"I can't understand why the music industry doesn't take zydeco music seriously," said the musician during an early-morning phone call from his home in Houston.
In case you're wondering, Chenier is a zydeco musician, specializing in the accordion.
Just the night before, Chenier and his Red Hot Louisiana Band had performed their feel-good, accordion-driven music to a raucous, sold-out audience.
"You see shoes flying off and 8-year-olds dancing with 80-year-olds," said Chenier, 55, of a typical gig.
It's all the more reason to wonder why zydeco hardly manages a blip on the pop culture radar outside of Mardi Gras season.
"I don't understand why it's so low on the totem pole as far as the business end goes," Chenier said. "They should be promoting it more because people love this kind of music."
Born in the bayous of Louisiana, the genre may not be a mainstream regular, but, with a rhythm and style that can get a crowd jumping like crawfish in a pot of boiling water, it certainly has a substantial following.
"I call it happy-feet music," said Chenier, who plays the Corner Pocket in Williamsburg on Saturday. "You don't ever see a sad person at a zydeco party."
Chenier's father, Clifton, was known as "The King of Zydeco." Chenier didn't plan to follow in his father's footsteps. Growing up, he played the saxophone and listened to funk music. He earned a music scholarship to Texas Southern University, but his academic career was short-lived.
"I was the type of guy who needed my mama to wake me up for school," Chenier confessed. "I missed all my morning classes because I was in the band and we had to practice from 5 at night until 2 in the morning. I was not doing all that well, so I decided to leave."
Chenier was working on an oil rig when his father called him with a more enticing job offer.
"My daddy asked me to play the saxophone in his band, so I decided to go on the road," he said.
That first tour proved to be significant for the younger Chenier.
"It was life-changing," he said. "The whole world opened up to me. I had never been anywhere but the South. I never even left Texas except for a couple trips to visit relatives in Louisiana."
By 1985, Clifton Chenier's health was in decline. He could no longer manage his 40-pound accordion, so his son took up the squeezebox. After Clifton passed away, C.J. assumed leadership of the Red Hot Louisiana Band.
The group, now widely considered to be the reigning kings of zydeco, was nominated for a Grammy for its latest release, 2011's "Can't Sit Down." The disc includes covers of music by artists you wouldn't expect to hear in zydeco mode, like alternative king Tom Waits and funk legend Curtis Mayfield.
"No matter what type of song it is, I can zydecorize it," Chenier laughed. "The thing that made me fall in love with this music is that you don't think about it, you just feel it."
Chenier wants his audience to embrace that carefree philosophy, especially on the dance floor.
"I'll tell you the truth, when I'm onstage I hope that people don't start two-stepping," he said of the popular country and western dance.
Is that because the steps involve more head than heart?
"That's it exactly," Chenier said. "When people two-step, they feel like they have to figure out how to do it right. If people are just learning, I have to adjust my playing to make sure they can count their steps. I want people to just let go. I promise you we will all have a lot more fun."
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