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Famed percussionist Clarence “Jockey” Etienne, who was a member of an illustrious contingent, a forerunner of J.D. Miller’s legendary studio band of

Crowley, LA, died this past August 16. He had been in declining health of late after undergoing heart bypass operations as well as battling a bleeding stomach ulcer. His passing at age 79 was first reported by his brother, Leroy, himself a drummer in the New Orleans-based Zydeco troupe, Louisiana Sunspots, led by Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes.

If it were J.D. Miller who conceived of the style of swamp blues---that stark, brooding, and smoldering variety---associated with South Louisiana, it was a drummer like Etienne who contributed mightily to its foundation. Miller, like his counterpart in New Orleans, producer Cosimo Matassa, who also had to deal with a primitive recording facility, sought after that authentic transfer of the “bottom” which early recorders inadequately sensed in a quest to capture that all essential, visceral beat. This was of course in the mid-50s before the bass guitar was widely employed. Matassa solved the bass problem by doubling the electric guitars of studio musicians on the upright of Frank Fields but both engineers exhorted their drummers to literally wallop the skins. And when that quintessential thump wasn’t realized, Miller would have to improvise. Etienne would be instructed to pound on an empty cardboard box while versatile Lazy Lester (Leslie Johnson), another studio stalwart of that period, might use a rolled up newspaper for the desired effect. And it was this fat back “whoomp” which characterized nearly all of the myriad blues recordings originating in Miller’s facility.

Clarence “Jockey” Etienne was born in St. Martinville, LA, on November 22, 1935. At the age of seven, he trained to become a jockey, hence his moniker but, though possessed of that ideal compact, wiry build, as time wore on, grew too heavy and tall to ride at both local tracks and those in Mexico. And he was forced to retire. Nonetheless the sinewy forearms he acquired along the way would later serve him in good stead with regard to his eventual instrument of choice. But in high school, he was first attracted to brass. “Back then, I used to blow the bugle [in a bugle corps], but I’d mess around on the drums after the parade,” he said in an interview. He recalled also that his father took him to a club wherein someone on the bandstand was playing the then current hit, “Run Joe,” by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five (Decca #24448, issued 1947), after which he became really hooked. “Since that night, I was banging on everything with pencils, sticks, and barbeque spits,” he added. And soon thereafter he graduated to a “two piece” drum kit, upon which he practiced whenever he could.

In his late teens, Etienne teamed up with a group, Little Victor & His Jiving Five, headed by Victor Phillips, the same vocalist who in the 60s appeared on Lee Lavergne’s Lanor and the Richland labels. “We performed all the popular R&B numbers of the day and generally played around the Lafayette area. Only local stuff,” he said. His first encounter with J.D. Miller and his much heralded studio, the Modern Music Center on N. Parkerson Ave in Crowley, was just after the band had composed a number and needed to record. “It was a song called ‘Loc-A-Lai’ or something like that and he thought it had potential so he cut it,” he added. During that time frame, Miller enjoyed some regional

success on his own Feature label (1951-54) with blues artists such as Clarence Garlow, Schoolboy Cleve (White), Lightnin’ Slim (Otis Hicks), and Tabby Thomas; however, Little Victor’s solitary single on this imprint (#3009) failed to generate any serious interest. And it remains today an extremely obscure collector’s item.

In late 1955 or so, Mr. Etienne came aboard the Guitar Gable band. Gable (born Gabriel Perrodin in Bellview, LA, August 17, 1937), as a fresh faced eighteen-year-old, had just departed his first group, the Swingmasters, and was looking to start anew. Etienne was recruited to replace his former drummer, the much older, womanizer and general character of ill repute, Joseph Zeno. By the way, it was the shady Zeno and not Miller who bestowed upon Perrodin his sobriquet. This first incarnation of the Guitar Gable outfit was launched about the same period that J.D. Miller, in dire need of a national distribution network for his R&B output, signed a lease agreement with Ernie Young’s Excello label based in Nashville. Young not only had a mail order record store there in Music City, USA, but also promoted his labels heavily over R&B pioneering WLAC, a 50,000 watt powerhouse which, especially at night, could reach a good third of the country. And almost immediately, the Crowley-based producer was rewarded with two very durable two-sided smashes by Gable’s ensemble. The first was an instrumental (based on Etienne’s drum riff on “Frankie and Johnnie”), “Congo Mombo,” and its vocal flip, “Life Problem” (#2082). “Congo Mombo” proved to be such a sensation that it was covered on the national pop survey by Muvva “Guitar” Hubbard (ABC-Paramount #9774). And the second, another hot instrumental, “Guitar Rhumbo,” followed

the same blueprint with soon to be classic vocal, “Irene” (#2094), on the reverse side. To say the least, this was a most talented bunch led by Guitar Gable, brother and bassist, Clinton “Fats” Perrodin, singer, King Karl (Bernard Jollivette), pianists, first John Johnson and then recording artist for Eddie Shuler’s Goldband records in Lake Charles, Tal Miller, and Etienne on drums.

Along with the stellar guitar pyrotechnics of the leader, Jolivette was as equally gifted as songwriter, penning most of the early vocal numbers and subsequent local splashes, “Walking in the Park” (#2140) and “I Knew It was Love” (#2157). Whereas Gable himself composed a two-sider, “It’s Hard but It’s Fair” and “Cool, Calm, Collected” (#2108). Nonetheless, Jolivette’s greatest achievement would be “This Should Go on Forever,” ironically, not for the benefit of his group but for that of Cajun crooner Rod Bernard and the Twisters. It was Bernard who in 1959 covered Gable’s version of the number which had not yet been released and the master of which was mysteriously still sitting in the can in Crowley. First issued on Ville Platte’s Floyd Soileau’s Jin logo (#105), it soon became too hot to handle. After Soileau shrewdly leased it to the Chess brothers’ Argo

(#5327) in Chicago, it became a country-wide chart maker of epic proportions and obliged Bernard to make the rounds of all the national teen dance programs including Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in Philadelphia, the Milt Grant Show in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore’s Buddy Deane Show. Not surprisingly, the Guitar Gable band’s own but belated rendition (#2153) fell flat, as the proverbial cow had already gotten out of the barn.

As a matter of fact, Jolivette as King Karl, has been credited in some circles with inventing this particular ballad formula of the E-flat, B-flat two-chord with triplets, a genre of blue-eyed soul which was the prototype of songs later termed “Swamp Pop.” These are compositions like “Mathilda” by Cookie (Huey Thierry) and the Cupcakes, “Lonely Days and Lonely Nights” by Johnnie Allan (Guillot), and “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” by Jivin’ Gene (Bourgeois) and the Jokers---all which were but a few of scores of songs that ascribed to this minor chord scheme. Scholar Shane Bernard and son of Rod in an interview asked Jolivette about his role in the controversy regarding the provenance of this type of music indigenous to South Louisiana and the singer responded, “I just thought it was the

blues [I was writing].” Nonetheless, whatever the source of Jolivette’s inspiration, the young Jockey Etienne was very much involved in the creation of this momentous musical movement in Acadiana.

No matter whom you might ask, they would all agree that Miller was a perfectionist and stern taskmaster. Suffice it to say that he did not suffer fools, especially those that lacked musicianship and who could not or would not accommodate his wishes to fabricate his brand of blues in the studio. So, it was quite a tribute when Miller utilized the whole of Guitar Gable’s outfit as his house band for several years from the mid to late 50s on nearly all of his R&B recordings. Though when interviewed, Perrodin likened his series of contracts with Miller to a form of indentured servitude, especially noting that Miller, under the pseudonym of James West, often appropriated a good share of the writer’s credits. Nonetheless, he humbly put his unit at the producer’s disposal, ably backing his stable of artists including Carol Fran, Slim Harpo (James Moore), Leroy Washington, Lonesome Sundown (Cornelius Green), and the aforementioned Lazy Lester. But Etienne, who played on such Excello blues standards as “I’m A King Bee,” “I’ve Got Love If You Want It,” and

R E M E M B E R I N G

CLARENCE “JOCKEY” ETIENNE

1935-2015

Jockey Etienne, Lafayette, LA, 2000. photo larry benicewicz

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“Sugar Coated Love,” wasn’t necessarily relegated to providing the support to only black blues or R&B luminaries.

To distinguish his white artists from black, Young created the Nasco label, with which he also had a lease agreement with Miller. In 1958, Miller had a young Cajun singer, Warren Storm (Schexnider), record the “Prisoner’s Song” (#6015), which reached the national Top 100. Etienne was chosen to handle this “A” side. Ironically, Storm, in his own right a great fat back drummer and who tackled the flip, “Mama, Mama, Mama,” would soon thereafter go on to replace Etienne as a studio fixture. This second installment of session professionals (with Storm), which would become renowned as the Legendary Crowley Studio Band, would also include Bobby McBride on bass, Katie Webster on piano, Lionel Torrence (Prevost) on sax, and Al Foreman on guitar---all who would go on to provide assistance to a slew of performers of all musical persuasions on both Excello and Miller’s own home grown labels—Spot, Rocko, and Zynn, just to name a few.

But during its five year run, Etienne recalled that the Guitar Gable band was the toast of the town, and a force with which to be reckoned. In Opelousas, the hot ensemble enjoyed regular engagements at the venerable Southern Club and Moonlight Inn; in Ville Platte, the Evangeline, and in Lafayette, the Clover Club. On occasion the outfit would venture as far west as the Pleasure Pier in Port Arthur, TX. And this is not to mention all the teen center gigs the group executed in the region. So it was

not surprising that Miller, wanting to capitalize on their notoriety, would go on to release six singles by Guitar Gable and one by King Karl during this time frame. In fact, Miller had such high expectations for this aggregate that he had it record an additional forty sides, many of which still remain unissued, at least stateside. But as the 60s dawned, public tastes were changing. In short, the black listeners were embracing the newly emerging sophisticated soul music, whereas the blues, perhaps became an unpleasant reminder of their roots as toilers in cotton fields, or in South Louisiana, rice paddies.

So as its novelty faded, Etienne quit the group in 1960, but, being a skilled percussionist, he still was in great demand. Not long after his defection, he was contacted by a local agent, Charles Carter,

as a replacement on drums for the band of an up-and-coming soul crooner, Joe Simon, who was then fulfilling a commitment to sing at Leo’s Rendezvous in New Iberia, LA. As events transpired, it was probably the correct career move to make at the time, as Guitar Gable was soon drafted into the U.S. Army and his singer, King Karl, tried, without success, to make a go of it alone after his partner’s departure, recording a couple of singles under the pseudonym of Chuck Brown for Excello and one, as himself, for Tamm, a La Louisianne auxiliary label run by ex-big band leader, Carol Rachou in Lafayette.

Generally speaking, Clarence Etienne, beginning with Simon, spent nearly the entire decade of the 60s in the touring caravans of nationally recognized soul acts. And although in the interview, he was sketchy with the exact dates, you can reconstruct the time frames with the repertoire he recalled in great detail. For example, after his tenure with Joe Simon, he was hired for the road act of Atlantic records’ Solomon Burke, the self-proclaimed “High Priest of Soul” (to distinguish himself from James Brown’s designation as “Godfather of Soul”). Etienne claimed that Burke at the time was attempting a lot of C&W music such as Pee Wee King’s “Just Out of Reach” (#2114), Jim Reeve’s “He’ll Have to Go” (#2218), Eddie Arnold’s “I Really Don’t Want to Know” (#2157), “Beautiful Brown Eyes” (#2205), and “Down in the Valley” (#2147). At that juncture, quite a few black stars like Ray Charles (“I Can’t Stop Loving You”), Little Esther (Phillips) (“Release Me”), and Nat King Cole (“Rambling Rose”), were experimenting with interpreting former C&W hits, a national trend which would place Etienne’s stint with Burke somewhere between 1962 and 1964.

Next came Bobby Powell. Powell hailed from nearby Baton Rouge but recorded for Stan Lewis’ Shreveport, LA-based Paula and Jewel records and subsidiary, Whit. Etienne remembered that

the singer had a powerful delivery, more like a shout, and that his stage shows were marked by wild gospel call and response vamps between Powell and a chorus of female singers. At that time, Powell was promoting a hit, his unbridled rendition of Chuck Willis’ “C.C. Rider” (Whit #1388). Therefore, Etienne most likely was accompanying Powell in 1965.

Finally, there was the noted New Orleans soul stylist, Johnny Adams, dubbed the “Tan Canary,” because of his mellifluous and, at times, other worldly, ethereal voice. Adams, beginning with Joe Ruffino’s Ric label in the late 50s, was, perhaps, the most prolific soul artist ever at least from a label standpoint—Atlantic, Ariola, Chelsea, Hep’ Me, JB’s, Modern, Gamma, Gone, Pacemaker, Paid, Ron, Watch, Melatone, Townhouse, and Rounder. It seemed that any record executive worth his mettle that heard his magnificent pipes wanted a piece of Adams, who later became a cult figure in the Crescent City and deservedly so. Since Etienne recalled that Adams included a lot of material from his affiliation with the SSS International label (a Shelby Singleton Nashville-based concern) in his presentations of

that period—“Real Live Living Hurting Man” (#797), “Proud Woman” (#787), and “I Won’t Cry” (#809)---you’d have to conclude that his association with the greatly underappreciated Big Easy crooner was from about 1968-70.

“I must have been doing something right because I was never out of a job long. There were so many of them, that I couldn’t keep track. I’d go on the road for six weeks at a time, come back, and latch on to another. But I never did much recording with them, just shows, and it got to be quite a grind,” confessed Etienne. There are published accounts that he went into the studio with Joe Simon to tape “Nine Pound Steel” (Sound Plus #2178) and his signature, “The Chokin’ Kind” (Sound Stage # 7-2628), both of which were issued well after his collaboration with Simon, when the singer was signed with Gary Thompson’s Hush records of Oakland, CA, from 1960-62. In addition, it had been reported that Etienne also had appeared on Slim Harpo’s immortal 1966 “Baby Scratch My Back” (Excello #2273), yet his name does not appear in the detailed discography of Blues Records, the so-called “Bible of the Blues.” But the seemingly

CLARENCE “JOCKEY” ETIENNE

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Swingmasters, 1954. l-r: Joseph Zeno, Albert Davis, Guitar Gable, Freddy LeBein,

Creole Zydeco Farmers promo shot, 2000, Warren Prejean on accordion.

King Karl (Bernard Jolivette) promo shot, late ‘50s. photo courtesy j.d. miller

Modern Music Center, Crowley, LA, 1980. photo larry benicewicz

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ubiquitous Etienne was involved in so many projects during the 60s, that it shouldn’t astonish anyone if even more “sightings” in the studio could be either testified of or verified.

Perhaps weary of the road, about 1970, Mr. Etienne joined forces with Rodney (Bernard) a black R&B singer and leader of the All Stars, a popular Lafayette group. “I never went in the studio with him but we kept pretty busy doing gigs all over the area,” he said.

By 1974, he had assumed the percussion duties of the late Fernest (Arceneaux) and the Thunders, and it would be an association that would endure for nearly thirteen years until 1989. In fact, Etienne was a perfect fit as drummer for this Zydeco group because Arceneaux, who played the piano accordion, was, like Clifton Chenier, old school and was possessed of an extensive blues-based play list. Arceneaux had been signed during this time frame to J.D. Miller’s Blues

Unlimited label (1970-1988), after the producer had parted ways with Ernie Young in the late 60s. Miller had contracted a handful of area blues artists for this new imprint, like pianist Henry Gray, guitarist Donald Jacob, and guitarist Tabby Thomas, but he found that his real bread and butter during the 70s was Zydeco with signees like Rockin’ Dopsie (Alton Rubin), Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Dural), Henry Randle & the Zydeco Soul Express, Terrance Simien, and, Arceneaux.

Fernest & the Thunders proved to be a very marketable group well into the 80s, providing Miller with a series of moderately selling blues oriented efforts—at least eight singles and an album (#5005) with various vocalists that included Gene Morris, Bobby Price, Kathryn Ervin (later as Kat and the Kittens), and at times Fernest, himself. In fact, even early on, as Arceneaux had acquired such a renown, blues/jazz impresario Rolf Schubert of Cologne (Koln), Germany began booking the Thunders all over Europe. “I can’t take credit for discovering them. It was through the insistence of Robert Sacre, a Belgian journalist and radio personality. In fact, his recommendation was so persuasive that I accepted them sight unseen,” he said.

According to Schubert, he was planning concert itineraries for Fernest & the Thunders nearly every year beginning in the mid-70s and may have arranged as many as nine. “I saw them so often that they became almost part of my family.” And Schubert liked to recall a funny episode regarding their first gig “over the pond” in the tiny town of Dinslaken, near Dusseldorf. Wanting to impress the audience that first night, the musicians played their hearts out, yet the spectators remained seated. When Schubert visited them backstage during intermission, he noticed that they were depressed, probably thinking that they were failures. “I told them that they were great and not to worry because Germans just don’t dance,” he added with a laugh.

One of these later junkets led Fernest & the Thunders to England, wherein the group also recorded an album for John Stedman’s JSP label. During that era, it was Stedman’s typical modus operandi to collar groups on tour in the UK and coax them into the studio, like Washington, D.C.’s harmonica prodigy, Charlie Sayles, Guitar Shorty (David William Kearney), Louisiana Red (Iverson Minter), Lucky Peterson, etc., although this entrepreneur now specializes in releasing box sets of reissued material.

However, as the 80s wore on, Arceneaux, because of his drinking, had unfortunately incurred a reputation of another sort—as being erratic and undependable, which scared promoters like Schubert away. “When he was right, no one could touch him. And he could have been the greatest except for…” said Etienne of this virtuoso accordion star. About 1989, a combination of circumstances, including a freak hip injury to Arceneaux, resulted in the dissolution of the Thunders and its longtime guitarist, Chester Chevalier, and Etienne organized a new group fronted by piano accordionist Clayton Sampy. It was Sampy who invented the name, Creole Zydeco Farmers, of this new outfit.

“I’ll tell you what. If you heard Sampy playing in the next room, you’d think that he was Clifton Chenier. That’s how good he was,” said fellow accordionist Murphy Richard, who would later join the group. But as talented a musician as he was, he didn’t last long at the helm of the Farmers. According to Mr. Richard, the hot tempered Sampy, especially after a few drinks, would likely pull a gun on any band mates, especially those who questioned his method of divvying up the night’s proceeds. So, the members of his supporting cast, including Chevalier on guitar, Joseph McKinley “Black” Roussillon on bass, Fred Charles on sax, and Etienne bid Sampy adieu and recruited another hot local accordionist, Warren Prejean, who, himself, “had issues” and soon thereafter, like Sampy, also wore out his welcome.

The third incarnation of the Farmers was indeed the classic lineup, which made them the much beloved darlings of the Mid-Atlantic Zydeco circuit, performing at the TK Club in Philadelphia, Washington’s Glen Echo, and Baltimore’s Full Moon Saloon and Cat’s Eye Pub. By then the Murphy brothers were sharing the accordion chores, Joseph on the triple note and Murphy on the Cajun one-note. Chester

Chevalier remained the guitarist with newcomer Morris Francis on bass and vocals. This latter versatile veteran, though blind, recorded on a whole host of local labels---Maison de Soul, Caillier, and Blue Black—as well as performed as sideman in a multitude of South Louisiana blues and Zydeco bands, including Lil’ Bob (Camille Bob) and the Lollipops, Lynn August, Sampy and the Bad Habits, Lil’ Buck Sinegal, Rockin’ Dopsie, and Buckwheat Zydeco, until 1990 when he finally fronted his own ensemble, the

Zydeco High Steppers. When the much missed Joseph Richard died of stroke in 1995, Francis took up the piano accordion, while “Black” Roussillon was added to man either the scrub board (frottoir) or the vacated bass position.

But the key to the Creole Zydeco Farmers’ immense popularity of that period could very much be attributed to Etienne, who over the years, had developed a style of drumming called the “rhumba beat,” which made the group eminently danceable. In fact, its dance inducing

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Guitar Gable, Church Point, LA, 1991. photo larry benicewicz

Creole Zydeco Farmers promo shot, 1990s. l-r: Etienne, Morris Francis, Joseph Richard, Chester Chevalier, Murphy Richard.

l-r: Al Foreman, Warren Storm, Crowley, LA, circa 1992. photo larry benicewicz

l-r: Joann Bernard, C.C. Adcock, Rod Bernard, Clifford Antone, Lafayette, LA, 1998..

photo: larry benicewicz

J.D. Miller, Crowley, LA, 1988. photo: larry benicewicz

Lazy Lester (Leslie Johnson), Baltimore, MD, 1998. photo: larry benicewicz

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leaving Jockey Etienne as free agent or “hired gun,” a term with which he referred to himself. And as luck would have it, C.C. Adcock, leader of the Lil’ Band 0’ Gold, was desperate to find an able bodied replacement for his long-time drummer, Warren Storm, who, after the death of his wife, decided to quit this distinguished, globetrotting outfit. What made Adcock all the more frantic after Storm’s sudden departure was that Robert Plant (formerly of Led Zeppelin), a rock and roll music historian of sorts, wanted the Lil’ Band O’ Gold to open for him during his impending American tour. So, here was Adcock, fronting a band composed of Louisiana All Stars---Dickie Landry, longtime horn man for avant-garde musician Phillip Glass; Dave Egan, keyboardist for noted Cajun-rock band, File; Dave Ranson, bassist and formerly of celebrated rock band, Bayou Rhythm, with guitarist Sonny Landreth and harp man, Mel Melton; singer, Tommy McLain, of “Sweet Dreams” fame, and Steve Riley, accordionist and leader of Zydeco band, Mamou Playboys---searching high and low for a percussionist the stature of the legendary Storm. In fact, Adcock envisioned his own band’s demise, much like that of Led Zeppelin’s after losing its drummer John Bonham in 1979. But after engaging Etienne, he could not have been more pleased with his choice to fill the big shoes of Storm. “He was simply our savior. He was every bit as great as Warren but in his own way. And he really solidified the band,” said Adcock. In short, the tour went off without a hitch, including triumphant performances in Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, and Austin. And, according to Adcock, Plant, well versed in the Excello story, just marveled at Etienne’s mastery, both on the drums and upon the sturdy cardboard box which he had brought along for certain numbers.

Sadly, at the time of Etienne’s death, the Lil’ Band O’ Gold was already scheduled to appear at the Ponderosa Stomp jamboree in the Big Easy on Oct 2 and 3. And to honor its “fallen hero,” the group while in concert had erected, as a back drop, a huge mural of Etienne’s likeness. Adcock, spoke for many, as he likened Etienne’s passing as a “massive blow” to the Louisiana music community. On his Facebook post, he paid one final tribute to this player, a true musician’s musician: “What he gave would literally be impossible to over-exaggerate. But, alas, there are no words to feel the gentleman’s soul and his immense wisdom, if you’ve had the privilege to know it. The records he played on and anecdotes from [such] a fascinating life will trump forever.” Yes, thankfully for us, Jockey Etienne left so much of himself behind. Thus his inimitable beat will go on and on, at least, in our collective memories.

rhythms became its calling card--a characteristic which was of paramount importance as it executed dates on the Northeast Zydeco circuit, which also included New York and Boston. “Maybe he listened to the big band sound of Gene Krupa in the 40s. But he [Etienne] could really pull a band together with that swing tempo, a sort of lope that was infectious,” said guitarist C.C. Adcock of Lil’ Band O’ Gold.

In the decade of the 90s, this classic lineup of the Creole Zydeco Farmers recorded no less than four CDs, all of which are sadly out of print. The first release was for the CMA Austrian label, Live in Louisiana, followed by two

fine efforts for the late Lee Lavergne’s Church Point-headquartered Lanor records, Zydeco Train (1994) and Come to the Party (1996). The last album of this noteworthy band was recorded live in the late 90s, at the now defunct, ramshackle roadhouse, the Friendly Inn in Cecilia, LA, a real juke joint which was as down home as could be imagined. “For this [latter] CD, we brought in a mobile unit from the highly respected Dockside Studio in Maurice, LA, and it was released on my own Schubert records,” said the German booking agent.

Also, as the 90s wore on, the Farmers “had really gotten around,” to use Etienne’s expression,

and well beyond the parameters of its well-worn path up the aforementioned Northeast Corridor. On one eventful Mid-West peregrination, it ventured to Dallas, St. Louis, and Kansas City, and afterward made two separate trips to the annual New Orleans music celebration, JazzFest—then the eighth overall appearance for its most esteemed drummer. By its fourth year, this particular incarnation of the Farmers had already accepted two invitations to perform abroad, in 1991 and 1993, in countries such as the Netherlands (Utrecht), France, and Luxembourg. Of this latter excursion, Etienne recounted a rather unusual circumstance. “This was in Switzerland and we had to play for these bankers in suits and at ten o’clock in the morning. I was sweating about that one. But, after they heard the accordion, they started stomping around just like everyone else,” he said.

Nonetheless, as the new millennium dawned, Murphy Richard left the Farmers to form his own band, the Zydeco Kings, an outfit which featured singer Albert Davis, the same individual who handled the vocal responsibilities in Guitar Gable’s Swingmasters of 1954. Now, needing another qualified accordionist, the band reinstated Warren Prejean. And things went well for a while until 9/11, when Schubert had to reluctantly part ways with his favorite troupe. “Up until that terrorist attack, I had probably booked thirty or so tours overseas, beginning with Fernest & the Thunders. But after that date it became too complicated,” he confessed. Even stateside, this last incarnation of the Farmers was not nearly as active as before, since long distance traveling became prohibitive due to skyrocketing fuel costs. Yet, even with such a limited schedule, the Farmers managed to endure intact until the death of Prejean in 2013.

After Prejean’s unexpected passing, the Creole Zydeco Farmers more or less disbanded,

Jockey Etienne, Lafayette, LA, 2000. photo larry benicewicz

Katie Webster, Washingotn, DC, 1988. photo larry benicewicz

Murphy Richard, front, Albert Davis, rear, 2001, Baltimore, MD. photo larry benicewicz

Fernest Arceneaux, 1990, Lafayette, LA. photo larry benicewicz

CLARENCE “JOCKEY” ETIENNE

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