SPOTLIGHTING SONNY
Sonny Landreth owns the cover of this month’s Guitar Player magazine. In an interview that spans 15 pages (with an additional six-page “Master Class”), Lafayette’s native stepson and Breaux Bridge resident talks about his new, highly acclaimed album, From The Reach, on his own Landfall Records label. The article also gleans insight from Landreth’s musical guests on the record — like Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson, Vince Gill, Mark Knopfler and Robben Ford. Clapton says of Landreth, “Sonny’s technique is astonishing and totally unique, but even with all that, he still delivers everything with elegance and great care. Sonny is a great player and a great guy.” The current October issue of Guitar Player is on newsstands now. For more information on Landreth or From The Reach, visit www.sonnylandreth.com. — R. Reese Fuller
ZUMBA NATION
About a year ago City Club at River Ranch identified a hot new dance-based fitness craze that’s not only caught on with its membership but is now spreading to other clubs. Red’s just recently jumped on the Zumba bandwagon, offering $48 sessions (once a week for about a month) for members, and other facilities are now advertising Zumba classes. City Club incorporated the Latin-based cardio workout into its lineup of exercise classes offered to members, now holding five classes a week with plans for a sixth in October. “It’s high energy but medium impact,” says Nathan Pry, City Club’s fitness director. City Club has five Zumba-certified instructors, with the closest certification class in Florida. Zumba Fitness was created in the mid-90s by Colombian native Alberto “Beto” Perez, a celebrity fitness trainer and choreographer for international pop superstars. Inspired by the traditional cumbia, salsa, samba and merengue music he grew up with, Perez paired his favorite pulsating Latin rhythms with the red-hot international dance steps his clients loved, giving birth to Zumba (Spanish slang for “to move fast and have fun”). “You don’t have to be a dancer to enjoy this class,” adds Pry. “This is for everybody.” For more info, call Red’s at 984-7256 or City Club at 406-2582. — Leslie Turk
SINGS LIKE A BIRD
When the liner notes of a CD start off noting that the artist “plays all strings and things like Barq’s root beer bottles, saw, wine glasses, high-heeled clogs, drums, slide whistle & slide violin,” you know you’re in for either a musical sweet dream or a cacophonous nightmare. Fortunately, for Theresa Andersson’s Hummingbird, Go!, it’s the former result and not the later. Recorded in her kitchen, Andersson’s sweet voice is featured front and center. The 12 tracks blends together an ethereal and satisfying experience from the Swedish-born New Orleans singer/songwriter. And even if isn’t the cup of tea you might have steeped for yourself, Hummingbird, Go! leaves you longing for a second cup. Hummingbird, Go! retails for $15 and can be ordered online at www.basinstreetrecords. For samples of the CD and to watch a clip of Andersson performing “Na Na Na,” visit www.myspace.com/theresaanderssonmusic. — R. Reese Fuller
Is it a crime for citizens to photograph, video, or take notes of a police officer in the line of duty, or a right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Locally, such activity, as witnessed recently, will at the very least result in a night spent behind bars.
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.
Episcopal School of Acadiana’s Dr. Joshua Caffery, chair of the school’s English Department, is headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress as the latest winner of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies.
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.