The Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Taj Mahal and Steve Earle are among the guest musicians who recorded songs for a new tribute album to zydeco legend Clifton Chenier. “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” features those musicians along with a number of South Louisiana greats covering classic Chenier songs in celebration of what would have been the pioneer’s 100th birthday.

“A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” will be released June 27 on Joel Savoy’s Valcour Records, and the label has released the album’s first single, “Release Me,” featuring Williams, swamp pop icon Tommy McClain and accordion master Keith Frank. Take a listen to the song below.

“It’s pretty incredible when you start a project like this, how word gets out and people come to you wanting to be a part of it,” says Savoy, a Cajun musician whose parents are Marc and Ann Savoy. “Everybody loved Clifton and his music, and so many people were touched by it.”

Chenier was born in Opelousas on June 25, 1925, and his father, Joseph, taught a young Clifton to play the accordion. As he grew into his own as a regular musician at South Louisiana house parties and dances, Chenier developed a style that blended French Creole La La music with R&B and blues and Cajun influences. And his 1954 recordings of “Louisiana Stomp” and “Clifton’s Blues” are seen as some of the earliest recorded examples of what would become known as zydeco.

Chenier won a Grammy Award in 1983 for his album “I’m Here!,” and the next year the National Endowment for the Arts named him a National heritage Fellow.

Chenier died in December 1987 at the age of 62.

After Clifton’s passing, his son C.J. Chenier took over leadership of Clifton’s band. The accordionist and vocalist often pays tribute to his father on stage, and he appears on two tracks on “Tribute to the King of Zydeco,” performing on “I’m Coming Home” with blues guitarist Sonny Landreth and “Hot Rod” with David Hidalgo of the band Los Lobos.

The Rolling Stones and Cajun musician Steve Riley open “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” with Chenier’s genre-naming song “Zydeco Sont Pas Sale” — and yes, Mick Jagger sings in French Creole. The Stones have rarely, if ever, contributed to this kind of tribute album, which demonstrates Chenier’s importance and the interest the band has had in American blues and folk music, says swamp rocker C.C. Adcock, who brought British giants onboard and produced the tracks “Zydeco Sont Pas Sales” and “Release Me.”

“We all got into a lot of cool music through the backdoor of The Rolling Stones and rock ‘n’ roll. And there’s another moment to do that here,” Adcock says. “The Stones being involved and them crowing about it is a way for some kid in Brazil to learn about zydeco and learn about Clifton.”

“A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” also includes Taj Mahal and Keith Frank performing on Chenier’s 1955 hit “Hey, ’tite Fille”; country musician Charley Crockett and Zydeco Cha Chas leader Nathan Williams Sr. playing “Easy Easy Baby”; and pianist Marcia Ball and accordionist Geno Delafose on “I May Be Wrong.”

The 14-track album was produced by Savoy and Steve Berlin, a longtime member of Los Lobos. John Leopold, the former managing director of the Arhoolie Foundation — the Arhoolie record label importantly released many of Chenier’s recordings — executive produced the album. Adcock produced “Zydeco Sont Pas Sales” and “Release Me.”

Savoy and Berlin brought together musicians Roddie Romero, Eric Adcock, Derek Huston, Lee Allen Zeno, Jermaine Prejean and Sherelle Chenier Mouton as the house band to back the guest artists on most of the tribute album. They’ve been dubbed the Dockside Allstars in a nod to their time recording the album at the studio out in Maurice.

“I immediately realized how important [this project] would be as a record and how I had to make sure that the correct people were involved in this,” Savoy says. “Because it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Steve. It wasn’t about Arhoolie. Instantly the weight on my shoulders was figuring out how to do this right. And I felt like there was one right way, and it was to bring as many of these zydeco legacy families onto the project as possible and get support from the zydeco community. I feel like we did a great job in accomplishing that.”

On Friday, May 2, the Dockside Allstars will back C.J. Chenier, Sonny Landreth, Marcia Ball, Curley Taylor and surprise guests during a Clifton Chenier centennial show at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. They play at 5:50 p.m. on the Fais Do-Do Stage.

There also will be an exhibit about Chenier in the Grandstand during Jazz Fest organized by the New Orleans Jazz Museum. “The King at 100” includes rare photos, archival materials and personal items, including Chenier’s accordion, stage outfits and his King of Zydeco crown.

In a couple of months, Valcour Records and Smithsonian Folkways will mark Chenier’s birthday with a 7-inch single release pairing The Rolling Stones’ version of “Zydeco Son Pas Sales” with Chenier’s original recording. There also are plans for Smithsonian Folkways, which now controls the Arhoolie catalog, to release a historical boxset later this year.

Proceeds from the sale of “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” will benefit the Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. The new scholarship fund will support ULL students studying traditional music, specifically zydeco accordion.

“These artists on this project were personally inspired and influenced by Clifton,” Savoy says. “I hope the participation of these artists will introduce their fanbase to not only to discover Clifton’s music, but I’d love for them also to dive deeper into the soulful origins of this music.”

Pre-orders for “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” and a link to support the Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship are now open. Find more at linktr.ee/valcourrecords.

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CJ Chenier on TKA

via University of Miami Frost School of Music News and Events

Dean Shelton G. “Shelly” Berg, who has led the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music at the University of Miami since 2007, will step down from his position in the spring of 2026, it was announced last week. His departure marks the end of an era in which Berg transformed the Frost School into a groundbreaking exemplar of a new model of music education for the 21^st century and one of the best music schools in the country.

After 46 dizzying years balancing his work in academia with an active musical career Berg, an acclaimed pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader who is a six-time Grammy nominee, plans to focus on his art. He can do so because he leaves the Frost School in the talented and passionate hands of the faculty and leadership that has worked with him during his tenure.

“I started with ideas and a vision but the faculty built it,” Berg said. “It’s not my school – it’s their school. I’m so proud of what we accomplished together. I can feel good about handing the baton to someone else.”

Berg spoke from California on Friday morning. On Tuesday evening he led an epic concert featuring famous Frost School alumni artists to mark the Frost School and University of Miami’s centennial, an event that was months in the making. The next day he flew to San Francisco to play a jazz club there on Thursday night, flying back to Miami over the weekend to play in a Frost Wind Ensemble concert on Sunday.

“I’ve thrown myself into my academic career,” said Berg, who turns 70 this summer. “While I have the vitality and health it’s important for me to turn my attention towards making music and sharing it with audiences. That has come second for an awfully long time. It feels important to make some time for that in the next chapter.”

During the 2025-26 academic year, Berg will focus on fundraising and collaborating with the Frost School’s Board of Advisors to strengthen the school’s resources for the future. Beginning on August 15, 2025, Professor Serona Elton will serve as vice dean to oversee day-to-day operations. Elton, an experienced music industry executive, is Chair of the Music Industry Department and was previously the Associate Dean for Administration. Information about the search for Berg’s successor will be announced soon.

Central to Berg’s transformation of the Frost School was the Experiential Music Curriculum, or “Frost Method,” a revolutionary re-imagining of the conventional music curriculum which Berg created with faculty leaders during his first two years here. The Frost Method incorporates creative skills in composition, improvisation, arranging, and performance with entrepreneurial and practical skills in areas like marketing, production, technology, pedagogy, and critical/contextual thinking into the school’s syllabi. The aim is to teach students, not only to be expert in their field, but to be adventurous and resourceful, ready to adapt and succeed in a complex and changing music world. It’s called being “Frost Built.” 

“We have a curriculum and ethos that is very distinctive and aspirational among our peers,” Berg said. “We are a school where people have more choices about how to fit together the pieces to build themselves, where they learn the skills they need to be successful in life. A school where people work across genres with mutual respect and admiration.”

That bold, visionary approach, unique to the Frost School, has attracted a stellar faculty of performers, composers and scholars.

Berg has expanded that vision with groundbreaking programs. In 2008 he brought in the Henry Mancini Institute, which trains graduate students in multiple musical genres and media, who have performed on numerous national television specials, film scores, and major label recordings, collaborating with artists including Renée Fleming, Gloria Estefan, John Williams, Quincy Jones, Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder, Bobby McFerrin, Andrea Bocelli, Joshua Bell, Terrence Blanchard, Celine Dion, and Josh Groban.

Berg instituted the Donna E. Shalala MusicReach program, which serves over 1500 underserved kids in Miami-Dade County each year with music lessons, classes, ensembles, and technology workshops, inculcating social and emotional learning and academic as well as musical skills. He installed the Stamps Scholars Program, funded by philanthropists E. Roe Stamps and his late wife Penny, which provides full scholarships to members of four outstanding chamber ensembles.

Berg forged external partnerships to export the Frost Method and elevate the school’s profile. The Frost School at Festival Napa Valley is a teaching and performance program in orchestra and chamber music, which attracts 70 stellar classical music students each summer. The Frost School also co-presents the JAS Academy, a summer jazz program, with Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Aspen, Colorado for 50 career-ready young jazz artists.

He has overseen the fundraising and construction of two major facilities: the Patricia L. Frost Studios, which opened in 2015 with over 80 spaces for teaching, rehearsal, and performance; and the Knight Center for Music Innovation, a state-of-the-art performance and new technology venue, which opened in 2023 and houses the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Recital Hall, the Thomas D. Hormel Innovation Stage, and innovative windowcast technology to showcase performances on an exterior plaza.

His final contribution to the Frost School will be fundraising to support what he’s created. “What matters to me most in this final year is to build the resources to maintain and propel the school’s greatness, and to attract the best students and faculty,” he said. He will follow with a year-long sabbatical, and return to the Frost School in a yet-to-be-defined role after that.

A musical prodigy who began in a program for gifted children at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a very young boy, Berg also played with his father, an accomplished jazz trumpeter. He worked his way through the University of Houston School of Music playing six nights a week in a band that played Latin, Jazz and Top 40 tunes, which he called a “nighttime and daytime education.” When he completed his master’s in piano performance, at 23, he was married with two children, and opted for a teaching job at San Jacinto College instead of touring and late-night gigs, staying for 12 years.

In 1991 Berg joined the faculty at the University of Southern California School of Music in Los Angeles, where he became a professor and chair of Jazz Studies, while also building a flourishing musical career, and countless professional and artistic relationships, in LA.

Berg was preparing to focus on his artistic career when the Frost School lured him across the country in 2007. He was so compelled by the ambition and spirit of possibility here that he took the job almost immediately. “There was a culture in Miami that said we’re on the rise, let’s do things together,” Berg said. “At the Frost School there was a willingness to do something great.”

Nearly two decades later, Berg feels confident enough in what he’s built at the Frost School to finally turn back to his music. “The legacy that we’ve created here is enormously meaningful to me,” he said. “But I can’t afford to wait another 20 years.”

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Shelly Berg on TKA

Fabiola Méndez accompanies Bad Bunny for his NPR Tiny Desk Concert, along with backing band LoS SOBRiNOS, keyboardist Luis Irizarry, producer “Big Jay”, bassist Krystal Santana, gïuro and tamborine player Emanuel Santa, and fellow cuatro player Luis Sanz.

Fabiola Méndez had her own Tiny Desk Concert in September of 2024.

Bad Bunny Tiny Desk Concert

Fabiola Méndez Tiny Desk Concert

Fabiola Méndez on TKA