Music from Festival International's 25th anniversary airs Friday on American Routes with "Festival Time in Lafayette, La.," on KRVS 88.7 FM, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
If you go to the American Routes website, you'll see someone who looks remarkably like a big-smiling Yvette Landry behind some cool shades.
She appears to be in the throes of finishing off a song, you know, the way guitarists do with one hand coming down across the strings over the sound hole on the guitar body, the other on its neck held high.
In the background, there appears to be a Festival International de Louisiane banner.
All guesswork aside, it is both our own Landry and our own Festival (just voted Best World Music Festival on about.com). And it's also yet another slice of Lafayette for all the world to see (here) and hear.
And listen you can on the airing of Festival Time in Lafayette, La., on the program American Routes, Friday, KRVS 88.7 FM, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
American Routes is produced by Nick Spitzer, who previews the tomorrow's show with the following content on his website:
"Join us on the festival grounds in Lafayette, La., for the 25th annual Festival International. We'll sample outstanding live performances in Cajun, Creole, Latin and Blues, including Keb' Mo', Sonny Landreth, and Steve Riley. Be sure to get out your dancing shoes for cumbia with Miami's Locos Por Juana, two-steps with Yvette Landry and Cajun waltzes with the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Plus an all-star South Louisiana tribute to the best of swamp pop, Cajun classics and zydeco."
Other local musicians to be heard are Jeffrey Broussard, Les Traiteurs, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Doucet and Chris Stafford, Lil' Buck Sinegal, Balfa Toujours, Jesse Lege & Joel Savoy and the Cajun Country Revival, Corey Ledet & Cedric Watson, Roddie Romero, Eric Adcock with guests, Johnnie Allan & Belton Richard, Platte Lost Bayou Ramblers, Roddie Romero, Dan Vappie, Dickie Landry and guests, Ted and Marc Broussard, as well New Orleans' Don Vappie.
Spitzer is a folklorist and a professor of anthropology and American studies at Tulane University. He specializes in American music and the cultures of the Gulf South. Spitzer received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas in 1986 with his dissertation on zydeco music and Afro-French Louisiana culture and identities.
As an aside, one would think that with all the rave reviews and international attention Lafayette has been getting for its major exports - food and music - that to even think of cutting non-governmental funding is so ludicrous that it's beyond comprehension. But, hey, that's not what this is about. We're talking about celebration here - we can deal with the other in the voting booth.