C.J. Chenier, son of award-winning “King of Zydeco” Clifton Chenier, is coming to Maui with the Red Hot Louisiana Band for a Mardi Gras performance at Mulligan’s on Friday. “It’s dance music, and it’s always been that way,” C.J. Chenier said of zydeco. JOHN LOREAUX Photography
Returning to Maui to play Mulligan’s on the Blue on Friday, C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band can always guarantee a great night of party music. These kings of zydeco cook up an irresistible spicy stew of blues and New Orleans boogie that packs dance floors.
Zydeco is best appreciated in a live club atmosphere where you can get swept up in its driving rhythms and exuberant accordion improvisation.
“It’s happy feet music that makes your feet happy and makes you smile,” Chenier explained. “It’s dance music, and it’s always been that way. It crosses all age barriers. It’s party music.”
Accounts of their past concerts are proof of that.
“From the first notes of ‘Zydeco Cha Cha,’ a great swath of the audience migrated toward the front of the stage to shake, shimmy and waltz depending on the rhythm magic set by the band,” noted the Buffalo News. “The kinetic energy onstage was infectious.”
A Columbus Dispatch review praised: “Not only did Chenier’s band ride the groove laid down by bass and drums but it made it dizzying with tambourine, congas and the hypnotic strumming of the genre’s secret weapon, the washboard.”
The music has had the same effect on Chenier as it does on audiences.
“Even before I started playing zydeco, I used to listen to my dad play, and I didn’t understand what he was playing, but I was always tapping my feet and bobbing my head,” Chenier recalled.
Hailed by Living Blues magazine as the “best living zydeco singer and accordionist,” Chenier works hard to get a joint jumping, having been schooled by the undisputed king of zydeco, his father Clifton Chenier, who posthumously received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy award in 2014.
Zydeco is largely the creation of Clifton Chenier. Over the course of 40 years, this accordion great recorded over 100 albums introducing the world to this vibrant, blues-based roots music.
“Blues and zydeco are kissing cousins,” the younger Chenier noted. “They always went together. My daddy was a bluesman.”
Apart from exhilarating accordion playing, zydeco attracts people with its percussive underlay created by the rhythmic brushing of a metal washboard. This instrument, known as a rubboard, or frottoir in Louisiana, is hung around the neck and resembles a washboard without a frame.
Raised by his mother in Port Arthur, Texas, Chenier grew up hardly knowing his father or zydeco music. As a teenager, he played saxophone in a Top 40 band influenced by the R&B of James Brown and groups like Kool and the Gang. At 20, he was surprised to get a call from his father inviting him to play saxophone with his Red Hot Louisiana Band.
“It was a big surprise,” he recalled about the invitation. “That was the last thing I expected. I was unemployed at that time, walking around with holes in my jeans. I wanted to play music, but because of where I was from, everyone was working at the refineries. So it was a blessing when my dad called. I came from nothing and got a crash course.”
As Clifton Chenier’s health declined, he introduced his son to the accordion, and C.J. would sometimes front the band. He became the leader of the Red Hots, after his father died in 1987, and established his own reputation as a gifted accordion player.
Happy to be back touring after the pandemic, he said, “staying home don’t mix with me. I’m a road dog.”
On his most recent album, the Grammy-nominated “Can’t Sit Down,” described in the liner notes as “high energy dance music that permeates the joints and muscles, causing involuntary twitches,” Chenier interprets Tom Waits’ “Clap Hands,” blues legend John Lee Hooker’s “Dusty Road” and Curtis Mayfield’s “We Gotta Have Peace.”
“Tom Waits’ ‘Clap Hands’ is about a thousand miles away from the way I did it,” he said. “And I grew up on Curtis Mayfield. You got to have peace at that particular time, and I didn’t know it still fit today. It fitted then, and it fits now. We’re still looking for peace.”
C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band play a Mardi Gras 2023 celebration at Mulligan’s on the Blue on Friday. Doors open at 5 p.m., with the show at 7 p.m. The Tempa & Naor Project with Willy Wainwright will open from 5 to 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 and $55 for Gold Circle tables. Tickets and information are available at www.bluesbearhawaii.com or by calling (808) 896-4845.
C.J. Chenier, son of award-winning “King of Zydeco” Clifton Chenier, is coming to Maui with the Red Hot Louisiana Band for a Mardi Gras performance at Mulligan’s on Friday. “It’s dance music, and it’s always been that way,” C.J. Chenier said of zydeco. JOHN LOREAUX PhotographyToday's breaking news and more in your inbox
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