Boozoo Chavis

Boozoo Chavis
Boozoo Chavis at the 2000 Original Southwest Zydeco Festival.
Background information
Birth name	Wilson Anthony Chavis
Born	(1930-10-23)October 23, 1930 Church Point, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	May 5, 2001(2001-05-05) (aged 70) Austin, Texas, U.S.
Genres	Zydeco
Occupation(s)	Musician, accordionist, singer
Instruments	Cajun accordion
Years active	1954–2001
Labels	Maison de Soul Rounder Records Sonet Records

Wilson Anthony "Boozoo" Chavis (October 23, 1930 – May 5, 2001) was an American accordion player, singer, songwriter and bandleader. He was one of the pioneers of zydeco, the fusion of Cajun and blues music developed in southwest Louisiana.

Born near Church Point, Louisiana, the son of tenant farmers, Chavis acquired the nickname "Boozoo" in his childhood. He bought a button accordion, taught himself to play, and began performing at a dance club that his mother opened, often sitting in on performances with Clifton Chenier, his father Morris Chenier and brother Cleveland Chenier. As well as developing the playing style that came to be known as zydeco, Chavis worked as a farmer and horse trainer.

He made his first recording, of his own song "Paper in My Shoe," in 1954, and it was released on the Folk-Star label, a subsidiary of Goldband, before being reissued by Imperial Records. The record was a regional hit, subsequently acknowledged as a zydeco standard, but Chavis was convinced that it was more successful than the record companies claimed, later saying: "I got gypped out of my record. I get frustrated, sometimes. I love to play, but, when I get to thinking about 1955... They stole my record. They said that it only sold 150,000 copies. But, my cousin, who used to live in Boston, checked it out. It sold over a million copies. I was supposed to have a gold record."

Chavis lost trust in the music business, and over the next thirty years only released three more singles: "Forty-One Days" (Folk-Star, 1955), "Hamburgers & Popcorn" (Goldband, 1965), and "Mama! Can I Come Home" (credited to the Dog Hill Playhouse Band, Crazy Cajun, 1974). He also rarely performed during the 1960s and 1970s, devoting most of his time to raising racehorses in Louisiana and Texas.

He returned to performing music regularly in 1984 after hearing that another performer was impersonating him. He signed with the Maison de Soul label, and released a locally successful single, "Dog Hill", and four albums: Louisiana Zydeco Music (1986), Boozoo Zydeco! (1987), Zydeco Homebrew (1989), and Zydeco Trail Ride (1990). In addition, Rounder Records released his live album Zydeco Live! in 1988, and a compilation of his 1950s recordings, The Lake Charles Atom Bomb, in 1990. He also recorded two albums for Sonet Records in the early 1990s.