Zydeco

The Beginning of Zydeco

In the late 1940's, Louisiana's Creole musicians became inspired by the rhythm and blues and jazz played on radio and juke boxes, so they eliminated the fiddle and brought out the rubboard. From then on, the music of Creoles diverged from Cajun music. Rural Creoles combined La La with the blues and jazz of urban blacks to createtherollicking and syncopated sounds of zydeco.

Rubboard History:
The vest frottoir, or rubboard, helps drive and define the music of traditional rural zydeco bands in Southwest Louisiana. Precursors to the rubboard evolved in Africa and the Caribbean in the form of a scraped animal jaw, a notched stick, and later, a washboard. In the pre-zydeco 1930’s, sheet metal was introduced to Louisiana for roofing and barn siding, and tinsmiths fashioned a metal washboard which Creole musicians adopted for the invention of zydeco music in the late 1940’s.

In 1954, Boozoo Chavis recorded the first modern zydeco song, "Paper in My Shoe," a regional hit. Unfortunately, a royalty dispute provoked Chavis to leave the music industry.

After Chavis left, Clifton Chenier popularized songs such as "Les Haricots Sont Pas Salés" ("The snap beans aren't salty"). This title was a common expression describing times hard enough to provide no salted meat to spice the beans. The French words for "the snap beans," les haricots (pronounced "lay zarico"), became "le zydeco," which named this new musical genre. Clifton Chenier reigned as the "King of Zydeco" with a career lasting 30 years, featuring a Grammy earned in 1984. By the time of his death in 1987, Chenier had brought zydeco to international attention.

Boozoo Chavis returned in the mid-1980's with a series of hits which helped ignite a zydeco revival that continues today. Since the mid-1980's, both zydeco and Cajun music and dance have burst into worldwide popularity.