Crown worn by Rockin' Dopsie: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Gold plastic band with 4 connecting plastic bands meeting at the top of the crown. Wooden finial at top. Red velvet under strips with fur trim around the bottom of the crown. The strips are trimmed with multi-colored plastic beads and pearls. The crown is lined with brown felt. It was worn by donor's father, Alton Joseph Rubin (1932-1993), known professionally as Rockin' Dopsie, of the band, Rockin' Dopsie and his Zydeco Twisters, of Lafayette, Louisiana.

Born in 1932 in Carencro, Louisiana, Alton "Rockin' Dopsie" Rubin began playing accordion when he was eight. He became famous as the left-handed musician who could play his accordion upside down. He toured extensively, becoming best known for his regular Friday night shows at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans. In 1986, he joined Paul Simon on his Grammy Award-winning album, Graceland, in a song that paid tribute to Clifton Chenier, "King of the Bayou." On his deathbed in 1987, Clifton said to Rockin' Dopsie, "You know it took a long time to get where we are today," recalling how in the 1950s, the challenge of trying to win over a white audience, "If anything happens to me, I want you to just keep the legacy going." Dopsie's son, Rockin' Dopsie Jr., recalled that his father purchased this crown for $3,800, custom-built, from a Lafayette jeweler. But his choice to wear it in a Zydeco festival in tribute to Chenier, January 3, 1988, three weeks after his death, caused controversy among Lafayette locals, even though Dopsie had been crowned the new King of Zydeco by the mayor himself at a coronation in 1987. But Dopsie never let fame take him away from his true fans. In answer to an invitation to appear on the NBC television show, "Saturday Night Live," in 1991, Dopsie replied, "Oh, no man, I can't do that. I got a job at a church dance in Houston."

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: ca 1987
• user: Rockin' Dopsie
• Object Name: crown
• Measurements: overall: 23 cm x 29.5 cm x 28.5 cm; 9 1/16 in x 11 5/8 in x 11 1/4 in
• Measurements: overall: 9 in x 11 in x 9 1/4 in; 22.86 cm x 27.94 cm x 23.495 cm
• ID Number: 1999.0337.01
• accession number: 1999.0337
• catalog number: 1999.0337.01
• Credit Line: Gift of Dwayne Dopsie
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.