The MidCity Advocate 03-04-2026

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Now’s the time to celebrate Acadiana’s Lee Allen Zeno

In his raucous “Soul Alive!” album, singer, bishop, mortician, limousine driver, drugstore owner, backstage barbecue vendor and father of 21 Solomon Burke testified, “The answer in life is love and understanding.”

The soul-singing minister continued, “I don’t want nobody to give me flowers when I’m dead and gone. Give me my flowers while I’m living. So I can feel ’em, smell ’em, see ’em.”

I thought about Burke’s words after hearing fateful news of Lee Allen Zeno of Lafayette Zeno is a sideman, a musician who makes the stars sound great but rarely gets the spotlight. Zeno and his remarkable bass guitar skills helped Buckwheat Zydeco become a Grammy winner and the only zydeco band to win an Emmy Zeno is all over “New Beginnings,” the debut album and Grammy winner for Buckwheat Zydeco Jr

Lee Allen Zeno performs at the 2024 Clifton Chenier Centennial & Slim’s Y-Ki-Ki Fundraiser in Opelousas.

Since 1980, Zeno has song credits on at least 73 albums, singles, EPs and videos They include works by Burke, Charlie Rich, Marcia Ball, Irma Thomas, Tracy Nelson, Kenny Neal, Bobby Rush, Boozoo Chavis and the Neville Brothers. Zeno’s bass fuels “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco,” which won the Best Regional Roots Album Grammy earlier this month. Just a few weeks after that joyous Grammy news came Zeno’s troubling announcement After fighting cancer throughout his music career, Zeno decided he’s had enough He’s ending chemotherapy. According to longtime friend and supporter John Williams, Zeno’s cancer count after his latest round of chemo showed his leukemia is getting worse. Williams said on social media that Zeno will now “focus on staying healthy and receiving blood transfusions as needed, in order to have more vibrant time with his family and playing his music.” Williams has been on a mission to help unsung music heroes and forgotten legends.

ä See ZENO, page 2G

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

PROVIDED

ä To see a more complete list of the other Louisianans who have competed on “The Voice,” their hometowns and how they placed, GO TO TINYURL. COM/2PVMAYCV

BY JUDY BERGERON | Staff writer

Twenty-eight seasons in, “The Voice” has yet to crown a Louisiana winner. But the state keeps sending singers deep into the competition — and turning national exposure into momentum long after the cameras stop rolling. The 29th season of “The Voice” premieres 8 p.m. Monday on NBC with judges John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine. The show streams on Peacock the day after airing Meghan Linsey came oh-so-close to winning “The Voice” in 2015, finishing as runner-up. It was a banner Season 8 for four other fellow Louisianans who also fared well in the competition, among them New Orleans’ Tonya Boyd-Cannon.

ä See ‘THE VOICE’, page 2G

Building bridges

Fast forward to Season 25, when Louisiana’s Karen Waldrup placed fifth and Zoe Levert reached the top 12. Last season, Acadiana’s Dustin Dale Gaspard brought something new to “The Voice,” wowing the judges in his blind audition by singing Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me” in both English and Cajun French. He made it to the knockouts round before being eliminated.

Here, we catch up with BoydCannon, Levert and Gaspard, and give a glimpse of what those five Louisianans from Season 8 have done post-”The Voice.”

‘She is unafraid and she’s bold.’

When someone tells Boyd-Cannon she’s a busy woman, she’ll quickly correct with, “No, I’m blessed.”

According to the Mississippiborn-and-Louisiana-raised BoydCannon, 46, the blessings have only multiplied since her 2015 appearance on “The Voice.” The NBC singing competition wasn’t her first stop on the road to national TV She had pursued “Star Search,” “Showtime at the Apollo” and “American Idol.” She was turned away from the last one not because she lacked an impressive voice, but for being “too gospel.”

However, Boyd-Cannon, who grew up in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, had early success on “The Voice” with soul, pop, rock, gospel and rhythm-and-blues performances. She advanced to the live playoffs, when contestants were trimmed from 20 to 12, before being eliminated.

At one point, her coach, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, had this to say: “She is unafraid and she’s bold The No. 1 one thing I try to tell everybody else on my team, do what Tonya does.”

“That makes me feel amazing, to know that someone, that he saw me in that light, because it’s such a great opportunity to be able to do what I love to do, be bold and just to take a chance,” she said Nevertheless, Boyd-Cannon needed time to heal post-”The Voice,” leaning on the words of another of the show’s four coaches.

“I recalled something Pharrell (Williams, singer, songwriter and record producer) told me on that same day (of her elimination). He said, ‘Tonya, this is your springboard. Don’t let nobody take this moment from you,’” she said. “And so I left remembering that.”

Following that pause, her music picked back up in a big way Since 2015, Boyd-Cannon has toured around the globe, released multiple singles and albums. She also teaches voice in the Black American music program at Tulane University as an adjunct professor, at an after-school program at the Leah Chase School, and at a vocal workshop at the Jazz and Heritage Center

She described her most recent

CURIOUS

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parents now live near him in the Nashville area As for the restaurant, Jardon said the Cafe Des Amis was the first restaurant that came to mind when reading about the HayesDuvall meeting.

“I remember how famous people who ate there signed the poles in the Cafe Des Amis,” she said “And I remember seeing an autograph by Robert Duvall on the door.” Duvall’s inscription? “I love the smell of napalm in the morning, Bobby Duvall.”

The inscription offers proof that Duvall had visited the restaurant, which opened in 1992, but the autograph, like the restaurant, is no longer there. The eatery closed its doors in 2017, and it has since reopened as the Cafe Syndie Mae.

“All of the autographs are gone,” said Tina Begnaud, executive director of the Breaux Bridge Area Chamber of Commerce “But there were a lot of famous people who passed through there. The former owner, Dickie Breaux, even had the Beach Boys there one night.”

So, Mulate’s was the place, and Duvall and his wife, Luciana, were in town for the seven-week filming of “The Apostle.”

A movie legend Duvall was a movie legend with such roles as Don Corleone’s consigliere Tom Hagen in “The Godfather” movies, Major Frank Burns in “M*A*S*H,” former Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in “Lonesome Dove,” volatile Marine fighter pilot Lt. Col Wilbur “Bull” Meechum in “The Great Santini” and his Oscar-winning

record, 2025’s “The Cluster,” as “a Dear Tonya letter ” Her latest single, the lively, fun

“Everywhere Else It’s Tuesday,” dropped just before Mardi Gras.

She currently has 21,000 followers on Facebook and 27,100 on Instagram.

Levert makes her move

Things have been moving quickly for folk/pop/contemporary Christian artist Levert since her move to Nashville, Tennessee, last year

The New Orleans native and former Baton Rouge resident, 23, has signed with By Design music company and WME, a talent and booking agency

She’s writing and releasing songs, scoping out gigs and mapping her future in Music City

Reflecting on Season 25 of “The Voice,” where she reached the top 12 in 2024, Levert calls the experience “incredible.”

The then-20 year old, in what was essentially her stage debut, impressed the judges and the voting viewers at home with her spins on songs like “Cowboy Take Me Away” by The Chicks, Little Big Town’s “Better Man” and “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.

“Feed the Flame” and a reprisal of “Bring It On Home To Me.” Soon,he’lldo10daysofshows on Prince Edward Island, off Nova Scotia. Gaspard will follow that with a four-week tour across British Columbia.

Audiences at these abovethe-border performances aren’t like back home, Gaspard has observed.

“Oh, far off rowdy I hate to use the word respectful, but it’s just a different environment,” he said. “People are there to consume music, not to be entertained by it. It’s not like a background feature of the culture or atmosphere. It’s actually the feature that you’re going to witness, you know? That’s the biggest difference.”

Likewise, song choices vary greatly while in Canada from Lafayette on Saturday night.

He pursued music in South Carolina for a while but has since earned a juris doctorate, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in 2020. He was admitted to the Texas Bar Previously, he earned a bachelor of science in marketing from LSU. He currently has 1,900 friends on Facebook and 2,303 followers on Instagram.

“It was my first time really performing on a stage like that. I had to learn how to perform and how to be captivating on stage,” she said.

With John Legend as her coach, Levert says the many vocal coaches and choreographers put her through what she calls “artist boot camp.” She had a crash course in the facets of the music industry building a brand and becoming an artist.

Levert adds that she feels like she thrived the most on the singing competition series when she started being herself — requesting songs that she loved and talking about her faith

“I definitely carry that into my career now; just trying to be who I am and who God designed me to be and tell stories that I’m passionate about,” she said.

Those stories surface in the three singles Levert has dropped in the last five months, including this month’s breakup song, “sharing Jesus with an ex ” Now happily married to fellow musician Ryan Turner, she reached into her past for inspiration.

“I remember, when I was younger, going through a really bad breakup and having this temporary thought of, ‘I feel like Jesus would be on my side in this breakup,’ which isn’t exactly fair to the guy that I ended the relationship with,” she explained “The song is kind of a sarcastic, funny way to deal with that feeling of wishing Jesus would only take your side, especially when it’s a guy that didn’t treat you super well.”

Levert initially posted the song on TikTok, attracting millions of views. With the amount of people who were relating to the story, she

decided to release the song with her label.

The singer-songwriter’s other two recent singles are “Custody,” released in October — a song about who gets custody of coffee shops and friend groups after a breakup and “Dear Carpenter,” released in December

“In the Bible when we talk about how Jesus was a carpenter and a craftsman, there’s gotta be something there with him being a carpenter and him fixing things and how the love of Jesus can fix and heal us,” Levert said. “Instead of saying, ‘Dear God,’ I say ‘Dear Carpenter,’ and I use the language of fixing and refining and rebuilding.”

Plans for an album from Levert in the near future are still fluid. For now, she and her team are focused on producing one song at a time. Levert currently has 1,000 followers on Facebook and 26,200 on Instagram.

Gaspard on the road again

Acadiana’s Gaspard can sum up the difference in his music career since competing on “The Voice” last fall in one word: volume.

“Nothing has changed except the volume, you know? Everyone is finally paying attention, so I have opportunities that I’ve never had before,” Gaspard, 33, said by phone on Monday “And the frequency of which those doors open is a little more often, but besides that, I’m still performing as much as I can, playing as often wherever I can to wherever people will have me.”

On Lundi Gras, that “wherever” was the 20th annual Swamp Pop Reunion Show in Ville Platte. The Cow Island native performed three songs: Rod Bernard’s “Allons Danser Colinda,” Van Broussard’s

role as Mac Sledge, the former country music singer who finds redemption, in “Tender Mercies.” And that’s not forgetting the role of Lt. Col. Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now,” where his famous “napalm” line became his most

memorable catchphrase the same phrase he inscribed on the Cafe Des Amis door But the character of a charismatic Pentecostal preacher named Euliss F. “Sonny” Dewey was his focus while filming “The

“When I’m there, I’m doing folk music and telling stories. When we’re playing somewhere here out on Saturday night, we’re trying to keep the people on the dance floor,” said Gaspard. Gaspard says he “had one of the best times of my life” while working with the coaches on “The Voice.” The main lesson he took away from the experience is that all artists, no matter where they are, have the same passion, sacrifice and humility to share their craft with the world.

Gaspard, who’s released a few singles, also hopes to make an album happen.

Meanwhile, his fan base has grown exponentially since his global exposure on “The Voice.”

Tens of thousands of followers on every platform, videos viewed by millions of people across the world and many requests to perform and produce new music.

“And I’m hoping to find a way to keep them all satisfied because it feels like a lot of pressure,” he said. “And it’s hard to keep up with when there’s so many people that you care about because they care about you.”

Gaspard currently has 51,000 followers on Facebook and 21,000 on Instagram.

The Louisiana 5 In Season 8, five Louisianans made it deep into the season. These days, four of the five are still in the music world — while one has become an attorney in Texas. Another is also dabbling in the world of real estate.

Besides Boyd-Cannon, filling out the 2015 five are:

Travis Ewing: In 2015, Lafayette native Ewing moved to Charleston, South Carolina, just before auditioning for “The Voice.” He was originally on Pharrell Williams’ team, but was stolen by Blake Shelton. After Ewing advanced to the top 32, he was eliminated in the knockouts round. He originally said “The Voice” experience gave him the confidence to pursue music as a full-time career

Apostle” in Acadiana. The movie co-starred Walton Goggins, Billy Bob Thornton, June Carter Cash and Farrah Fawcett.

And the cast included Hunter Hayes in a church scene among a group of churchgoers in the Acadiana area.

After hearing the young musician play, Duvall approached his parents’ table and asked if their son could appear in his film.

A pivotal birthday present

The Hayes family joined the Duvalls for dinner a couple of times afterward, then invited the Duvalls to Hunter’s fifth birthday party That’s when Hunter Hayes’ music career forever changed. Duvall not only attended the birthday party but presented the young musician with a beginner guitar and amplifier

But this wasn’t just any guitar it was Hunter Hayes’ first. Hayes didn’t waste any time in learning to play it. Today, he plays guitar accordion and piano in his repertoire of country pop music and has shared the stage with such artists as Taylor Swift, Hank Williams Jr., Merle Haggard, Carrie Underwood, Johnny Cash and Stevie Wonder And through it all, Hunter Hayes and his parents maintained a friendship with Duvall, keeping in touch with the actor and exchanging annual Christmas cards. Lynette Hayes remembers the actor as the most down-to-earth, kindest and humble person. Now Duvall is a part of Hunter Hayes’ musical journey

Do you have a question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your question to curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and the city where you live.

Koryn Hawthorne: This Abbeville native competed on “The Voice” in 2015 and won fourth place on Pharrell Williams’ team. Abbeville’s mayor proclaimed May 6, 2015, as Koryn Hawthorne Day Her debut studio album, “Unstoppable,” was released July 13, 2018, and earned her multiple awards nominations, including two Grammy nods. She released her most recent album, “On God,” in 2024. These days, she’s still performing, but also self-contracting residential buildings, including a decked-out barndominium in Acadiana.

She currently has 505,000 followers on Facebook and 509,000 followers on Instagram.

Meghan Linsey: In April 2015, the Ponchatoula native and four other Louisiana contestants made it up the ranks in Season 8 of “The Voice.” She finished in the runnerup spot behind Sawyer Fredericks, and rose to fame as one half of the country music duo Steel Magnolia with her then-boyfriend, Joshua Scott Jones.

In 2023, she reworked the theme song for “Queer Eye” when the then-fab five filmed in New Orleans and Baton Rouge Most recently, she released ”Blue” on Feb. 13. Nashville Noise described Linsey’s newest song: “After nearly a decade between full-length albums, Meghan Linsey is stepping back into the spotlight with ‘Blue,’ a retro-tinged, emotionally rich ballad that leans into heartbreak’s quieter more lingering aftermath.”

She currently has 75,000 followers on Facebook and 68,000 on Instagram.

Rob Taylor: Hailing from Donaldsonville, Taylor was 22 when he auditioned for Season 8 of “The Voice.” Coach Christina Aguilera was so impressed, she rushed the stage to hug him. Guess which team Taylor joined? He made it to the show’s Top 10. His Top 12 night performance of “I Put a Spell on You” reached No. 1 on the iTunes R&B/Soul singles chart. In 2020, he decided to give the television singing-competition world another go and auditioned for “American Idol.” He made it through round 3 and went to Hawaii where he was eliminated before making the Top 20. He currently has 5,300 followers on Facebook.

As a new season of “The Voice” begins 8 p.m. Monday on NBC, Louisiana will once again be watching — and waiting — to see whether one of its own can finally claim the title.

Email Judy Bergeron at jbergeron@theadvocate.com.

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Through the years, many musicians struggled in their final days. Families had to hold “benefit dances” to bury them.

Love of People, Williams’ nonprofit organization, has helped senior musicians with medical bills, home repairs and other financial and health challenges. Funding has come through the “Blue Monday Concert Series,” a blues jam which celebrated its 10th anniversary Feb. 9 at the Ruins Lounge in Lafayette. Williams went the extra mile literally in Zeno’s latest cancer bout. He transported Zeno to treatments in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and beyond, before suffering a serious flareup of diverticulitis. Williams said he will now “lean on all the angels” that have been part of Zeno’s fight.

I hope Zeno accepts this bouquet of gratitude for a life of award-winning music in the shadows of the stars. As your friend Solomon Burke said, feel, smell, see and enjoy the flowers.

I hope you’re moved to celebrate a Lee Allen Zeno in your life with a handshake, hug or a few dollars. It’s the least we can do for artists who create in the shadows, yet still bring sunshine to our lives.

Herman Fuselier is executive director of the St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission. A longtime journalist covering Louisiana music and culture, he lives in Opelousas. His “Zydeco Stomp” show airs at noon Saturdays on KRVS 88.7 FM.

LSU Shreveport Olympian to launch healthy youth initiative

Statewide project released in conjunction with Winter Games

MATT VINES LSU Shreveport

Three-time U.S. Olympian Kendrick Farris is launching a statewide school-based initiative to advance youth wellness and expand access to plant-forward nutrition.

The FEED initiative, which stands for Fueling Every Eater’s Development, is designed to support the roll out of the Healthy Kids Act across Louisiana in conjunction with the 2026 Winter Olympics this February and beyond.

Farris, an LSU Shreveport graduate who got his weightlifting start at the on-campus USA Weightlifting Development Center, will visit schools and deliver interactive assemblies focused on active lifestyles and plantforward nutrition.

“I believe this initiative promoting movement, nutrition literacy and plant-forward eating to underserved youth can uplift students, schools, and families while making Shreveport a model for health equity,” Farris said. “As a three-time Olympian, husband, and father of four, I have seen firsthand how access to food, movement and education shapes long-term outcomes.”

The Healthy Kids Act legislation includes guidelines to improve school lunch nutrition by removing ultra-processed foods and foods with certain dyes and additives.

Farris is partnering with the Louisiana Department of Education along with other entities like the locally-based Heartwork Institute in this initiative.

Farris, whose diet has been fully plant-based for more than a decade, advocates for more access to and education about plantrich meals.

“I help young people understand how to fuel their bodies

with accessible foods like lentils, beans, hummus, fruits, vegetables and other plant-rich meals that support both performance and long-term health,” Farris said. “I changed my diet after my second Olympics (2012 London Olympics) “I discovered my Hebrew an-

cestry, and I aligned my lifestyle more intentionally toward holistic performance — spiritually and physically That shift transformed how I trained, recovered and ultimately how I now coach and mentor youth.”

In addition to nutrition, Farris intends to enhance after school

and summer programming and conduct fitness activities to include community workouts, plant-based taste testing and local athlete engagement.

The Shreveport native is the only American male to break two U.S. records in two different weight classes en route to three

AT THE TABLE

top-11 Olympic finishes in his weight class. He also captured two Pan American championships. Farris recently educated youth at a Rockford, Illinois, weightlifting meet and is active locally and nationally in the youth health and education space.

Savor simplicity in a generational Cajun family favorite

BY DEBRA TAGHEHCHIAN

Contributing writer

“OK, whose turn is it to go and get the milk?” Mama asked.

“I’ll go,” I said. Although I am the youngest of the four children in the family, getting milk from the dairy was everyone’s job. I collected the stainless-steel pail, the one with the side handle for easy pouring, and I headed to the dairy Once there, I went to the room with the large bulk tank where the milk was collected after milking. The stainless-steel tank had a large paddle that circulated the milk, and the chilled tank kept the milk cold until the local milk coop truck came by to collect the fresh milk

Our dairy farm was one of many small farms in our area Lafayette Parish during the 1960s and ’70s had about 100 family-owned dairy farms. Nowadays, the whole state of Louisiana does not have 100 dairy farms. Milk is brought in from midwestern states down to Louisiana. I was told that the shift from local dairy farms to milk being brought in from out of state happened when interstate travel was opened, and trucking milk south became possible and more economical. Cows give more milk in colder climates, so milk production was higher With my pail in hand, I made my way to the end of the milk cooling bulk tank, where there was a large spigot, or milk outlet valve. I would position my pail under the valve and ever so slowly open the valve for milk to drain into my pail. I was careful not to overfill the pail, only filling it halfway. I still had to carry the milk back to the house, and I didn’t want it splashing around. Once in the house, Mama usually took over We had glass jugs for storing our milk. Mama poured the unpasteurized, unhomogenized, fresh milk into the jug and capped the opening with paper tabs to seal it. The milk was then placed in the refrigerator As you might imagine, milk was served as the drink at every meal at our home.

On occasion, we had freshsqueezed lemonade or root beer made with root beer extract, water and sugar But most of the time, milk is what we drank.

My father liked his milk ice cold and sometimes added a couple of ice cubes to his glass to keep it really cold.

My father liked his milk ice cold and sometimes added a couple of ice cubes to his glass to keep it really cold.

As milk was left to cool in the jug in the refrigerator, the cream would rise to the top of the jug. Before we served ourselves a glass, we would shake the jug to distribute the cream into the milk. The taste of that whole milk was delightful. Our milk, to describe it in present-day terms, was grass-fed, whole raw milk.

“Mama, can I have some coffee milk?” I said after having helped with the milk.

“OK. Let me see if I have some coffee left,” she said. Mama walked over to the stove where the drip coffee pot sat on the stove in a shallow pot of simmering water

“I have just enough for you to make one glass of coffee milk,” she said. Like most Cajun families in southwest Louisiana, dark roast coffee was a staple. My parents drank coffee every morning, but kids were only given small amounts occasionally — adults would say it wasn’t good for kids. We were only given a little bit of coffee, and then our glasses were filled with milk, creating a wonderful coffee-flavored milk drink.

I laugh now when I think about the first time I heard about an iced latte. I remember thinking, “Mais, that’s coffee milk!”

My recipe today is ever so simple. And like all simple recipes with few ingredients, each ingredient should be of good