

Well, you see, that’s what I’m telling you. In Louisiana, man, they have – 900 people on the floor. That’s right. That’s where they’ll go. They’ll go to the dance to dance. They don’t ever sit down. Yeah. And if ain’t got no dances to perform, they won’t stay there either. They’ll go somewhere where they can dance. Yeah. On Monday night we had six or 700. On Monday night. And everybody be having a ball. That’s right. But I tell you what, when I first played at the concert down here about three or four years ago, man, that show worked on me. I had never played for no concert, see.

Interviewer 1:

At the Avalon?

Clifton Chenier:

Hmm?

Interviewer 1:

With that horrible band?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Them boys made me so mad. The drummer dropping the sticks and all that, man. Every now and then when you you think about it, he hit the snare. Poom, poom. I said, “Oh, Lord.” I said man, where you learn… And they’re telling me he’s a good drummer. I said, “What? Good drummer, where?” I said that man can’t play. I said, “Well,” I said, “I bet you one thing, I’m never coming back here unless I bring my boys in.” See.

Interviewer 1:

Oh, you didn’t have your whole band with you?

Clifton Chenier:

No, I didn’t have my band at all. I was by myself.

Interviewer 1:

Oh.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, did they back you up?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. But they wasn’t playing. They wasn’t hitting on that. The guitar was out of tune. Oh, it was just a mess. And I’m trying to play and you can’t. You know how that is. I said, “Lord, look at here.” And they talking about, that boy sure can play some drums. I said, “Oh, man, ya’ll sick.” Something wrong. Your hearing is bad. I said well, I tell you the truth, that’s exactly what kept me away from here so long. It made me so mad. I didn’t want to come here. See. But I wasn’t coming back without my boys.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you drive out?

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you drive out?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, yeah. I got my, we got us a little, I got a Club Wagon Ford. It hold 15 people.

Interviewer 1:

15 people?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer 1:

This is your regular band then?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We’ve been together about eight years.

Interviewer 1:

I noticed you had different guitar players on the different records.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Well, every now and then, you know them guitar players. They get the big head and then they try to make it and then they see they can’t make it, they come back. Yeah, see, that little guitar player I got? He quit once and I got this big fat fella on guitar. Well, when he got hungry, he start begging, see. He couldn’t… The boys he was playing with… See, a lot of guitar players don’t want to play that French music, you understand? They don’t want to play no French music.

Interviewer 1:

They want to show their stuff.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. They want to play all their psychedelic music and that isn’t what’s happening with me. I said I’m not no psychedelic man. I’m a French man. I’m playing French music and I’ma stick to that, you know what I mean? You play what you feel. Because some of them guitar players, man, they can’t play what they want, they’d rather not play. When they get hungry, well, they come back. Yeah. Now I can’t get rid of them now because he know- see, and if he act funny with me, well, I can put him on a plane and send him back and have-

Interviewer 1:

Does he have a last name?

Clifton Chenier:

Huh?

Interviewer 1:

Do he got a last name or just Jim?

Clifton Chenier:

Jim. We just called him Jim. That’s just how we call him. Little T. Jim, T. Jim. And he know if he act funny with me, well, I can put him on a plane and send him back home and then get another guitar player out there because there’s a lot of them out there. Yeah. But everybody is getting along good. We don’t have no trouble. We get along all right on that road.

Interviewer 3:

Clifton, what’s the race situation like between the Cajuns and the Creoles? It is generally among the South or is there more tolerance or?

Clifton Chenier:

No, it’s, you see… No, it’s just… I don’t know. They just, recently, we all. That’s all I can say. Cajun is Cajun and stick to this. They to themselves and we to ourselves, until here lately, now we done got together. You see.

Interviewer 1:

There were some Cajuns at the dance here.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll tell you what-

Chris Strachwitz:

There were mostly French people there, wasn’t it?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of Louisiana Cajuns out here, too. I know a lot of them, but I don’t know where they’re at. Like I said, once they get me on that air, and they can hear me, they coming. See, because a lot of them had never that music in a long time, you see. They’ll make it. Yeah. Boy, you’re going to have some fun, come down there on the weekend in Louisiana. They really have a ball out there.

Clifton Chenier:

Now, there’s a lot of clubs in Louisiana. I play most of them clubs, most of the white clubs. But some of them, we still can’t play in them. They had a club down there, he said he wouldn’t hire a Negro in this place. But they had another club about half a mile from him and they were playing there. They were playing that dance there. They’ve got violins and guitars, and electric steel. We played about a half a mile from them. We took the crowd for about three months. Yeah. Yeah. We just took the crowd from them for about three months until I left the place. Then the man, he come looking for me. He said, “You know where Clifton live at?” Yeah. That time I looked at him and I told him what he said.

Clifton Chenier:

I just gave him a smile. I told him nothing. He said, “I’d sure like you to play for me.” I said, “Yeah?” Yeah. I said, “Well, I’m playing for this man now.” I said, “I don’t do that.” I said, “I don’t double cross nobody.” He treated me nice. And I said, “And as long as he treated me nice, I’m going to be with him.” I said, “He accept..” That’s where I popped it to him. I said, “Well, he accept Negroes in his place, you see.” I said, “You don’t accept us in your place. You told me that.” Said, “What you want me…” I said, “You might take me to your place and kill me. I don’t know.” I said, “I’m going to stay where I’m at.”

Clifton Chenier:

And when I called my wife yesterday, she said he started calling. He want me at his place and he have a big place. It’s up in Cade, Louisiana. It’s called, it’s a big club, man. It looks like a barn.

Interviewer 1:

What’s that town again that you live in-

Clifton Chenier:

Cade.

Interviewer 1:

The town you live in down there.

Clifton Chenier:

Where I live at?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

I live in Houston.

Interviewer 1:

Oh, you live in Houston?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. My boys live in Louisiana, but I live in Houston. Yeah.

Interviewer 1:

Sure thing.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, well, that’s about it. That’s all I know. Yeah.

A Note About the Transcriptions: In order to expedite the process of putting these interviews online, we are using a transcription service. Due to the challenges of transcribing speech – especially when it contains regional accents and refers to regional places and names – some of these interview transcriptions may contain errors. We have tried to correct as many as possible, but if you discover errors while listening, please send corrections to info@arhoolie.org

Chris Strachwitz:               My name is Chris Strachwitz, and I want to welcome you all to my special guest today who I happened to corner over in Richmond where he’s staying with his Red Hot Louisiana band, the whole band. Mr. Clifton Chenier from Louisiana. Welcome Clifton.

Clifton Chenier:  All right, all right.

Chris Strachwitz:               Glad to see you feeling good again.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, I’m all right.

Chris Strachwitz:               You’re doing a big dance tonight in San Francisco?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, we’re going to be at All Hallows.

Chris Strachwitz:               At All Hallows, folks. We’ll get to that in a little bit later on. While I’ve got you here, I’ve always been meaning to get into some of your music and some of the things that you come from down in the swamp land. Craw-fish holes.

Clifton Chenier:  Right right, well it’s got soul.

Chris Strachwitz:               Yeah?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:               When you grew up you … there weren’t really any black guys playing this kind of French music, were there?

Clifton Chenier:  Well, they had some kind of older people playing, but in a different style. They had a lot of old accordion players, but they were playing in a different style. What I did, I put  a little Rock into this French music.

Chris Strachwitz:               That’s right.

Clifton Chenier:  Picked it up some.

Chris Strachwitz:               You were really kind of the first guy to do that, to put a kind of Rhythm and Blues feeling into the French music.

Clifton Chenier:  Right, right, right.

Chris Strachwitz:               How did you get that idea to mix the French music … really just waltzes and two steps, you know, and mix that with Rhythm and Blues?

Clifton Chenier:  Well, you see in 1955 I used to play nothing but Rock music on accordion. Then I got so, I said “Well there’s too many Rock groups.” I said, “I’m going to change this a little.” That’s why I got it down to put French in the Rock music. See, how it goes.

Chris Strachwitz:               Actually, when you started playing you were playing mostly Rhythm and Blues then?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, oh yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:               You didn’t play much French music, did you?

Clifton Chenier:  No, no. I knowed it, but I wasn’t, you know … I said, well it might now sell, but I was wrong.

Chris Strachwitz:               How did they finally put you on a record? Who was the man that found you?

Clifton Chenier:  John Fulbright. It’s an old man out of Los Angeles, he dead no, poor soul. He really … He’s the one that first brought me to California. After Fulbright here come Chris.

Chris Strachwitz:               Uh-oh.

Clifton Chenier:  Chris … at we’ve been on there ever since.

Chris Strachwitz:               When old man Fulbright first heard you, were you playing in one of those French dance halls or was it …

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah we were. We were out in the country, one of those country dances, you know those little clubs out in the wood. Those girls put those little red dresses on and come on out on Sunday evening. We had those little dances like that, you know. So he said “Cliff, you better get out of here, man. You’re play too much accordion to step in the woods like this.” I said, “Well, I’m a country boy, man.” He says, “Yeah, but you better move up a little.” It took him about five years before you could get me out of that. I didn’t want to go nowhere, you know.

Chris Strachwitz:               You were used to things do wn there, and I can’t blame you. It’s a nice a nice country down there.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, back home, you’re home. You know what I mean? Everybody’s for real.

Chris Strachwitz:               That’s right, you don’t get no jive from anybody.

Clifton Chenier:  No, you don’t get no jive. Everybody’s for real. They like you, they say they like you they like you. They don’t like you, they don’t like you. That’s it.

Chris Strachwitz:               That was back in the 50’s, and you had a pretty big hit, actually, with that “Ay-Tete-Fee” that you mixed with specialty records.

Clifton Chenier:  That’s what brought me out. That’s what made the people know what accordions could do with a regular “Boppin the  Rock” ” Ay-Tete-Fee”, “Think it Over”, “All The Things I Did For You” things like that.

Chris Strachwitz:               That sort of came out in a time when Rhythm and Blues was still a really happening thing on the black radio and jukeboxes and stuff.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, this was swinging then. This was back then, ’55, ’56, ’57, ’58.

Chris Strachwitz:               Where did you tour back then in the ’50’s? I remember you went on some shows all around the country, didn’t you?

Clifton Chenier:  I first went out on the road with Lowell Fulson, Etta James, and, yeah. That’s who I first went out on the road with. We went all over Chicago, and New York, and Florida, and things like that. I toured here too. Here in California. Way back in 22 years ago.

Chris Strachwitz:               Long time ago.

Clifton Chenier:  It doesn’t look like it, huh?

Chris Strachwitz:               No. Time goes awfully fast, doesn’t it?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, that’s the time the Five Royals was out there, the Midnighters. We were all together.

Chris Strachwitz:               You were usually on a package show with a whole bunch of other artists?

Clifton Chenier:  Oh yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:               So you only had a chance to play your hit, was it?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, that’s right. You play your hit, and that’s it. I rarely had time to stretch out to let them know what I could do, you know? After you play your hit record, well that’s it.

Chris Strachwitz:               I remember seeing Guitar Slim back in those days, and all he ever played was “The Thing That I Used To Do”.

Clifton Chenier:  Oh yeah, we were all together. Guitar Slim, Little Richard, Percy Mayfield. The whole group.

Chris Strachwitz:               Now you actually have a chance to play a whole dance with all the kinds of music you do. I know that one time when I first came to Louisiana and heard you a lot, you played a dance outside of Kaplan, I think it was, and you played mostly for Cajun people and you played nothing but Waltzes and Two Steps that night.

Clifton Chenier:  Well you see, that’s what it is. You know, sometimes they’ve got some places over there you can play just Waltzes and Two Steps, and that’s all they want to hear. But then some places you’ve got to break it down. They want something else. I have an old generation and I have a young generation following me. Those youngsters sometimes, they want to hear a little Rock with the zydeco mixed up, and those older people just want to hear real old stuff from way back. I know them. They hit on me, I got it.

Chris Strachwitz:               Those pieces do come back to you?

Clifton Chenier:  They ask me, that’s it. I know them.

Chris Strachwitz:               You put a real flavor to them. It all comes out Clifton Chenier. It doesn’t come out like Joe Falcon. Nobody else like that.

Clifton Chenier:  No, no, no. It comes right out from … I record records the way I feel, you know. That’s it.

fChris Strachwitz:               Who was actually the first black man that ever made a French record?

Clifton Chenier:  I think it was Joe Falcon, I don’t know him.

Chris Strachwitz:               I mean a man … Joe Falcon was actually a white man. I think it was actually Amede Ardoin.

Clifton Chenier:  Amede Ardoin, yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:               Did you know him?

Clifton Chenier:  No, my daddy used to talk about him so much and tell me Looked I knowed him, but I never did meet him. He had a lot of his records though.

Chris Strachwitz:               By the time you were growing up there were other guys playing that push and pull music at those little house ran parties?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, they had some boys back home playing them. They had a lot of fellas playing them. I know the fella Claude Faulk, that’ Helen’s daddy she’s sittin’ down  right here.

Chris Strachwitz:               We should say hello to Helen Faulk. Why don’t you grab that mic Helen, we might just sneak it in on you.

Clifton Chenier:  He was an accordion player. I know the Rattleboys. They were accordion players. I know quite a few of them.

Chris Strachwitz:               So Helen, some of your relatives played music? Were they related to you?

Helen Faulk:          Yes, my daddy.

Chorus Strachwitz:               Oh really? Your dad?

Helen Faulk:          I had five uncles that did play, and some of their sons, and that was the only one I knew. Then met Clifton and started working with him.

Chris Strachwitz:               Were they pretty much just on a washboard and an accordion?

Helen Faulk:          They were just washboard and accordion. No drums, no guitar, no bass. It was just a plain … My daddy, when I knew him and they were coming up that’s all they played. Washboard and accordion.

Chris Strachwitz:               Did they mix blues into it or was it pretty much just …

Helen Faulk:          No, it was more Zydeco music.

Chris Strachwitz:               Where does that word come from?

Helen Faulk:          Well, maybe Clifton can explain this one.

Clifton Chenier:  Well, you see, people say Zydeco, you know, … A long time ago they used to give dances in houses. They hardly had no clubs . Well, that’s when those playing the rubbing board, accordion, and triangle. That was the band right there. People would pass the other people’s houses and say “Where are you going tonight?” “Oh” They said, “Well, they have a Zydeco down at so and so, so I guess I’m going to the Zydeco.” That’s how they started. Zydeco, that’s a slap bean, you know? When I say “Zydeco sont pas sale” I mean “There’s not salt in your snap beans” So that’s why I put Zydeco sont pas sale.

Chris Strachwitz:               That’s from that tune, you think that’s how they picked up that word?

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:               Have you ever heard it called anything else but the Zydeco?

Clifton Chenier:  Well the they had another name name, “Going to a lala”

Chris Strachwitz:               Lala

Helen Faulk:          They had fais do-do.

Clifton Chenier:  They had fais do-do or lala. You know. Fais do-do.

“We’re going to the fais do-do or lala”, but there mostly was “Yeah I’m going to the Zydeco tonight.” That’s it.

Chris Strachwitz:               That’s a good term and it sure applies to a snappy kind of music, doesn’t it? It made me want to play another number and let people know what’s going on here. I’m talking to the man himself who just about invented Zydeco music, I think. I don’t think he has that much competition down there. Some boys try to play like him, but no it’s just him all that. Why don’t we see what’s playing there? Oh yeah, lets play a little music.

Chris Strachwitz:               Why don’t we let the people know where you’re going to be playing. You’re going to be playing tonight a dance in San Francisco at All Hallows. All Hallows church gymnasium. That’s located on Lane street in the Hunter’s Point area of San Francisco. If you’re driving south on 3rd street into Hunter’s Point then turn left on Queseda. Make a left on Queseda and the first right is Lane street. It’s just a little street there just off of 3rd and Queseda and Revere street. You can’t miss it, just ask anybody where All Hallows church is there. It’s a big gymnasium and they’re going to be broadcasting it live tonight over at KFAT, our rival here. They’re doing good things down there.

That’s tonight for Clifton Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band at All Hallows church dance tonight. Lane street in Hunter’s Point area, starting probably around 10 o’clock. Something around that time.

Clifton Chenier:  We’re going to rock hard.

Chris Strachwitz:               We’re going to rock ’em all night long.

What Helen?

Chris Strachwitz:               Tomorrow. Why not read that? Tomorrow night is going to be at the Yountville Saloon, that’s up in Napa Valley. Really pretty area up there, that’s a good club. Napa Valley tomorrow night at the Yountville Saloon. On Monday night he’s going to be at the Bodega Club, I guess tomorrow’s Sunday. The next day on Monday night he’s going to be at the Bodega Club in Campbell. That’s right down on the South Peninsula. South Bay area. It’s a good joint too. You were there a long time ago, I remember that. Some years ago.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, a long time ago. It’s been a good while.

Chris Strachwitz:               The Bodega Club in Campbell. All next week on, oh let’s see, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday Clifton’s going to be in San Francisco at the Coffee Gallery and I believe you’re playing the big Hooker’s Ball at the Cow Palace on the 20th. I hope that’s coming off, that ought to be a heck of a show. Going to cut ’em up, huh?

Clifton Chenier:  I’m ready.

Chris Strachwitz:               All right.

Helen Faulk:          That’s in case they can’t make it tonight. Well, you can make Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or whenever it’s convenient for you.

Chris Strachwitz:               I want you to know that’s Helen Faulk who’s been Clifton’s manager and agent for a lot of years now, and if it wasn’t for you Helen, I don’t know. I think Clifton would be back in them woods.

Clifton Chenier:  I tell you what, Chris. The way things going on, I think I’d rather be back in the woods.

Chris Strachwitz:               I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you.

Clifton Chenier:  Look at the owls and the alligators sing the blues. That’s where we come from. Alligators sing the blues where we come from. Craw-fish got soul, so now we got to shell it.

Chris Strachwitz:               You don’t have to fool with motel expenses and keeping everybody happy.

Clifton Chenier:  No, no. That’s what I’m talking about. We just let our hair down, you know.

Chris Strachwitz:               I don’t blame you one bit. I know it feels so much better when you’re at home and you know what you’re doing and you know how much money you need.

Clifton Chenier:  That’s right.

Helen Faulk:          He loves the people, it’s just ……..He wants to be in the woods.

Clifton Chenier:  Well, you don’t have no trouble when you’re in the woods. Can’t nobody find you.

Chris Strachwitz:               Anyway, I know people love you out here Clifton, and you’ve got to come back at least once a year. I know it’s a hard job to get the whole band together and to drive out here and to put up with crazy Californians. You never know who’s coming the road.

Clifton Chenier:  I’ll come once a year, but I enjoy it. It’s all right. I’m just talking, but I like the people.

Chris Strachwitz:               You have a brand new record out on GNP records, actually. You’ve got a whole bunch on Arhoolie. I’d like to get back to some more of the kind of music that people play down in Louisiana. You know, when I first heard you I think Lightning took me over to hear you. Because Lightning’s wife is a relative to you.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, my second cousin.

Chris Strachwitz:               Oh really? She’s a second cousin?

Clifton Chenier:  Annette.

Chris Strachwitz:               Annette? I remember going to this and she says “Well he’s playing at this little French club.” And there he was, Clifton just himself and a drummer. I’ll never forget that. Just about two or three couples, you know? At that time I don’t think they were doing too much. You didn’t have a record out. I remember we went over to Bill Quinn, you know, used to have Gold Star Record and he had that big studio, and we did this little thing called …

Clifton Chenier:  Louisiana Blues

Chris Strachwitz:               Was that? That was before Louisiana Blues. Ay Ay AY.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah, Ay, Ay, Ay.

Chris Strachwitz:               We did that, then we finally got to Louisiana Blues and that was about the biggest seller. I’ll never forget that. You got finished with that number and you jumped on the telephone, and you called Margret and you said “Listen, listen to this record!”

What is that song all about?

Clifton Chenier:  Louisiana Blues and Ain’t No Need of Cryin’, and see a… that time when I was down, I didn’t know, it was just … everything was just going backwards. When I recorded records … The words to Ain’t No Need of Cryin‘, because I’m gone. I gave you all of my money. Took all my money, now you gone. They were letting me down, you know? I wanted her to know what that record was saying.

Chris Strachwitz:               I know you had the blues that day, but somehow it had a real good feeling and we sold quite a few down there. I think that …

Clifton Chenier:  ….was the  disk jockey down there, well they really played it. Also GG, you know. A record ain’t no good if you can’t hear it. If your record is played, well, people can hear it. Somebody’s going to like it, you know?

Chris Strachwitz:               That’s always been a real problem since you’ve reached a new market now. You play for people around the world.

Clifton Chenier:  I’m surprised because right there in Houston, I live in Houston, and they won’t have it played. All the juke boxes got them. Now I leave there and go to Europe and every two or three minutes, there’s only but one or two stations over there, every one or two minutes here’s my record. In Paris, everywhere.

Chris Strachwitz:               So you’re really getting into a new kind of world, now.

Clifton Chenier:  That’s right.

Chris Strachwitz:               I guess the black music has changed a lot in Houston. They used to play your records all the time.

Clifton Chenier:  They play all that Disco now.

Chris Strachwitz:               Well I guess you’re going to have to make a Disco record, huh?

Clifton Chenier:  Well, I guess I’ll just go on … No, I’m going stick to what I’m doing.

Chris Strachwitz:               Oh good.

Clifton Chenier:  Well, we might do that, I don’t know. I’m kidding. I’m really working on a Spiritual record. It’s something I never did, you know? But I’m going to work on a Disco record too, you know? We have to try everything.

I want to let them know an accordion can do anything. You can play anything on an accordion, if you know how to play it. A lot of people think you just can play Polka music, you know? I’m going to prove to them that you don’t have to play just Polka. You can play anything you want to play if you know how to play it.

Chris Strachwitz:               If you’ve got the right kind of feeling behind it.

Clifton Chenier:  Get in to it.

Chris Strachwitz:               Where are some of the places you’ve had the most fun, you think you’ve enjoyed yourself the most? You said you went to Canada just recently?

Helen Faulk:          Yes, Canada was real nice.

Clifton Chenier:  Yeah it surprised me.

Helen Faulk:          Canada was wonderful. Montreal, Canada. They had nice people.

Chris Strachwitz:               Do they speak French up there?

Helen Faulk:          Everybody. All their stores are even the French names. No English names at all.

Clifton Chenier:  Little boys about six or seven years old, they’ll be talking French. It’s funny. I was at home when I got there, because I can talk French too, see?

Chris Strachwitz:               Folks, meet Clifton Chenier tonight in person. The one and only. Come out to the big dance at All Hallows Church gymnasium on Lane Street and Hunter’s Point area, or tomorrow night the Yountville Saloon in Napa Valley. Clifton I sure appreciate you coming by. Why don’t we tell people they should call up right now and become members of this fine radio station? Because this radio station wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you the people out there, the listeners. Because there are no commercials, they just exist on what people spend every year to send to this radios station, and by that they get a little folio that tells them all the different programs that are on here. Once you folks call right now you can even talk to Clifton if you want to. Call 848-5732.

Clifton Chenier:  All right.

Chris Strachwitz:               848-5732

Or if you’re down in Fresno, call 222-5323. But what we want is your money, folks.

Clifton Chenier:  Chris the next record. I would love for to dedicate this to a man… I know a lot of people hearing me. He died and they buried him in today day, and I played for him for years. Eddie Richard out of Opelousas,Louisiana.

Chris Strachwitz:               He passed, huh? That’s a shame.

Clifton Chenier:  Lawtell….

Chris Strachwitz:               One of the really most important dance halls in that part of the country, just east of Eunice. Richards’s club. They’ve had French dances for God knows how long.

Clifton Chenier:  They buried him today. He liked the dance music so much. We want to dedicate that to him.

Chris Strachwitz:               Let’s dedicate this new number to him. Thanks Clifton Chenier, we’ll see you soon.

A Note About the Transcriptions: In order to expedite the process of putting these interviews online, we are using a transcription service. Due to the challenges of transcribing speech – especially when it contains regional accents and refers to regional places and names – some of these interview transcriptions may contain errors. We have tried to correct as many as possible, but if you discover errors while listening, please send corrections to info@arhoolie.org

Chris Strachwitz:

I don’t you tell us your birthday, first of all?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I was born in 1925.

Chris Strachwitz:

1925. What is your birthday?

Clifton Chenier:

My birthday would be June 25th.

Chris Strachwitz:

June 25th. And where were you born?

Clifton Chenier:

Opelousas, Louisiana.

Chris Strachwitz:

In Opelousas. Were you born in town or were you raised outside of that?

Clifton Chenier:

Well I was raised up kind of in the country.

Chris Strachwitz:

Were your parents working on a place or did they have their own?

Clifton Chenier:

We were on a farm then.

Chris Strachwitz:

You were on a farm. What sort of work would your parents do. All kinds of-

Clifton Chenier:

All kinds of work. Like pick cotton and dig sweet potatoes.

Chris Strachwitz:

What did they raise down in that part mostly?

Clifton Chenier:

Cotton, sweet potatoes and so on, beans and stuff.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did your folks play music too, your relatives?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, my daddy used to be an accordion player in his days.

Chris Strachwitz:

What was his first name?

Clifton Chenier:

Joseph Chenier.

Chris Strachwitz:

Joseph Chenier.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

And did you learn quite a bit of it from him, or?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, yeah, I used to follow him around when I was a little bitty boy, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

What kind of accordion did you have when you first?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I had a piano accordion but small, 12 bass.

Chris Strachwitz:

It was right off, but you never played them old French accordions?

Clifton Chenier:

No, my daddy used to play them, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Your father played it?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

Right. What sort of songs do you remember him singing? Can you remember any particular songs?

Clifton Chenier:

Call, yeah. He used to play songs like A La Danser, … [inaudible French song 00:01:41], and Two Steps. Stuff like that. It’s kind of hard to remember way back but, that’s what he used to play, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

All right. When would he play mostly. He wouldn’t be playing in beer joints like you do now?

Clifton Chenier:

No, at that time they used to have dances in houses. House parties.

Chris Strachwitz:

House parties?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

How would you arrange that? Did somebody just empty out their house or something?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, they moved the bed out of one of the room into another and then they dance in that room see, and they get together right there.

Chris Strachwitz:

And would somebody sell liquor or sell food or anything like that?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, no, they have gumbos and things. Big gumbos, stuff like that. Candies, stuff like that. Sometimes they had liquor, but…

Chris Strachwitz:

When did you first hear of blues as you can remember, because I don’t think your father played blues did he much?

Clifton Chenier:

No.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did he play mostly all that French music, didn’t he?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, he mostly played French music. Well, that’s kind of hard to say, it’s been so long. But, when I first started out playing accordion, I started out in Lake Charles.

Chris Strachwitz:

In Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Louisiana. Well, then we played around, me and my brother for about six years.

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you happen to know how old your brother is?

Clifton Chenier:

Cleveland?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Cleveland’s 45.

Margaret:

He’s 45 Monday-

Clifton Chenier:

Cleveland’s 45.

Chris Strachwitz:

He’s 45?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

So he was just… He was born May, what is it-

Margaret:

I don’t know but it’s May.

Chris Strachwitz:

10th?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, May 10th.

Margaret:

It was the day before yesterday.

Chris Strachwitz:

May 10th.

Clifton Chenier:

May 10th.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you both leave home together or, and how long did it take for you to get to Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, he left home before me.

Chris Strachwitz:

And he went to Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative). And I went and met him, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

And you went there to meet him?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

But you were already pretty good on the accordion when you-

Clifton Chenier:

No, I learnt that right out of Lake Charles.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, you learned in Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you have any idea roughly when this was, what year that you?

Clifton Chenier:

That was in 19-

Margaret:

We were married in ’45 and that’s when you started to learn, right after we got married.

Clifton Chenier:

That was about ’46.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, I see, you only started then, to play?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, after I married.

Chris Strachwitz:

I see. Did you play any other instruments before you started that?

Clifton Chenier:

No.

Chris Strachwitz:

But you do remember your father playing those French numbers?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Right, that’s quite interesting.

Clifton Chenier:

And I kept them in mind, see, and I just figured one day they would come in handy.

Chris Strachwitz:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So you went to Lake Charles, where did you meet your wife?

Clifton Chenier:

I met her-

Chris Strachwitz:

Margaret.

Clifton Chenier:

In Loreauville, Louisiana.

Chris Strachwitz:

In where?

Clifton Chenier:

Loreauville, Louisiana-

Chris Strachwitz:

Loreauville, Louisiana.

Clifton Chenier:

Loreauville, Iberia.

Chris Strachwitz:

Was that before you came to Lake Charles?

Margaret:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Before you came to Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. We were cutting cane then.

Chris Strachwitz:

You were cutting cane?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

You would do almost all kinds of field work in Louisiana?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

How did they harvest rice? Did you ever work in the rice fields?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. They just spread them out on the ground and they just-

Chris Strachwitz:

Did you have to tear them out of the water?

Clifton Chenier:

Just put them out on the ground, just turn the water on them and then they grow like that.

Chris Strachwitz:

But you can’t remember what… What really made you decide that you wanted to take music up, that you wanted to start playing accordion?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I always wanted to be a musician, see. And-

Margaret:

Tell him how you used to go play in the garage at night.

Clifton Chenier:

See when I first started out, well my mother used to run me all out in the barn, wouldn’t let me play in the house at all. So I’d go lock myself up in my daddy’s car, see, and wind the glass up.

Chris Strachwitz:

Would you play your father’s accordion?

Clifton Chenier:

No, I had one.

Chris Strachwitz:

You already had one?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I’d get all in the car in this, until I learned.

Chris Strachwitz:

Were there any particular records or musicians that you heard, that you liked, that you felt that you wanted to be like?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, yeah at that time they had a fella at home they called him Izeb Laza.

Chris Strachwitz:

What’s is name?

Clifton Chenier:

Izeb Laza

Chris Strachwitz:

Izeb Laza?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative). That’s his name.

Chris Strachwitz:

That’s the strangest thing I ever heard.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right.

Chris Strachwitz:

What did he play?

Clifton Chenier:

He was playing the piano accordion. He’s the first one started playing the piano accordion at home, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

What sort of… Was he a French colored man?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Where do you think that name came from?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I don’t know, well that’s his name.

Chris Strachwitz:

You don’t have any idea how one would spell that, do you?

Clifton Chenier:

No, I wouldn’t know how to spell that. I know it’s Izeb Laza-

Chris Strachwitz:

Margaret, would you have any idea how you-

Margaret:

No-

Chris Strachwitz:

Well I’ll just have to make some kind of… And he played around there?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. He was famous at that time, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Was he in Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Lake Charles, round Opelousas, around.

Chris Strachwitz:

Remember I mentioned this fellas name Amede Ardoin, the other day?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you remember hearing some of his records?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh yeah. Years ago, I was a little bitty boy then.

Chris Strachwitz:

Is that right?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

What did people think of him when they heard his records?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh well at that time it was pretty rough. He was the first colored man who’s playing blues on accordion, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

But, I mean, they knew that he was a colored man in contrast to all the other people who made Cajun music, who were mostly white fellows?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, he was different.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did he have a different sound to him?

Clifton Chenier:

Different sound, different style, everything.

Chris Strachwitz:

Is that right?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Well besides this man that you mention is now, I can’t pronounce it now, Izeb, what’s his name?

Clifton Chenier:

Izeb Laza.

Chris Strachwitz:

Huh?

Clifton Chenier:

Izeb Laza.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, besides him, who else did you?

Clifton Chenier:

Oh, I loved a bunch of them. I love some of them.

Chris Strachwitz:

Who you like to hear, listen to.

Clifton Chenier:

Jesse Reynolds, I know. A cousin of his called Zozo Reynolds.

Chris Strachwitz:

What?

Clifton Chenier:

Zozo Reynolds.

Chris Strachwitz:

Zozo Reynolds.

Clifton Chenier:

Yes, that’s a rough name.

Chris Strachwitz:

That’s wild.

Clifton Chenier:

And then I know, they had another called [Ninnia 00:08:32] Reynolds, they was all kin folks, see. Then I know, they had an accordion player called Sidney Babineaux.

Chris Strachwitz:

Sidney Babineaux? I met him, he’s a very old man now.

Clifton Chenier:

Old man, yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

He lives in Rayne.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, you met him?

Chris Strachwitz:

That’s right. Oh, you heard of him?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, I know him real well. But there’s a bunch of others, but they were the best.

Chris Strachwitz:

At that time you were still playing pretty much just that French music, were you? Or were you playing some of that modern-

Clifton Chenier:

Well, see I wasn’t playing much at that time, I was just learning then.

Chris Strachwitz:

Just learning?

Clifton Chenier:

I used to go round with them a lot and listen to them play. Ain’t nobody learnt me, I learned on my own see. I learnt my own self, ain’t nobody show me-

Chris Strachwitz:

And when do you think you first put in a little bit of that blues stuff, you know that rhythm and blues?

Clifton Chenier:

Well I tell you the first number I ever learnt on accordion was The Honeydripper.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh is that right?

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right, remember when The Honeydripper.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, Joe Liggins.

Clifton Chenier:

Well that’s the first record I learnt. I mean it was hitting at that time.

Chris Strachwitz:

It was kind of a boogie number?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. And then I started from there.

Chris Strachwitz:

I see. But when did you make your first record? How did that come about?

Clifton Chenier:

Well-

Chris Strachwitz:

How did you run into Fulbright, or did he run into you?

Clifton Chenier:

Fulbright met me way down in the woods, deep down over there, way out in the woods. We was playing in a club out there and he drove up and he walked in there and I looked at him, I said, “Who is this man there?” Til he told me, he said, “You playing too much accordion to be out in them woods.” So, I said, “Well, I guess that’s where I belong. I live here.” He said, “Well, why don’t you come up to California?” So I said, “No, you ain’t getting me that far.” So, it took about Fulbright five years to get me out of the woods back then.

Chris Strachwitz:

But he took you to Houston to make the first record?

Clifton Chenier:

No, we made the first record in Lake Charles, a studio in Lake Charles.

Chris Strachwitz:

In Lake Charles.

Clifton Chenier:

In Lake Charles yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Was that Eddie Shuler’s place?

Clifton Chenier:

KAOK.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, a radio station?

Clifton Chenier:

KAOK? Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

KAOK?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah-

Chris Strachwitz:

That isn’t in Lake Charles.

Clifton Chenier:

No, yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

That’s in Baton Rouge.

Clifton Chenier:

KAOK? Yeah, that’s where the station is in Lake Charles.

Chris Strachwitz:

KAOK radio station.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s KAOK. Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

Maybe so. Who was on that, do you remember the guys were that played with you?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, I had my uncle, Morris Chenier.

Chris Strachwitz:

Morris, what did he play on that session?

Clifton Chenier:

He played fiddle.

Chris Strachwitz:

He played fiddle on that session?

Clifton Chenier:

And I had another boy on drum named Pete [Robert Pete].

Chris Strachwitz:

Pete?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

What was his last name, do you remember?

Clifton Chenier:

I forgot his last name.

Chris Strachwitz:

Who was on guitar, do you remember?

Clifton Chenier:

We ain’t had no guitar. Right then wait, it had-

Chris Strachwitz:

Are you sure?

Clifton Chenier:

We had a boy named [Coulou 00:11:35].

Chris Strachwitz:

[Coulou 00:11:35].

Clifton Chenier:

Funny name, ain’t it. But he was on guitar. But he’s from Tallulah, Louisiana.

Chris Strachwitz:

And who’s the drummer, do you remember?

Clifton Chenier:

That’s what I’m telling you, his name was Pete.

Chris Strachwitz:

Pete was on drums. But there were some more guys in that band. There was-

Clifton Chenier:

No, not then.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

That’s all I had.

Chris Strachwitz:

Cliston’s Blues, and Louisiana-

Clifton Chenier:

Louisiana Stomp, Cliston’s Blues, Louisiana Stomp it wasn’t but me, accordion, a guitar and drums.

Chris Strachwitz:

What is your uncle’s full name, the one that played the fiddle?

Clifton Chenier:

Morris Chenier.

Chris Strachwitz:

Morris Chenier?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

And he lives in Lake Charles?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

And from then, I guess, that record sold pretty well around here?

Clifton Chenier:

Well what it did was it gave me a name, see. I was playing and people said, “Well, that old boy sure can play nice.” But I ain’t had no name, see. But after I recorded the record, well it gave me a name, really. That’s been-

Chris Strachwitz:

And when did you leave Lake Charles to come to Houston?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I left Lake Charles and went on to Port Arthur.

Chris Strachwitz:

Went to Port Arthur?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, then I started working in Port Arthur at the Gulf Refinery.

Chris Strachwitz:

Oh, you worked at Gulf Refinery?

Clifton Chenier:

Texaco Company too, I worked both of them. I worked at the Gulf Refinery a long time then I worked at the Texaco Company a long time. But when I quit working, I was at the Gulf-

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you remember what year that was when you went to Port Arthur, do you?

Clifton Chenier:

That was 195-

Margaret:

That was the year of-

Clifton Chenier:

’57, ain’t it?

Margaret:

’56, ’57, that’s right.

Clifton Chenier:

No-

Chris Strachwitz:

’57 you went to Port Arthur?

Clifton Chenier:

No, ’47.

Margaret:

No.

Louis Candy:

’47.

Margaret:

’47.

Chris Strachwitz:

You mean in ’45 you came to Lake-

Margaret:

No, no, no. We married in ’45.

Chris Strachwitz:

You married-

Clifton Chenier:

’47.

Margaret:

…[inaudible crosstalk 00:13:30] in ’45 and come to Port Arthur in 47.

Chris Strachwitz:

’47 you went to Port-

Clifton Chenier:

’47 yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

And how long did you stay there, do you remember, roughly?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, I worked from ’47 up to ’54.

Chris Strachwitz:

’54?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

And you were just doing music on the weekends or something, on the side?

Clifton Chenier:

I would work and play, see. And then when I started out professionally in ’55, that’s when Ay Tete Fee come out-

Chris Strachwitz:

In ’55 Ay Tete-?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. And that’s why I started out professionally, out on the road.

Chris Strachwitz:

Where did you first go when they first signed you up to go on some of these shows? Do you remember where your first tour went to?

Clifton Chenier:

The first tour was California.

Margaret:

[inaudible 00:14:16].

Clifton Chenier:

California, 5-4 Ballroom, California.

Chris Strachwitz:

Were you, were some other groups on the same show?

Clifton Chenier:

No, not then.

Chris Strachwitz:

Not then?

Clifton Chenier:

No, I was by myself. Then we toured California and come on back up to Chicago, New York, all up in there. Florida, yeah we picked up Etta James in Florida. Etta James started with us in Florida. That was in about ’57.

Chris Strachwitz:

’57. And I guess none of your records after that sold, I mean were as popular as Ay Tete Fee, were they? They kind of slowed down after that, didn’t they?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, My Soul sold a whole lot.

Chris Strachwitz:

My Soul?

Margaret:

And then the thing you did for-

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, I had another one, All The Things I Did For You, that was a hit too, see. Very last record. But Ay Tete Fee well-

Chris Strachwitz:

That was the best?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

But your wife was still in Port Arthur at this time when you were on the road?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah she was still in Port Arthur.

Chris Strachwitz:

And-

Clifton Chenier:

She took a few trips with us up to California.

Chris Strachwitz:

And when did she move to Houston?

Margaret:

… in ’58.

Clifton Chenier:

We came here in ’58.

Chris Strachwitz:

’58?

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

And was it because, a lot of people who liked your music, I have a feeling came here during the war, didn’t they, from Louisiana? A lot of people settled here in Houston that liked this kind of music?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, that’s all they got here now is Louisiana. Whole city of Houston mostly is Louisiana now.

Chris Strachwitz:

A lot of people used to do farm work there, came here to work?

Clifton Chenier:

They’re all here now. That’s right, they’re all working in the factories and stuff.

Chris Strachwitz:

And then since then you’ve played a lot all through the South?

Margaret:

[inaudible 00:16:20]

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, I’ve been playing all through the South since then.

Chris Strachwitz:

Down to Florida and to, and you still play a good deal in Louisiana, don’t you? You spend most of your-

Clifton Chenier:

Oh yeah, well we just got out of Florida-

Chris Strachwitz:

Fans are.

Clifton Chenier:

Well we just got out of Florida, it was a week down in Florida, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you think you could add something to this? Well when did you meet your manager, what is his name anyway?

Clifton Chenier:

Louis Candy.

Chris Strachwitz:

Candy, what is your last name?

Louis Candy:

Louis Candy.

Clifton Chenier:

Louis Candy.

Chris Strachwitz:

Louis Candy, that’s your real name. Oh, I see. When did you meet him?

Clifton Chenier:

I met Candy it was in ’55.

Louis Candy:

’55.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah. He had just got off the road with Ray Charles when I met him.

Chris Strachwitz:

He was the, you were the bass player with a lot of these package shows?

Louis Candy:

Lowell Fulson and Ray Charles, Lloyd Glenn.

Clifton Chenier:

And he started out with us, you see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Did he, did you play bass with Clifton for a while, or did you?

Clifton Chenier:

He played in ’55, ’59.

Louis Candy:

Up to ’59.

Clifton Chenier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). And then-

Chris Strachwitz:

Do you still play sometimes?

Louis Candy:

Sometimes … [inaudible 00:17:44]

Chris Strachwitz:

I imagine you know a lot of music here having heard all of this, everything from Big Jay McNeely on down to down and out blues?

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Louis Candy:

Because most of them I ever worked with was them bluesy players, there’s just something that the rest of the bands haven’t got, that accordion really stands out, it gives you a feeling. It’s a funny groove. A lot different from the rest of them.

Chris Strachwitz:

Very unique sound. I think people will certainly hear that when they hear that record. Especially a French blues that’s something else.

Clifton Chenier:

You like the French blues huh?

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah.

Clifton Chenier:

They stuck all that French blues in. Well I’m working on some more, I guess by the time them play out well I’ll have some new ones. Cause I’m learning something here, see.

Chris Strachwitz:

Well let’s certainly get a little bit about some of the guys that play with you. They’re mostly younger fellows, I guess are they? Did they learn this music since they heard you?

Clifton Chenier:

Well, no, they from Louisiana, see. I got Robert, he’s from Lafayette, he’s on drums and I got Cleveland Keyes, he’s from Jennings on guitar. And I got Fulton, he’s from Rayne, he’s on bass. They’re all from Louisiana-

Chris Strachwitz:

Where’s Elmore Nixon from? Do you know where he’s from?

Clifton Chenier:

Elmore Nixon’s from Rayne, Louisiana.

Chris Strachwitz:

Is that right?

Clifton Chenier:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Chris Strachwitz:

Of course, he can play all kinds of music, I remember he had said.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah, he play anything.

Chris Strachwitz:

Yeah, he’s a very versatile pianist. Well so is your group, your band actually can play anything you wanted to. I assume your very versatile, everything from rock and roll to blues-

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right.

Chris Strachwitz:

And your French music as well.

Clifton Chenier:

Yeah.

Chris Strachwitz:

I guess you have to do that to keep in a popular vein, don’t you because all French music you probably couldn’t get away with just that in some places?

Clifton Chenier:

That’s right. You see some areas, they don’t know what French is, you see, but if you can get up in an area where French at and then play it well, you got it made a little, but see that deep down in Florida, well they don’t know what French is, see. But that’s the South but still they don’t know what it is.

Chris Strachwitz:

But when you play that Ay Tete Fee down there-

Clifton Chenier:

They know that number, yeah. They know that.

Chris Strachwitz:

It’s such a peppy thing anyway.

Clifton Chenier:

They just want to know what Ay Tete Fee is-

Chris Strachwitz:

I think this is why you- it’s like Jolie Blonde caught on and crossed over because people didn’t understand all of what you said but, once they hear it, it’s such a catchy kind of music.

Clifton Chenier:

And Ay Tete Fee is Hey Little Girl, see. But they tried to figure that out, they didn’t know what that word meant, but they know when I sing.