Boozoo Chavis

1930-2001

by Jim Macnie

Want to have a good time? Start dancing. Dancing really hard, I mean. Close down your brain and ride the rhythm. Close down your brain and let your senses take over. Then: take off your shoes and throw 'em in the corner. Take off your shirt and throw it in the corner. Take off your wig and throw it in the corner. Ahh . . . now you're halfway home.

Want to have a really good time? Take off your drawers and throw 'em in the corner. And when you feel the need to quench your thirst, lick the sweat from your arm while reaching for a beer. No shirt, no shoes, no drawers, no wig? That's what I call ground zero for pleasure. That's when things get going. Yup, some pleasures turn out to be quite simple.

Boozoo Chavis advocated all of the above moves. The famed zydeco bandleader, who died at the age of 70 last Saturday from a stroke he suffered a month prior, knew dancing and delirium were curatives of a sort. Philosophically, he advocated letting it all hang out. And because he made his prescription so irresistible, many were joyous while taking his medicine. Playing his squeezebox like a demon for the last two decades, Chavis spent loads of time filling dance floors and lifting spirits. Zydeco may have been his musical language, but ebullience was his stock in trade. I don't believe I've ever met anyone who, after hearing his music, didn't fall under his spell.

Boozoo and his band the Magic Sounds often played in Rhode Island, a state whose citizens will throw their wigs in the corner whenever they're asked. He had an extended family here. Local music impresario Jack Reich became the bandleader's manager years ago, and the Louisiana legend and his clan would turn the party out -- for the Cajun & Bluegrass Festivals down at Stepping Stone Ranch, for big-assed blowouts at Lupo's, for ad hoc soirees at Fellini's Pizza. When I say clan, I mean blood relatives. The accordionist's sons, Charles and Rellis, played rubboard and drums, respectively. And wife Leona was always on hand at gigs, selling discs, tapes, and other essential bits of merchandise, like Boozoo Chavis panties (for both men and women, y'all). Bassist "Classy" Ballou was like family, too. He is the son of a guitarist who played on the accordionist's earliest and rawest sessions in the 1950s.

One of those sessions produced a classic tune of the genre, "Paper In My Shoe." Having grown up as the son of a tenant farmer in Church Point, Louisiana, Chavis knew about rough 'n' tumble living. "Paper In My Shoe" is a ditty about using whatever's available to plug up a hole in your sole, and considering the situations of African Americans and the realities of rural living in the '40s, it's easy to believe it's born of first-hand experience.

The tune was also one of zydeco's first regional hits, as crazed and compelling a roots song as you'll ever hear. All of a sudden the squeezebox player was a local hero throughout the bayous. But when he didn't feel that he was getting the loot that was due him from one of his record companies, Chavis made a wild decision. He quit the biz in a huff and spent the next few decades working as a horse trainer, playing only for himself and his pals.

It was in the late '80s that Boozoo was nudged back into action. Reich, Dan Ferguson (host of WRIU's "Boudin Barn Dance"), and some other Rhode Islanders made a point of investigating his whereabouts on a trip to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Contact was made, relationships were nurtured, and a larger audience was about to hear the Magic Sounds' music. Initially those sounds raised several eyebrows. When Chavis and company were coaxed north for the first time in 1990 to blow minds in New York -- they played cool clubs like Tramps and S.O.B.'s and made hearts palpitate at a Central Park Summer Stage show -- they brought some pure music with them. I don't often use that term, "pure," because it doesn't really mean much at this late date. But because Boozoo stayed so close to home during his life, his brand of zydeco sustained a wonderfully curious essence.

Zydeco became known to a wider array of music hounds during the early 1980s. When Clifton Chenier passed away and Buckwheat Zydeco was signed to a major label, there was a feeling that something hidden was now being spread across the world. And it was. But as they furthered themselves, several of the music's exemplars yielded to outside influences, largely R&B. And in short time, the music -- a genuinely novel mix of Creole glide, blues grit, and African stomp that reveled in its own idiosyncratic ways -- lost some of its sparkle, becoming a tad too cosmopolitan. Perhaps the true value of Boozoo's music is that it actively refuted the notion that modernization is inevitable. Antiquated and amazing, it made music critics and social dancers spout that Chavis was zydeco's top dog.

The Magic Sounds are quite a little unit. You've got a guy with a squeezebox, grunting out lyrics that are half-children's song, half-sex spiel. He has a bit of a lisp and it helps singularize the music. You've got a guy next to him punctuating the verses with supportive exclamations like "Boozoooo!" and "Yeah, you right!" You've got a guy wearing a steel apron whose job it is to scrape a ratchet down his own belly. It wasn't primitive -- the level of intricacy in the band's polyrhythms was pointedly elaborate -- but it was primal. And as such, it was dizzying. Add to that the fact that Boozoo's spin on the stuff relied on two chords at the most, and you have a literally unique way of doing business. "You can't think about regular changes when you play with Boozoo," bassist Ballou once said. "If you do, you'll lose it. You've got to follow the accordion." And the bandleader concurred: "If it's wrong, do it wrong -- follow me. If I'm wrong, you're wrong, too."

There were plenty of times when all that wrong made me laugh out loud. You know, close down the brain and let the senses take over. If he wanted you to "woof-woof" along with him on the testament to his Lake Charles neighborhood called Dog Hill, you did. Yeah, you right! If he wanted you to bump and grind with your sweetie during an X-rated waltz, you did. Music has power. Boozoo's music was marked by grace and hospitality and spirit. Remember him by throwing that wig in the corner this weekend, won't you?