Yvette Landry and The Jukes' CD release party at The Whirlybird
August 18, 2018
Yvette Landry had a coming out party last night. The Yvette that’s been on slow boil for about eight years, creating her singing voice, her stage persona, her style, got stoked to a full rolling boil tonight. She has sung with lots of really great musicians and been part of shows with lots of other fine voices.
She’s always sung with whatever the song called for, tender Cajun ballads and frisky two steps, classic country, Americana, dyed in the wool rock ‘n roll, a touch of rockabilly, and classic swamp pop.
A couple of years ago, Yvette’s teaming up with Roddie Romero and his band to create The Jukes sparked a transformation. Roddie Romero, guitar; Eric Adcock, keyboards; Chris French, standup bass; Beau Thomas, fiddle; Derek Huston, saxophone; and Gary Usie, drums, can light up any stage with the best of them.
When they play together as The Jukes, the stage all but ignites….and they are decidedly Yvette’s band.
“This group met at 4 PM for a sound check. We've played together at different times but not on the same stage. What ever you hear tonight is going to be the first time we’ve done it together,” she says.
You could’ve fooled us. What ensued was full-bore heavenly music that traversed genres from one end of the rainbow to the other, swamp pop in one pot of gold and southwest Louisiana rock 'n roll dating from the 1950's and 60's in the other.
The sense of occasion is not lost on the band. Born and raised in Breaux Bridge, Yvette has an ardent following. Playing to this particular audience, they were damn well going to pull out all the stops. The solos from Roddie Romero, Eric Adcock, Chris French, Beau Thomas, Derek Huston, and Gary Usie, can always mesmerize with sheer talent. Tonight they dug in to deliver inventive, inspired musicianship that all but levitated the Whirlybird and at its peak sprinkled us with rapturous fairy dust.
The Jukes sang every song from their new album and a bunch of rock and country classics, including Yvette's rowdy rock 'n roll-y “Do Anything But Stay Offa My Cowboy Boots.” When Yvette and Roddie launched into Swamp Pop, Louisiana’s gift to the American songbook, the thermal capacity pegged the meter on the compact Whirlybird's dance floor.
If the seven stars of the Pleiades were to form a band, Yvette Landry would be its most luminous. Tonight, in the hothouse August atmosphere inside The Whirlybird, she sang from a deep place in her core that I’ve never heard before.
I said as much as I talked with her as she signed the cover of “Louisiana Lovin’” after the show.
“I didn’t have to play guitar that much, it gave me time to let it all come through my voice,” she says after the show. Oh, yes.
Yvette has always had a streak of Loretta Lynn in her. Tonight she unleashed her inner Wanda Jackson. She went from singin’ pretty to singin’ gritty.
Roddie and tonight’s band were the gasoline. Yvette was the match. To my ears, this was a defining career moment, a voice and a presence whose depth that quite possibly took her by surprise, a new benchmark from raw, to raucous, to lyrical, to lonesome and back again. She’s never gonna’ be the same. And that’s a good thing.
The Whirlybird...the lull before the Jukes Storm...that tiny dance floor was mighty packed with deliriously happy dancers all night long.
The Jukes on stage...oh, my… and I haven’t even begun to talk about special guest, godfather of Swamp Pop Warren Storm…stay tuned...
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Thanks so much for attending and for the kind words!
Posted by: Yvette Landry | August 22, 2018 at 09:45 PM
Yvette,
Thank you for commenting on the blog story.
I came from Boston for the sole reason of seeing you, Roddie, and The Jukes on Saturday night. I learned about the show when visiting friends in Lafayette during my birthday week August 1. I grew up loving 'Sea of Love' and songs like that before I even knew they were Swamp Pop songs and before I was brave enough to ask a girl to dance a slow drag with me at the Boys Club Friday night dances. I've been visiting southwest Louisiana since 2010. Listening to KBON on that first trip opened up a world of music that resonated off every bone in my body.
http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/12/kbon-louisiana-proud-the-voice-of-the-prairie.html
After watching videos of 'I’m Leaving It Up To You' and 'Homesick Blues' I would have walked to Opelousas to witness you and The Jukes in a live performance.
I just read this story on your blog -
http://yvettelandry.com/introducing-yvette-landry-the-jukes-featuring-roddie-romero/
The last paragraph says “I’m proud of this record…” and that the music ‘is inside of me.”
That’s what I heard Saturday night, and that’s what I was trying to express in my story.
As exquisite as your singing is on the record, it can't convey the ‘inside of me’ feel that happens on nights like this in which you and every musician on stage is feeling it and pouring it out from their insides in a way that transcends notes and voices and instruments. I may or may not have gotten in right when I wrote it was a defining moment and that it came from such a deep place it may even have surprised you and that it may be a mark of how you measure your future performances. All I know is that I was juked up about it all the way back to Boston…and still am.
PT from Boston
Posted by: Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka PT from Boston | August 22, 2018 at 11:22 PM
Love it!
Posted by: Bernard Ussher | August 23, 2018 at 10:51 PM
Post away! This review is amazing. I’ve already shared it with the band!
Thanks for coming to the show. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience.
Posted by: Yvette Landry | August 23, 2018 at 11:29 PM
Paul, did you realize the sound quality of the event? I did it with only 4 inputs. Two for vocals, one for saxophone and a line from the keyboard. Those inputs were blended with the amplifiers of the instruments. I had the band position everything to get the most even and smoothest sound i could and then put the vocals on top of that. I wanted it to sound like a good stereo and not a blasting p.a.
Posted by: Karl Fontenot | August 28, 2019 at 12:03 PM
Karl, I just posted two videos from the show. They don't do justice to the voices or instruments. I was standing next to a big speaker that overwhelmed my iPhone. But...I can tell you that when I stood next to the first row of seats in front of the stage, the sound mix for every one of those talented musicians was clean and clear.
I gather that the Whirlybird was a challenge to set up. You figured out a way to maximize every note coming from that stage. I'll bet the musicians could tell the difference...we in the audience did for sure. Thank you telling me how you rigged it up to give us such a beautiful cloud of sound.
Posted by: Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka PT from Boston | September 02, 2019 at 08:47 PM