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Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: ProfessorWolf ()
Date: June 5, 2025 00:51

Quote
Lien
Two Dancers , @Francis X. Pavy, 1985


Francis X. Pavy is a painter and mixed-media artist known for retelling the traditional stories and folklore of South Louisiana through a visual vocabulary of mystic iconography and vibrant colors. Pavy’s career as an artist began as a ceramist before working in glass for many years, eventually transitioning to brush painting, mixed media, and block printing. Common themes in his work include Cajun and Creole music, folk-mysticism, and the native flora and fauna of the Gulf Coast. Francis’ work is represented in galleries around the United States and his work is held in national and international collections.




[shop.pavy.com]

wow it's from 1985

so it's not so much that it looks like voodoo lounge as much voodoo lounge looks like it

interesting

thanks for looking that up

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: plusplusjames ()
Date: June 5, 2025 22:48

So, do we know when and where this was recorded? And most importantly, did they record anything else at the sessions? What happened to Steve Jordan?

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: Irix ()
Date: June 6, 2025 12:15

Quote
plusplusjames

So, do we know when and where this was recorded?

From [StonesSessions.com] - Appendix Session List (Revision History):

"Possible Session work and recording for Various Artists album A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco (Clifton Chenier) including one track Rolling Stones with Steve Riley - Zydeco Sont Pas Salés – late December 2024 Hit Factory, New York, USA."

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: Lien ()
Date: June 6, 2025 12:23

Quote
plusplusjames
So, do we know when and where this was recorded? And most importantly, did they record anything else at the sessions? What happened to Steve Jordan?


Probably ;

[www.instagram.com]

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: Irix ()
Date: June 6, 2025 13:20


These were two IG-Stories from 5-Jun-2025 by ccadcockcrows where you could hear a guitar solo playing:


"A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: bye bye johnny ()
Date: June 7, 2025 22:33




Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: wineaux ()
Date: June 8, 2025 17:59

Never had the chance to see Clifton, but have been so fortunate to see CJ play numerous times in and around Chicago. And he'll be performing at the Chicago Blues Fest this afternoon followed by no other than Mavis Staplessmiling bouncing smiley! It's going to be another great day in the Blues Capital of the World!

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: Cristiano Radtke ()
Date: June 10, 2025 19:05



June 25th marks one hundred years since the birth of the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier. To celebrate, we’re releasing the first-ever box set devoted to the visionary artist, and a limited edition vinyl 7” featuring The Rolling Stones covering Chenier, both available for pre-order now.

Coming November 14th, ‘Clifton Chenier: King of Louisiana Blues and Zydeco,’ a 4-CD/6-LP box set produced by Adam Machado, the GRAMMY-winning writer and Executive Director of the Arhoolie Foundation, presents unreleased live material from the Foundation’s archive and a chronology of Chenier’s landmark work with Arhoolie and other labels. The set is the first release on Arhoolie Records since the label became a part of Smithsonian Folkways and includes a 160-page book with photos, track notes, and essays by Machado, Nick Spitzer, Herman Fuselier, and C.J. Chenier. A recording of the song “Mr. Charlie,” broadcast live on KSAN in San Francisco in 1971, is out digitally today.

On June 27th, Smithsonian Folkways, Arhoolie, and Valcour Records will release a 7” record featuring a new recording of Chenier’s signature tune “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” by The Rolling Stones, produced by CC Adcock. Mick Jagger, who has been a lifelong fan of Chenier since seeing him perform live in 1965, sings entirely in French, Keith Richards provides his signature rhythm guitar, while Ronnie Wood contributes lead guitar parts, combining their talents to bring a rock and roll edge to the zydeco classic. The recording also includes Cajun accordionist Steve Riley and longtime Chenier drummer Robert St. Julien.

On the single’s flip side is Chenier’s version from his 1965 sessions with Arhoolie founder Chris Strachwitz, which offers a contrasting take on the rollicking shuffle heard on his debut album. The Rolling Stones’ track also appears on the upcoming Valcour compilation ‘A Tribute to the King of Zydeco.’

The Rolling Stones have designated the Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship Fund as the recipient of the royalties from this recording. Sales from this 7” benefit Smithsonian Folkways’ nonprofit mission to preserve the legacy of Clifton Chenier and Arhoolie Records. 

[www.instagram.com

"A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: bye bye johnny ()
Date: June 11, 2025 22:35

From artist Francis Pavy:

Big news and big gratitude!

I’m beyond thrilled to share that my Dancers image is featured on the cover of a brand-new 45 rpm record by The Rolling Stones and Clifton Chenier, released by Smithsonian Folkways on the iconic Arhoolie label.

This is one of those full-circle moments.

I've been listening to the Rolling Stones since 1964, when I first heard Not Fade Away on the radio. I was just a kid, and I knew right away—that wasn’t Buddy Holly. That sound had a different kind of fire. Then came Time Is on My Side, Satisfaction, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man, Gimme Shelter, Sympathy for the Devil, Tumbling Dice... and on and on. Like so many others, their music became part of my creative bloodstream.

At the same time, right here in Louisiana, I was discovering Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco. I remember seeing him downtown during Mardi Gras, and later at so many bars, honky tonks, and dance halls across South Louisiana. Clifton brought French Creole soul to the stage with his red-hot accordion, and when he played, you had to dance. You could feel it in your bones. I went to see him every chance I got, and dance we did!

Fast forward to today—many paintings, drawings, and record covers later—and I find myself lucky enough to be part of this historic release that bridges musical giants: the raw power of the Stones and the unstoppable groove of Clifton Chenier.

Huge thanks to CC Adcock, who made this happen through sheer force of will, talent, hustle, and charm. The guy’s a legend in his own right, and he got this one across the finish line.

Even more meaningful—this record is being released in support of the Clifton Chenier Scholarship Fund at UL Lafayette (@ullafayette), helping to carry on Clifton’s legacy and support the next generation of Louisiana talent.

Also make sure you check out the tribute tribute record of Clifton songs recorded by The Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Taj Majal, Steve Earle, and more on Valcour Records. you can buy it here:
[www.valcourrecords.com]

To be associated with this project is a true honor.



[www.facebook.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-11 22:35 by bye bye johnny.

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Date: June 12, 2025 20:08

I'm reviewing this album for the magazine Songlines (world and folk mag) and I can say that the Stones cut is fast, spiky, rollin', vuttin', lean and hugely enjoyable - a shaker and a mover - accordion guitar harmonica mash ups.... Mick in French. KInda only hear Keith on guitar but may well be wrong there as Ron is deffo in the credits.

New Single
Posted by: Barkerboy2 ()
Date: June 11, 2025 18:50

[www.roughtrade.com]

This limited edition 7" single features The Rolling Stones' raucous version of the song on the South side. On the North side is a version from Chenier's 1965 sessions with Arhoolie founder Chris Strachwitz, offering a contrasting take on the rollicking shuffle heard on his debut album.

Out 27th June smiling smiley
Limited Edition



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-11 18:56 by Barkerboy2.

Re: Vinyl-Single 'Zydeco Sont Pas Salés'
Posted by: Irix ()
Date: June 11, 2025 19:05

7" Vinyl-Single: [iorr.org] .

Re: New Single
Posted by: frankotero ()
Date: June 11, 2025 19:45

hells bells, my heart just skipped a beat. Thought it was a song from the "soon to drop album".

Re: New Single
Posted by: Glimmerest ()
Date: June 11, 2025 20:40

Quote
frankotero
hells bells, my heart just skipped a beat. Thought it was a song from the "soon to drop album".

Omg same

Re: New Single
Posted by: slewan ()
Date: June 11, 2025 20:48

for a second I thought they did what they ought to do – dropping a new song from their forthcoming album without advance notice

Re: New Single
Posted by: Big Al ()
Date: June 11, 2025 21:29

Meh! I’ll hang on ‘till it’s an actual Stones single.

Re: New Single
Posted by: maumau ()
Date: June 11, 2025 22:11

A clickbait title on a thread that covers a subject that has already its own thread is not the best practice here on BV's forum. I would suggest a correction



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-11 22:13 by maumau.

Re: New Single
Posted by: Munichhilton ()
Date: June 11, 2025 23:36

The old clickbait and clickswitch...I love it

Re: New Single
Posted by: Rockman ()
Date: June 12, 2025 00:02

new single .... what's her name ?????????



ROCKMAN

Re: New Single
Posted by: Barkerboy2 ()
Date: June 12, 2025 13:05

Sorry, but I'm not sure why this would be considered clickbait confused smiley
This is a new single by The Rolling Stones, which I assumed people would be interested in...
I hadn't realised there was an existing thread - my apologies!

"A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: bye bye johnny ()
Date: June 16, 2025 01:17

The Rolling Stones Play Zydeco

How the legendary rock band discovered the music of Clifton Chenier

By Reya Hart
June 15, 2025



Illustration by Jan Robert Dünnweller. Sources: Edd Westmacott / Alamy; Paul Natkin / Getty.

The story I’d heard was that Mick Jagger bought his first Clifton Chenier record in the late 1960s, at a store in New York’s Greenwich Village. But when we talked this spring, Jagger told me he didn’t do his record shopping in the Village. It would have been Colony Records in Midtown, he said, “the biggest record store in New York, and it had the best selection.” Jagger was in his 20s, not far removed from a suburban-London boyhood spent steeping in the American blues. I pictured him eagerly leafing through Chess Records LPs and J&M 45s until he came across a chocolate-brown 12-inch record—Chenier’s 1967 album Bon Ton Roulet!

On the cover, a young Chenier holds a 25-pound accordion the length of his torso, a big, mischievous smile on his face. Bon Ton Roulet! is a classic zydeco album showcasing the Creole dance music of Southwest Louisiana, which blends traditional French music, Caribbean rhythms, and American R&B. This was different from the Delta and Chicago blues that Jagger and his Rolling Stones bandmates had grown up with and emulated on their own records. Although sometimes taking the form of slower French waltzes, zydeco is more up-tempo—it’s party music—and features the accordion and the rubboard, a washboard hooked over the shoulders and hung across the body like a vest. Until he discovered zydeco, Jagger recalled, “I’d never heard the accordion in the blues before.”

Chenier was born in 1925 in Opelousas, Louisiana, the son of a sharecropper and accordion player named Joseph Chenier, who taught his son the basics of the instrument. Clifton’s older brother, Cleveland, played the washboard and later the rubboard. Clifton had commissioned an early prototype of the rubboard in the 1940s from a metalworker in Port Arthur, Texas, where he illustrated his vision by drawing the design in the dirt, creating one of a handful of instruments native to the United States and forever changing the percussive sound of Creole music.

Within a few years, the brothers were performing at impromptu house dances in Louisiana living rooms. They’d begin playing on the porch until a crowd assembled, then go inside, pushing furniture against the walls to create a makeshift dance hall. Eventually, they worked their way through the chitlin circuit, a network of venues for Black performers and audiences. They played Louisiana dance halls where the ceilings hung so low that Cleveland could push his left hand flat to the ceiling to stretch his back out without ever breaking the rhythm of what he was playing with his right.

Influenced by rock-and-roll pioneers such as Fats Domino, Chenier incorporated new elements into his music. As he told one interviewer, “I put a little rock into this French music.” With the help of Lightnin’ Hopkins, a cousin by marriage, Chenier signed a deal with Arhoolie Records. By the late ’60s, he and his band were regularly playing tours that stretched across the country, despite the insistence from segregationist promoters that zydeco was a Black sound for Black audiences. He started playing churches and festivals on the East and West Coasts, where people who’d never heard the word zydeco were awestruck by Chenier: He’d often arrive onstage in a cape and a velvet crown with bulky costume jewels set in its arches.

Chenier came to be known as the King of Zydeco. He toured Europe; won a Grammy for his 1982 album, I’m Here!?; performed at Carnegie Hall and in Ronald Reagan’s White House; won a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He died in 1987, at age 62.

This fall, the Smithsonian’s preservation-focused Folkways Recordings will release the definitive collection of Chenier’s work: a sprawling box set, 67 tracks in all. And in June, to mark the centennial of Chenier’s birth, the Louisiana-based Valcour Records released a compilation on which musicians who were inspired by Chenier contributed covers of his songs. These include the blues artist Taj Mahal, the singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, the folk troubadour Steve Earle, and the rock band the Rolling Stones.

In 1978, Jagger met Chenier, thanks to a musician and visual artist named Richard Landry.

Landry grew up on a pecan farm in Cecilia, Louisiana, not far from Opelousas. In 1969, he moved to New York and met Philip Glass, becoming a founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, in which he played saxophone. To pay the bills between performances, the two men also started a plumbing business. Eventually, the ensemble was booking enough gigs that they gave up plumbing.

Landry also embarked on a successful visual-art career, photographing contemporaries such as Richard Serra and William S. Burroughs and premiering his work at the Leo Castelli Gallery. He still got back to Louisiana, though, and he’d occasionally sit in with Chenier and his band. (After Landry proved his chops the first time they played together, Chenier affectionately described him as “that white boy from Cecilia who can play the zydeco.”) Landry became a kind of cultural conduit—a link between the avant-garde scene of the North and the Cajun and Creole cultures of the South.

Landry is an old friend; we met more than a decade ago in New Orleans. Sitting in his apartment in Lafayette recently, he told me the story of the night he introduced Jagger to Chenier. As Landry remembers it, he first met Jagger at a Los Angeles house party following a Philip Glass Ensemble performance at the Whisky a Go Go. The next night, as luck would have it, he saw Jagger again, this time out at a restaurant, and they got to talking. At some point in the conversation, “Jagger goes, ‘Your accent. Where are you from?’ I said, ‘I’m from South Louisiana.’ He blurts out, ‘Clifton Chenier, the best band I ever heard, and I’d like to hear him again.’?”

“Dude, you’re in luck,” he told Jagger. Chenier was playing a show at a high school in Watts the following night.

Landry called Chenier: “Cliff, I’m bringing Mick Jagger tomorrow night.”

Chenier responded, “Who’s that?”

“He’s with the Rolling Stones,” Landry tried to explain.

“Oh yeah. That magazine. They did an article on me.”

It seems the Rolling Stones had yet to make an impression on Chenier, but his music had clearly influenced the band, and not just Jagger. The previous year, Rolling Stone had published a feature on the Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood. In one scene, Wood and Keith Richards convene a 3 a.m. jam session at the New York studios of Atlantic Records. On equipment borrowed from Bruce Springsteen, they play “Don’t You Lie to Me”—first the Chuck Berry version, then “Clifton Chenier’s Zydeco interpretation,” as the article described it.

Chenier was in Los Angeles playing what had become an annual show for the Creole community living in the city. The stage was set at the Verbum Dei Jesuit High School gymnasium, by the edge of the basketball court. Jagger was struck by the audience. “They weren’t dressing as other people of their age group,” he told me. “The fashion was completely different. And of course, the dancing was different than you’d normally see in a big city.”

The band was already performing by the time he and Landry arrived. When they walked in, one woman squinted in Jagger’s direction, pausing in a moment of possible recognition, before changing her mind and turning away.

Chenier was at center stage, thick gold rings lining his fingers as they moved across the black and white keys of his accordion, his name embossed in bold block type on its side. Cleveland stood beside him on the rubboard. Robert St. Julien was set up in the back behind a three-piece drum kit—just a bass drum, a snare, and a single cymbal, cracked from the hole in the center out to the very edge.

Jagger took it all in, watching the crowd dance a two-step and thinking, “Oh God, I’m going to have to dance. How am I going to do this dance that they’re all doing??” he recalled. “But I managed somehow to fake it.”

At intermission, a cluster of fans, speaking in excited bursts of Creole French, started moving toward the stage, holding out papers to be autographed. Landry and Jagger were standing nearby. Jagger braced himself, assuming that some of the fans might descend on him. But the crowd moved quickly past them, pressing toward Clifton and Cleveland Chenier.

Before the night was over, Jagger himself had the chance to meet Clifton, but only said a quick hello. “I just didn’t want to hassle him or anything,” he told me. “And I was just enjoying myself being one of the audience.”

The next time Mick Jagger and Richard Landry crossed paths was May 3, 2024: the day after the Rolling Stones performed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. During their set, the Stones had asked the accordion player Dwayne Dopsie, a son of another zydeco artist, Rockin’ Dopsie, to accompany the band on “Let It Bleed.”

A meal was set up at Antoine’s, in the French Quarter, by a mutual friend, the musician and producer C. C. Adcock. Adcock had been working on plans for the Clifton Chenier centennial record for months and was well aware of Jagger’s affection for zydeco. He waited until the meal was over, when everyone was saying their goodbyes, to mention the project to Jagger. “And without hesitation,” Landry recalled, “Mick said, ‘I want to sing something.’?”

As the final addition to the album lineup, the Stones were the last to choose which of Chenier’s songs to record. Looking at the track listing, Jagger noticed that “Zydeco Sont Pas Salé” hadn’t been taken. “Isn’t that, like, the one?” Adcock recalls him saying. “The one the whole genre is named after? If the Stones are gonna do one, shouldn’t we do the one??”

The word zydeco is widely believed to have originated in the French phrase les haricots sont pas salés, which translates to “The snap beans aren’t salty.” Zydeco, according to this theory, is a Creole French pronunciation of les haricots. (The lyrical fragment likely comes from juré, the call-and-response music of Louisiana that predates zydeco; it shows up as early as 1934, on a recording of the singer Wilbur Shaw made in New Iberia, Louisiana.) Many interpretations of the phrase have been offered over the years. The most straightforward is that it’s a metaphorical way of saying “Times are tough.” When money ran short, people couldn’t afford the salt meat that was traditionally cooked with snap beans to season them.

The Stones’ version of “Zydeco Sont Pas Salé” opens with St. Julien, Chenier’s longtime drummer, playing a backbeat with brushes. He’s 77 now, no longer the young man Jagger saw in Watts in 1978. “I quit playing music about 10 years ago, to tell the truth,” he said when we spoke this spring, but you wouldn’t know it by how he sounds on the track. Keith Richards’s guitar part, guttural and revving, meets St. Julien in the intro and builds steadily. The melody is introduced by the accordionist Steve Riley, of the Mamou Playboys, who told me he’d tried to “play it like Clifton—you know, free-form, just from feel.”

It’s strange that it doesn’t feel stranger when Jagger breaks into his vocal, sung in Creole French. His imitation of Chenier is at once spot-on yet unmistakably Jagger.

I asked him how he’d honed his French pronunciation. “I’ve actually tried to write songs in Cajun French before,” he said. “But I’ve never really gotten anywhere.” To get “Zydeco Sont Pas Salé” right, he became a student of the song. “You just listen to what’s been done before you,” he told me. “See how they pronounce it, you know? I mean, yeah, of course it’s different. And West Indian English is different from what they speak in London. I tried to do a job and I tried to do it in the way it was traditionally done—it would sound a bit silly in perfect French.”

Zydeco united musical traditions from around the globe to become a defining sound for one of the most distinct cultures in America. Chenier, the accordionist in the velvet crown, then introduced zydeco to the world, influencing artists across genres.

When I asked Jagger why, at age 81, he had decided to make this recording, he said, “I think the music deserves to be known and the music deserves to be heard.” If the song helps new listeners discover Chenier—to have something like the experience Jagger had when he first dropped the needle on Bon Ton Roulet!—that would be a welcome result. But Jagger stressed that this wasn’t the primary reason he’d covered “Zydeco Sont Pas Salé.” Singing to St. Julien’s beat, Jagger the rock star once again becomes Jagger the Clifton Chenier fan.

“My main thing is just that I personally like it. You know what I mean? That’s my attraction,” he said. “I think that I just did this for the love of it, really.”

[www.theatlantic.com]

[archive.ph]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-20 15:10 by bye bye johnny.

"A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: bye bye johnny ()
Date: June 17, 2025 18:47

Clifton Chenier Was a Music Icon. Mick Jagger and Lucinda Williams Want You to Know Why

The Rolling Stones, Williams, Charley Crockett, and more salute the zydeco accordionist, who would’ve turned 100 this year, on a new tribute album

By David Browne
June 17, 2025


Clifton Chenier in 1984 (Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

A few months ago, Joel Savoy, the Louisiana Cajun musician and label owner, was at a local pressing plant looking over the cover art for a just-finished tribute album to zydeco legend Clifton Chenier. The record already had a high-end roster — from veterans Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle to relative newcomers Charley Crockett and bluegrass picker Molly Tuttle — all singing and playing songs associated with Chenier, his accordion, and his blues-soaked singing. But then Savoy suddenly had to hit pause: The Rolling Stones had finally submitted their contribution, a year after they agreed to participate. Says Savoy, “We had to stop everything and change the cover art.”

“Zydeco is not made for guitar players,” Keith Richards tells Rolling Stone with a phlegmy chuckle. “It’s accordions. It’s made for wind. So, it was a bit of a challenge.”

Chenier, who died in 1987 of diabetes-related kidney disease, would have turned 100 on June 25. To commemorate that number — and help raise awareness of him and his music — Savoy and his co-producer, Los Lobos member Steve Berlin, readied A Tribute to the King of Zydeco. In addition to the Stones, Williams, Crockett, and Tuttle, the album also includes contributions from Taj Mahal, Jimmie Vaughan, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, and John Hiatt, each paired with a Louisiana musician (like accordionist Steve Riley and Chenier’s son CJ) to bolster the local connection. “Crockett turned out to be one of Clifton’s biggest fans,” says Savoy. “Molly wanted to be on the project. Steve Earle wrote to me and said it was the best vocal he’d ever sung.”

Profits from the album will go toward a newly established Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship Fund at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, benefiting students studying zydeco accordion. To cap off the campaign, a first-ever Chenier box set, Clifton Chenier: King of Louisiana Blues and Zydeco, arrives in November.

One of the best-known proponents of zydeco music, along with Buckwheat Zydeco and Rockin’ Dopsie, Chenier (pronounced “Shuh-neer”) seemed destined for crossover. Son of a sharecropper, he worked in construction and rice fields in Texas before devoting himself to music in the late Fifties. He signed to Specialty, the same label as Little Richard, and started making records during those early years of rock & roll. In his case, he modernized zydeco — rooted in accordion and rhythmic instruments like the rub-board and washboard — by way of blues and R&B elements and guitar solos. As he told the late folklorist Chris Strachwitz, “See, what I did, I put a little rock & roll into that zydeco, see. Mixed it up a little bit.”

The work paid off: Specialty singles like “Ay Tete Fee (Hey Little Girl)” and “Boppin’ on the Rock” were regional hits, and other Chenier recordings, like “I’m Coming Home,” “I’m a Hog for You,” and “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés,” became zydeco standards. A showman who sometimes donned crowns onstage and played a rhinestone-studded accordion, he was also on the third-ever episode of Austin City Limits and won a Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording Grammy for his 1982 album I’m Here. “Clifton was playing blues on the accordion,” says Savoy. “Sometimes singing in French, but as blues it was very accessible. Clifton was the gateway drug to Louisiana music.”

“It’s his voice, that real deep, soulful singing voice, which is a form of blues,” says Williams, who contributes a version of “Release Me” (itself a country hit covered by Chenier) with swamp-pop legend Tommy McClain and zydeco accordion player Keith Frank. “It was authentic, and he brought in R&B and soul, which is why I think he appealed to so many different kinds of people in different age groups.”

For some of the artists on the tribute, a love of Chenier’s music dates back decades. Williams, who grew up in Louisiana, actually recalls seeing Chenier play word-of-mouth shows in Houston when she was in her twenties. “It was a hole-in-the-wall place that Clifton would go play about once a month,” she says. “I don’t think they ever advertised it. Only certain people knew about it. It was really intense and magical. I went with a group of friends and we were the only white people in there. People could bring their own setups for making drinks and they had a big bowl of gumbo to feed everybody. People were dancing, I never saw Clifton stop and take a break. It was an education, besides just being really fun and exciting.”

The Stones, who played a version of “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” with Riley, have their own history with Chenier’s music. Mick Jagger recalls buying a Chenier album during an early trip to New York City in the Sixties. “It wasn’t really available in England, so maybe I picked it up when I went to New York and to one of those big stores,” he tells Rolling Stone. “You go into the blues section and see a guy with an accordion and buy it out of interest. It was blues, but an interesting, different kind of blues.”

Later on, Jagger says his friend, saxophonist Richard (Dickie) Landry, took him to a Chenier show at, of all places, a high school in California and had a similar experience to Williams’. “It was a dance at the end of the year or something, and we went to the canteen of this high school,” Jagger says. “All of the audience were Creole-speaking and emigrated to the West Coast. Even though they were teenagers, they liked Clifton and were dancing these French two-steps and knew all these moves. It was like going into another cultural orbit completely. Dickie tells me I met Clifton, who thought I was from Rolling Stone magazine. I’m not sure if that’s really true. But I love that kind of story.”

Jagger, who heard about the Chenier project by way of singer, songwriter, and musician C.C. Adcock, signed up right away. Although he wasn’t sure if Richards or Ron Wood would be up for it, Jagger chose “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” because, he, says, “I thought it’d be more of a groove.” Adcock, who produced the Stones track, says he always considered the Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” “as being kind of similar to a zydeco two-step groove, so I imagined that one when we were making the track bed.”

Savoy, the son of Cajun musicians and authorities Marc and Ann Savoy, admits he isn’t that familiar with the Rolling Stones’ work. “It seems like they’re one of the most famous rock & roll bands ever,” he says. “I guess I’ve heard some of their stuff on the radio, but I didn’t grow up listening to that kind of music at all. I like it, but it’s just not my bag. I play Cajun music.”

What exactly Jagger would be singing would be another matter. The title of the song, which gave birth to the name of the genre, translates as “the snap beans aren’t salty,” and it’s sung in French Creole. “No one really knows what the words are,” Jagger says. “It’s lost in the midst of time. I did a bit of a deeper dive, and maybe it’s about hunting dogs too.”

“The song means a lot of different things,” Savoy says. “You can look at it as a sexual thing or the person not having enough money to put salted meat in the beans, so the beans aren’t salty. It could be anything. But it made sense for the Stones to want to do the namesake song.” (Informed of the translation, Richards himself says, “Basic stuff. He must have meant it, whoever it was.”)

Given the Stones’ schedule, their remake didn’t happen fast. Jagger added harmonica and a French-sung vocal to a bare-bones track featuring Riley on accordion. “I do speak French, so it’s much easier, I suppose, but it’s not same kind of French,” he says. “I’ve tried to write songs in Creole French before, but they never really come off.” Later, Wood added a guitar part before the song went to Richards. “I’m listening to this track and saying, ‘I know that harp player,’” he says, adding slyly. “All of the guys were on it, and when I hear Ronnie, I had to go in, right?”

When the finished track finally arrived a few months ago, at that very last minute, Savoy didn’t hesitate to include it. “When I heard it, I said, ‘It has to be on the record — this is the way the record starts,'” he says. “And I love hearing [Jagger] singing in French.”

In some ways, the timing for both Chenier projects couldn’t be better. Interest in Americana is on the rise, and the soundtrack for Sinners, the hit horror film set in the blues-drenched Mississippi of the Thirties, blends in blues and old-timey songs alongside modern hip-hop. “With the shape of pop music, from what I hear, and all this AI creation, everything sounds the exact same,” say Savoy. “I think a lot of people are turning to Americana and vernacular music to find something that sounds like it’s real.”

Williams herself sees another reason to salute Chenier. “I heard this funny thing that when journalists would come to his house to interview him, he started charging them!” she says. “He’d say, ‘I’m still working when I’m talking to you.’ Apparently one writer showed up at his house and knocked on the door, and Clifton’s wife went to the door and said something like, ‘It’s gonna be…’ and however much they were charging. I was like, ‘Yeah, go for it!’”

[www.rollingstone.com]

[archive.ph]

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: georgelicks ()
Date: June 19, 2025 03:08

30 Seconds Preview for all the tracks available here:

[es.juno.co.uk]

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: ProfessorWolf ()
Date: June 19, 2025 05:20

Quote
georgelicks
30 Seconds Preview for all the tracks available here:

[es.juno.co.uk]

thirty seconds of sheer joysmiling smiley

thank you

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: MadMax ()
Date: June 19, 2025 09:47

Quote
georgelicks
30 Seconds Preview for all the tracks available here:

[es.juno.co.uk]

All of 'em trax sound real good! smileys with beer

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: Lamorinda ()
Date: June 22, 2025 18:02

Nola.com:

This new album featuring The Rolling Stones is a historic blend of music and cultures

[www.nola.com]

Re: "A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: snarf2014 ()
Date: June 22, 2025 18:08

At [www.z1059.com] premiere of The Rolling Stones feat. Steve Riley in the next hour at The Cravins Brothers Zydeco & Info Show.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-22 18:19 by snarf2014.

"A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco" featuring the Stones and more, out June 27
Posted by: bye bye johnny ()
Date: June 22, 2025 19:37

GREAT tune! Thanks for the heads up.

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