If you go to a black, French dance where the music is heavily influenced by rhythm and blues, someone is bound to tell you that, "this guy is all right, but you've got to hear Clifton." The several accordionists who base their music on Clifton's are a competent lot, but the feeling at a Clifton Chenier dance is certainly something that cannot be reproduced easily. 

Richard's Club is a large dance hall between Opelousas and Lawtell where Clifton Chenier plays about twice a month. While in very recent times Chenier has picked up a good number of white, college age fans in Louisiana, the clientele of Richard's are black, with the possible exception of the increasingly ubiquitous New York, Montreal or San Francisco journalist. 

The crowd is considerable before the band begins. Most of the tables already have their set-up of whisky, Seven Up, and a bowl of ice, and the people evidently aren't waiting for the band to begin before they start their second bottles. Imposjngly tall and thin, Clifton enters the back door by the stage where his sidemen have already set up. The dull gleam of a calf length baby seal coat and the golden flash of his smile illuminate the area by the bandstand while he moves among the tables shaking the hands of friends and greeting newcomers. At the sound of music, the hall fills rapidly to overflowing. The floor is packed tightly at the beginning of every number so that the dancers are obliged to jostle and bump each other mercilessly. Everyone is in constant motion including those who, arms upraised, snapping their fingers and jabbing lighted cigarettes in time to the music, choose to remain seated during the performance. 

The dancing becomes fast and frenzied as the evening approaches a climax — someone accidentally steps on an old man's toe and he takes a swing at the offender. The disturbance is quelled rapidly by the big, good natured bouncer who gently convinces the troublemaker that he must be mistaken. 
"I came all the way from Houston tonight to see Clifton," a young man in a bright dashiki said. 
I was amazed. "Boy, people really come from far away to these dances!"
"You bet." 

The posters that advertise Clifton Chenier's performances in Louisiana and Texas are prone to make powerful claims. "King of the Accordion", boasts one; "King of Zydeco", another. One poster unabashedly refers to Clifton as "King of the South," with a photograph of Clifton wearing his crown as proof. Such claims are taken in stride in southwest Louisiana, where radios, televisions and billboards blare out the praises of mobile home kings, seafood kings, and boudin (rice dressing sausage) kings, somewhat muting the message that Clifton really is king.

Fay Stanford