Way Down In Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco, And Swamp Pop Music

Todd Mouton UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA PRESS £18.83

Spicy spoonfuls from the bubbling gumbo of South Louisiana music.

About a third of this 302-page book concerns the Louis Armstrong of Louisiana accordion, Clifton Chenier: his work on records, descriptions of performances documented in sound or vision, and reminiscences by bandsmen Joe Morris and John Hart, whose speech has a music of its own. According to Mouton, Chenier introduced zydeco music to Europe, but through the ’70s Europe heard much more from Rockin’ Dopsie, a lesser musician but vigorously promoted, whom Mouton mentions chiefly to deplore, rightly, his opportunistic “coronation”, a month after Chenier’s death, as “the new King of Zydeco”. Much of the rest of the book is articles Mouton wrote in the ’90s about local figures from Sonny Landreth and Buckwheat Zydeco to Zachary Richard and Lil’ Band o’ Gold. So this is not the whole histoire of Cajun, zydeco or swamp pop music, but an easy read and a visually enticing one, with around 150 photographs.