Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival

The 39^th Annual Original Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Festival – Virtual Edition

(Opelousas, LA) – The 39^th Original Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Festival is going virtual for the 2^nd year due to the pandemic.  The organizers are preparing the festival, trying to satisfy the demand for Creole Culture and Zydeco Music!  Festival executive director Lena Charles says that all over the country music fans long to come to Southwest Louisiana to experience firsthand the “keepers of the culture and the tellers of the stories.”  This year they can experience it virtually as the Festival lets loose in homes from New York to California to Florida—and of course Louisiana!

Usually held the Saturday before Labor Day in Opelousas, the virtual event will be broadcast on the website and on multiple TV stations.  This year’s celebration features recorded performances by zydeco hit makers such as GRAMMY nominee Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie and GRAMMY winner Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band.  The event will include interviews with zydeco all-stars and legends which were conducted by St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission Executive Director and host of Zydeco Stomp on KRVS, Herman Fuselier, as wells as Lena Charles, Festival Organizer and Director. 

Enjoy music and conversations with Anthony Dopsie, Geno Delafose, Chubby Carrier, Jeffery Broussard, Korey Broussard and Leon Chavis.  From your living room, or an impromptu cookout you can kick up your heels to the music of Jeffery Broussard & Zydeco Cowboys, Korey Broussard & Zydeco Unit and Geno Delafose & French Rocking Boogie.

Lena Charles notes that it is important to support the festival’s mission in preserving creole culture and zydeco music in St. Landry Parish.   

You can catch the festival on September 4^th at 11 a.m. from the website (www.zydeco.org), on KLFY Channel 10, and AOC Acadiana Open Channel.

It’s also available at noon September 4^th and 5^th on MyNetwork Channel 5 Charter.

About the Original Southwest Zydeco Festival:
The Treasures of Opelousas, a group of concerned citizens, feared that Zydeco and Creole music were dying; in response, they organized the first festival. With the guidance and sponsorship from the Southern Development Foundation, the first Zydeco Festival in 1982 was started in a bean field in Plaisance, Louisiana on the outskirts of Opelousas.

More information about the 39^th Annual Original Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Festival, French La La to Zydeco Music, Signup for to win for your Watch Parties and other Opportunities to Support the Festival; all will be published online at www.zydeco.org or Facebook at SWLA Zydeco Music Festival.