BEST FOR LAST Andy Cornett’s final recording is a good one. The 61-year-old Lafayette blues harpist/bass player died Feb. 24 after a brief illness. Although Andy had been in poor health for more than a year, he did manage to blow some fine harp on Rue Boogaloo’s recently released self-titled debut. Andy was best known for his harp work — hardly to mention his role as manager and producer — with legendary blues pianist Henry Gray, although he was a fine bass player, too. And side projects like Rue Boogaloo were always right up Andy’s alley. Featuring seasoned local musicians Marty Christian (guitar, vocals), Frank Kincel (drums), Lee Zeno (bass) and Cornett (harmonica), Rue Boogaloo mines the classic blues sounds of the Delta, Texas and Chicago, adding enough of a funky South Louisiana feel to make the record at once local, universal and quintessentially accessible. The musicianship is top-notch. Christian’s twanging, nimble guitar licks play perfectly off Cornett’s wailing harp. Kincel and Zeno, meanwhile, lay down a rhythmic foundation worthy of a brick house. The record is available most everywhere local music is sold. It can also be purchased for $10.99 through the band’s website, RueBoogaloo.com. Only one song, in light of Andy’s recent passing, is tough to get through on this 10-tune record: the soulful, plaintive, swamp pop-feeling third track, “Had a Good Run.” — Walter Pierce
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.
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.
BEST FOR LAST
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