When Mick Jagger Met the King of Zydeco

Clifton Chenier pioneered a new kind ofblues—and changed rock history, too.

- Reya Hart

Clifton Chenier performs in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1970.

‘The story I'd heard was that Mick Jagger bought his first Clifton Chenier record in the late 1960s, at a store in New York's Greenwich Village. But when we talked this spring, Jagger told me he didn't do his record shopping in the Village. It would have been Colony Records in Midtown, he said, “the biggest record store in New York, and it had the best selection.” Jagger was in his 20s, not far removed from a suburban-London boyhood spent steeping in the American blues. I pictured him eagerly leafing through Chess Records LPs and J&M 45s until he came across a chocolate-brown 12-inch record—Chenier’s 1967 album Bon Ton Roulet!

On the cover, a young Chenier holds a 25-pound accordion the length of his torso, a big, mischievous smile on his face. Bon Ton Roulet! is a classic zydeco album showcasing the Creole dance music of Southwest Louisiana, which blends traditional French music, Caribbean rhythms, and American R&B. This was different from the Delta and Chicago blues that Jagger and his Rolling Stones bandmates had grown up with and emulated on their own records. Although sometimes taking the form of slower French waltzes, zydeco is more up-tempo—it’s party music—and features the accordion and the rubboard, a washboard hooked over the shoulders and hung across the body like a vest. Until he discovered zydeco, Jagger recalled, “I'd never heard the accordion in the blues before.”