Sterling LeJeune remembers the first time Randy Newman played Lafayette. It was more than 30 years ago, and the Heymman Center for the Performing Arts was still known as the Lafayette Municipal Auditorium. The show was just on the heels of Newman's provocative 1974 album Good Old Boys, and the crowd applauded as he launched into "Rednecks." LeJeune remembers Newman stopping the song and saying to the crowd, "You are perverse," before carrying on with the rest of the tune.
The accomplished songwriter and award-winning composer rolls back into town on Monday, April 28, 7:30 p.m. for a solo performance at the Heymann Center, presented by The Performing Arts Society of Acadiana.
LeJeune has since seen Newman perform two more times throughout his career, with the last in an intimate performance at Baton Rouge's Shaw Center last year. LeJeune says, "He's just one of these guys who has the ability to observe and put it into words what so many of us can understand and relate to - and with a sense of humor. At first some might take offense to him, but if you listen closely you'll realize he's making fun of himself and everybody else."
The Independent Weekly recently caught up with Newman and talked with him about his work, his connection to Louisiana and his upcoming show. Read more about "The Bard of Barbs."
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
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.
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.
Sterling LeJeune remembers the first time Randy Newman played Lafayette. It was more than 30 years ago, and the Heymman Center for the Performing Arts was still known as the Lafayette Municipal Auditorium. The show was just on the heels of Newman's provocative 1974 album Good Old Boys, and the crowd applauded as he launched into "Rednecks." LeJeune remembers Newman stopping the song and saying to the crowd, "You are perverse," before carrying on with the rest of the tune.
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