LAFAYETTE, LA — Everyone has access to GoFundMe when something usually tragic strikes. There are nonprofits, churches, businesses, etc., and, of course, good people at the ready to assist in anyway they can.
There can be bake sales, car washes, donation cans around town and the like raising cash for medical bills and recovery.
We have all of that here in South Louisiana. And it’s a wonderful thing.
But we have something else, too: Top-tier musicians playing great homegrown music and a packed house of folks eager to financially assist the particular cause and pass a good time in the process.
It’s how we roll.
So with that in mind, mark Sunday, August 28, 2022 on your calendar for Songs of Hope, a benefit for Dillan Pope who suffered an accident that burst his cervical 7 vertebrae on April 29, 2022.
The benefit goes from 1-9 p.m., at Warehouse 535, 535 Garfield St., Lafayette, La. Currently, there’s an online auction underway.
The injury left him paralyzed from his chest down throughout his lower extremities.
From what I understand, Dillan is super diligent in rehab and determined to walk again.
Tickets are $15, kids 12 and under free. In addition to great music and fun and camaraderie, there’s a raffle, silent auction, cash bar, food by The Southern Spread.
The line-up is simply incredible: Has Beans, Dyer County, Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie, Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, Feufollet, and Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys.
Special guests include Sonny Landreth, Jourdan Thibodeaux, Anna Laura Edmonton and Chris Segura.
Dillan Pope endured a lengthy surgery on April 30th after the incident. The fractured bone was removed, and hardware was put in place to stabilize the area while it heals.
Dillan attended TIRR Memorial Herman Inpatient Rehabilitation in Houston the month following his surgery, and is now attending rigorous outpatient therapy at Spero Rehab in Austin, TX. He has gained some movement in his lower extremities, however, it is impossible to know how much of his mobility will be restored.
Most spinal cord injury patients continue rehabilitation for years, in addition to purchasing supplies and equipment to assist in daily living. Dillan has, and continues, to work very hard towards becoming independent, and we have high hopes for his full mobility and functionality to return, but only time and extensive rehab will tell.
The late Courtney Granger will be honored Saturday, March 19, 2022, 1 p.m. on Scène Ma Louisiane. DCross photo
By DOMINICK CROSS
LAFAYETTE — In this much needed pause between calamities — a waning pandemic and the possibility of WWIII — make the best of the opportunity to indulge in Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, this weekend (March 18-20, 2022) in Girard Park.
The springtime version of the festival that’s usually held in the fall marks the 48th running of the music, food, arts and crafts extravaganza celebrating the Cajun and Creole cultures. One doesn’t have to go back in history to recall that COVID-19 put a halt to life as we knew it this time of year in 2020, and the virus kept most of us off-balance through 2022.
Virtual festivals became the rule of thumb everywhere and got us by, like decaf coffee, until the real deal that’s about to go down in two days and upcoming months. So, bring on the caffeine, the great outdoors, dancing shoes and an appetite for food, fun and frolic in all of the usual ways. Almost.
“We’re celebrating finally getting back together again, live in the park,” said Barry Ancelet, president of the board of Festivals Acadiens et Creoles. “We want people to please be responsible. Let’s not get carried away, careless at this point to undo the good things that are happening.
“Hopefully, as many people as possible will be vaccinated and just be responsible in how we gather. If anybody feels sick or symptomatic of anything, really, not just COVID, but anything, you know, they’ll stay home.
“Let’s just be safe. Let’s be smart,” he said. “If you’re coughing or running a fever, stay home.”
Festivals Acadiens et Creoles will again return to its normal time in October — yep, we’re getting a two-for-one this year — sans hurricane, pandemic or another world war.
Ancelet said that the original event that became this festival was held in the spring in Blackham Coliseum. But there are no plans to return to this time of year on a regular basis.
“We’re going to have the festival in October,” Ancelet said. “This spring festival is to make up for the one we didn’t have last October. In October, we’re still dealing with hurricane season, but I think it’s become our home, become our time.”
While bad weather may be an issue, it should take place when we’re all tucked away for the night. As of Wednesday, there’s “the chance for some severe weather as the front moves through, which is expected to be in the early morning hours of Friday,” according to KATC Weather, noting that the weekend outlook is good.
Music to your ears
The festivals’ line-up includes the usual Grammy-noms and Grammy winners, standard bearers of years past, envelope pushers of the present, and new bands with familiar names.
There is a tribute to the late Courtney Granger, Saturday, March 19, 2022, 1 p.m., on Scène Ma Louisiane. Granger, who left us way too soon at 39 in September 2021 , played Cajun fiddle and Cajun sang with The Pine Leaf Boys and Balfa Toujours. He sat in with everybody and would make the hair on your neck stand up knocking off a country crooner classic. Granger released Beneath Still Waters in 2016 and if you order it now, you should have it in your collection by next week.
Over the weekend, there’s the golden opportunity to listen and dance to Sheryl Cormier & Cajun Sound, Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Wayne Singleton & Same Ol’ 2 Step, Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars, Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie, Bonsoir, Catin, Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble, Balfa Toujours, Joe Hall and the Louisiana Cane Cutters, Feufollet, Savoy Family Band, Cedrick Watson & Bijou Creole, Riley Family Band, The Potluck Band, Jesse Lege, Lil’ Nathan & the Zydeco Big Timers, Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rodailleurs, Wayne Toups & ZydeCajun.
Chris Ardoin and NuStep Zydeco, opening night, Friday, March 18. DCross photo
The Bayou Food Festival will give you a taste of the Cajun and Creole cultures, and the Louisiana Crafts Fair artists and craftspeople will have their wares to marvel over and purchase.
Looking ahead
Ancelet said the board will meet in early April to plan the fall festival, in which the week of will coincide with an ethnomusicology conference in Lafayette.
“We’ve got some interesting plans for the next one,” he said. “None of this is in stone, but what we’re discussing right now is celebrating Louisiana as an international Francophone crossroads, examining the connections Louisiana has to the rest of the French speaking world.
“Part of that is going along with the likelihood that we’re going to have a major, international Francophone Ethnomusicology Conference in Lafayette the week of the festival in October,” Ancelet said, adding, “all of this is in the planning stages, but this is what we’re shooting for.”
Look for scholars and performers from the Francophone areas “that we’re examining to see the connections,” said Ancelet. “Not only to ponder them, but hear them.”
A similar ethnomusicology conference was held over Zoom last year.
Who knew?
As it happened, Mason had a major impact on Ancelet’s life during his collegiate years, and, as it so happens, anyone who has ever enjoyed Festival Acadiens et Creoles.
Mason came to Louisiana in the early 1970s “and met with and learned from and recorded with the Balfa Brothers, Nathan Abshire, the Ardoins — a lot of the founding members of that generation — so he’s very well connected and a long-time, not only fan of, but very knowledgable of Cajun music and zydeco.”
While in Nice, France, when Ancelet was on his academic year abroad in 1972-73, Mason was playing “Crowley Two-Step” in a coffee shop, “And it changed my life,” said Ancelet.
Ancelet introduced himself and said he was from Louisiana and that the song eased his homesickness.
“And he said, ‘You must know all of the people I learned from, Dewey Balfa, Nathan Abshire…,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know any of those people, but I need to know who they are.’”
Roddie Romero & the Hub City All Stars, Saturday, 3:45 pm, Scène Ma Louisiane. DCross photo
Mason told Ancelet that when he gets back home, go to Basile, get directions to Dewey Balfa’s house and introduce himself. So, in the summer of 1973, he knocked on Balfa’s door.
“I said, ‘Are you Dewey Balfa?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ I said, ‘I’m Barry Ancelet and I’m from here and I was in France and I met Roger Mason,” recalled Ancelet, who said in his nervousness, his response got faster and faster before Balfa urged him to slow down and invited him inside.
“I went in and that’s how I got involved in all of this,” Ancelet said. “And it was in part due to Roger Mason.”
