Yvette Landry was driving home one day from her job teaching at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette when her cell phone rang.
“Hello?” asked the deep, male voice on the other end of the line. “Is this Yvette Landry? This is Hank Williams Jr. calling.”
Landry shot back, as quick as if she’d suddenly hit the brakes, “C’mon. Who is this really?” It turned out to be the real Hank Williams Jr., calling about Landry’s first CD, Should Have Known—impressed and intrigued by the work of a local artist on a first-time CD handed to him by a Louisiana buddy.
That call likely won’t be the last time singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Landry gets a ring from Nashville.
Already impressive the first time out, her songwriting, vocal and production skills have taken a giant leap forward on her recent CD, No Man’s Land, with its impeccable, hand-crafted honky-tonk music. She’s also just published a children’s book, The Ghost Tree, and is collaborating on a new album from Bonsoir Catin, the Cajun female all-star quartet in which Landry plays bass and sings.
“If you would have told me 10 years ago my life was going to be like this,” the Breaux Bridge native says, “I would have looked at you like you were crazy.” And in Landry’s case, the astonishment is completely genuine.
Ten years ago, Landry was a full-time teacher, mother and wife who competed in semi-pro volleyball just to help keep herself fully occupied. But when her father was diagnosed with brain cancer in his late 50s, Landry gave up volleyball to help nurse him. Around that time, she bought an electric bass for both distraction and consolation.
Before Landry knew it, she was going to local jams and got an offer to play bass with The Lafayette Rhythm Devils for their Wednesday performances at Randol’s Restaurant and Dance Hall, a gig she still holds down.
Not long after, Landry went through a divorce—and the songs just started pouring out. “The channel was open,” she says. Singing lessons followed, and her father’s death at 67 motivated her to collect and record all the songs she’d written since the onset of his illness. Those songs became Should Have Known—crackerjack country music displaying a mature and accomplished range of talent.
But the most surprising part of Landry’s story might lie in her storytelling skills. In her songs, the upbeat, unceasingly cheerful former Crawfish Queen (seriously) inhabits the persona of a slightly defeated and jaded independent cowgirl sitting on a barstool, watching the human comedy unfold as she drinks in her fair share of hard whiskey and the classic country music of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn.
Combine that with spontaneous candor from a female perspective, and you get lyrics like, “Don’t trust that man until he’s dead and gone,” or, “Well, you’ve got pretty blue eyes, and you’ll do, I guess / I’m always lookin’ for my next Mr. Ex.”
Every tune in Landry’s catalog is pure old-time honky-tonk with a female twist, each one more insightful, touching and clever than the next. She also has a natural instinct to work with the best of Cajun music’s young virtuosos and a growing confidence that’s near awe-inspiring.
I saw her on a side stage last year at Jazz Fest, supporting her first album, and she was entirely credible; booked this year on the Fais Do Do stage with a new CD to promote, she came this close, in just one year, to turning her first big-stage set into a genuine star turn. So check her out, and if you experience just a bit of astonishment yourself, welcome to a rising star’s rapidly growing fan base.
Yvette Landry will be featured at this month’s Festivals Acadiens in Lafayette at the Louisiana Folk Roots Atelier. The festival encompasses two stages, a dance hall and several performance tents in Girard Park. It also features plenty of food, a craft fair and more than 50 performances by the likes of Geno Delafose, Balfa Toujours, Pine Leaf Boys, Roddie Romero, Wayne Toups, Steve Riley, the Savoy Family Band and many more. Oct. 11-13. festivalsacadiens.com
