7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7by the live performances of many local Cajun and Creole
musicians, Chenier quickly became a formidable force in
the zydeco tradition.
Chenier left his hometown of Opelousas in his early
20s for Lake Charles in southwestern Louisiana, where
he worked for several years as a truck driver for the nearby
petroleum companies. During his off-hours he played
and listened to music, and his musical style increasingly
gravitated toward rhythm and blues. The emblematic
features of zydeco—such as the French-based Louisiana
Creole language and the ever-popular waltz and two-
step dance forms—were never fully excised from his
performances, however. In the mid-1950s Chenier signed
with Specialty Records, for which he produced mostly
rhythm-and-blues recordings with a zydeco tint, notably
the hit song “Ay-Tete-Fee” (sung in Louisiana Creole). With
his band, the Zodico Ramblers—which, aside from the
keyboard accordion and washboard, featured drums, guitar,
bass, piano, and saxophone—Chenier emerged as a star of
rhythm and blues. His brilliance faded over the next
decade, however, and his career remained inert for some
years before it was revived and redirected by Arhoolie
Records, a label specializing in recordings of regional
music traditions. With Arhoolie’s support and encourage-
ment, Chenier recalibrated his music back toward its
zydeco roots and released a number of successful albums,
including Louisiana Blues and Zydeco (1965), King of the
Bayous (1970), and Bogalusa Boogie (1975).
Throughout the 1970s Chenier toured nationally and
internationally as the King of Zydeco, donning a large gold-
and-burgundy mock crown in many of his performances
to acknowledge and amplify his popular status. By late in
the decade, however, both he and his music had lost their
lustre; he had developed a severe kidney infection related
to diabetes and had to have a portion of his foot