ON TOUR

A night with Clifton Chenier and his band turned out to be the most fun I've ever had fully clothed and in public. Four straight hours the band cooked insistently, with Chenier himself -- recently out of the hospital from serious medical business -- in charge for the latter three. Chenier proclaimed himself "King of the Accordion," signified by a besequinned red velvet crown and proved by playing the rhythm-and-blues devil out of his instrument. He was flanked by a young white guitarist, who played astoundingly well in a Freddie King-inspired style, plus a more stoic black guitarist, two saxophonists, a vigorous drummer, a bass man and, ofcourse, brother Cleveland Chenier on his metal washboard.

Zydeco, Chenier's musical style, sounds initially like rhythm and blues, mostly New Orleans with a pinch of primitive Chicago. Sometimes the saxophones break honkingly loose, sometimes they lay in one foghorn-like riff through an entire song. But the real musical underlay is Cajun, a musical cross-fertilization of Acadian immigrants driven from Nova Scotia by the British and Africans brought to rural Louisiana by slavery. Which explains both Zydeco's compelling rhythmic patterns and the fact that several of Chenier's numbers are sung in Cajun French.