Former county supervisor John Leopold wins Grammy as executive producer of zydeco tribute album to legend Clifton Chenier

John Leopold is one for one. His first and, thus far, only executive producing credit earned him a Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Music Album on Sunday in Los Angeles.

“I’ve started at the top of the mountain, I fear,” the former Santa Cruz County supervisor told Lookout on Monday.

The album that earned Leopold the prestigious win is “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco,” a tribute album loaded with covers by world-famous musicians such as the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Taj Mahal and more, paying tribute to Clifton Chenier to commemorate his 100th birthday. Chenier created the sound of modern zydeco music by blending the traditional Louisiana dance music with blues and R&B.

While Leopold served as District 1 county supervisor from 2009 through 2020, he has been involved with the music scene for some time. He served on the Grateful Dead’s philanthropic organization the Rex Foundation for 10 years, chairing it for five. He had also worked with the East Bay independent roots music label Arhoolie Records and its founder, the late Chris Strachwitz, since the early 2000s.

Leopold said he recalls hatching the idea for the album with David Hidalgo and Steve Berlin of Los Lobos following a New Year’s Day 2023 show in Santa Cruz. Soon after, he got in touch with Joel Savoy, the founder of Louisiana-based Valcour Records, to begin working on the project.

“We wanted to do something big, and had this vision of connecting nationally known artists who had either played with Clifton, seen him or been influenced by him and then pairing them with some of the best accordion players in Southwest Louisiana,” Leopold said. 

Leopold said so many artists responded wanting to be a part of the album that the producers had to make difficult decisions in choosing: “We could have done many more CDs,” he said with a laugh. The final cut features the Rolling Stones, Charlie Crockett, Taj Mahal, Lucinda Williams, John Cleary and many more — each big-name artist paired with Louisiana musicians to play Chenier’s licks on accordion or washboard.

Even before Leopold experienced the shock of winning, the luncheon he went to on Saturday was an experience to remember in and of itself. He said he spent time with Trombone Shorty, Jimmie Vaughn, Corey Henry and more. Some of them performed, too.

“We saw lots of folks from the music community there and they had great food. Louisiana has great food, so we never go hungry at those kinds of things,” he said. “If that was all we went for, that would have been a great event. And then we get the whole Grammy experience the next day!”

While Leopold raised the money for the project, he gives a lot of credit to Berlin and Savoy for the project’s end result and Grammy win.

“I wasn’t playing with the rookies here,” he said. “But I brought them all together.”

Despite making the biggest splash possible in his first producing effort, Leopold said he’s already working on another project with Cajun musicians Steve Riley and Christine Balfa, daughter of Cajun music legend Dewey Balfa, on another commemorative project, this time for Dewey Balfa. But today, he’s just proud of the work he and many others did on the Chenier project.

“If you’re not smiling at the end of this record, I have not done my job,” he said. 

“A Tribute to the King of Zydeco” is available to stream on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Apple Music and Qobuz. 

Profits from the sale of the album will be donated to the Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship Fund, created by Valcour Records with the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The fund will offer annual financial assistance to students studying traditional music, specifically zydeco accordion, at the university.

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