Singer-songwriter and keyboardist nonpareil Steve Kerin may have left Louisiana for the wiles of the Pacific Northwest seven years ago, but South Louisiana never left Steve, and you can hear it on his awesome new record, Joy, an 12-track collection of songs spanning about 15 years of songwriting dating back to Steve’s days in the quirky, uber-cool Lafayette-based fusion-funk-jazz-rock band, The Megatron Jones.
The record will remind you of Randy Newman and Doctor John, to be sure, but Steve has his own thing going, and the musicianship on this record produced locally by drummer/producer Jerry LeJeune at Evangeline Recording Studio is first-rate. Session players include LeJeune, Benny Graeffe (bass), Bob Shoemaker (guitar), Craig Futch (guitar), Mitch Reed (fiddle), Esther Tyree (fiddle), Towny Angell (bass), Pat Breaux (accordion) and Michael Juan Nunez (guitar). Steve rounds out the all-star ensemble on piano, accordion, guitar, ukulele, percussion and vocals. Yeah, he did all that.
“In this stage of my life, I feel that music is a way for me to stay in touch with my roots,” Steve says of his songwriting on Joy. The winner the past two consecutive years of the Cascade Blues Association’s Keyboardist of the Year award, Steve says he’s been embraced by music fans and, more important, musicians in Portland and beyond. “It has been really wonderful to see the love that people have for Louisiana musical styles all across the country,” he adds. With family still in the area, Steve has made a point of squeezing in recording sessions at LeJeune’s studio almost every time he’s in town. The result, long time coming but well worth the wait, is this fine new collection of songs.
Steve Kerin will celebrate the release of Joy with two special homecoming concerts: Dec. 14 at Artmosphere and the next night at the Feed & Seed.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
Singer-songwriter and keyboardist nonpareil Steve Kerin may have left Louisiana for the wiles of the Pacific Northwest seven years ago, but South Louisiana never left Steve, and you can hear it on his awesome new record, Joy, an 12-track collection of songs spanning about 15 years of songwriting dating back to Steve’s days in the quirky, uber-cool Lafayette-based fusion-funk-jazz-rock band, The Megatron Jones.
dist of the Year award, Steve says he’s been embraced by music fans and, more important, musicians in Portland and beyond. “It has been really wonderful to see the love that people have for Louisiana musical styles all across the country,” he adds. With family still in the area, Steve has made a point of squeezing in recording sessions at LeJeune’s studio almost every time he’s in town. The result, long time coming but well worth the wait, is this fine new collection of songs.
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