Yvette Landry, Grammy-nominated artist, two time State of Louisiana Music Ambassador, 2019 inductee into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, author, lifelong educator, cross-country and volleyball coach, and record producer is a force to be reckoned with. Known today for her soulful storytelling shared through her inspired lyrics and beautiful voice, Yvette's current life path didn't begin until she was forty years old and had reached a crossroads in her life. She turned to the electric bass guitar, a choice prompted by an inner spiritual urging, a bit of serendipity, and the need to find a release from the unrelenting stress that threatened to break her spirit.

The interesting part of this story is that Yvette had never picked up any kind of string instrument in her life. She hadn't played music since she put down the woodwinds (flute, saxophone, and oboe) and closed the keyboard on the piano upon graduation from high school in Breaux Bridge years before. While she never enjoyed playing music as a young girl, she enjoyed the thrill of competing against others in a similar fashion that she enjoyed the competitive nature of athletics in which she really excelled.

Growing up in a musical family, however, was something that she did enjoy, and it is definitely in her blood. Her aunt was a music teacher who played the piano and organ. Her dad was in a barbershop quartet. Her grandmother, Viola Hebert Landry, played with her family in the Louisiana Six. Her dad's grandparents were both musicians and came from a large family of musicians. Incredibly, her family descended from the Acadians who settled here generations ago and "the first Hebert in our family who settled here was a fiddler."

Dealing with a marriage that was ending and facing the reality of her father's brain cancer, Yvette was driving down Johnston Street one day and pulled into the parking lot of C & M Music Center in Lafayette on a whim. She looked up at the wall and saw guitars in different colors, knowing nothing about guitars but knowing that she wanted one. The first one she tried was too heavy, the second one she tried was too wide, but the third one was perfect....sort of in the Goldilock's vein of being "just right." So she purchased it along with a small amplifier that the clerk told her she would need since it was an electric bass guitar.

Yvette's initial hope was that she could "mess around with the guitar" when she was on the way to M. D. Anderson for her dad's treatments. Not knowing how to play it, she fell in love with the instrument and played by ear. She believes the reason she fell in love with music the second time around was that there was no teacher standing over her, telling her to play louder or change the way she approached a song. There was no need to read music as she could just listen to what she liked and figure out the chords.

Never having picked up a string instrument until that fateful day at C & M Music, playing the guitar clicked for Yvette. She knew that "this is where I'm supposed to be." A friend's husband, Brazos Huval, invited her to join a Cajun Jam that met every week, a group of about 50 to 60 people, "aged six to eighty-six years old." Yvette hadn't grown up listening to Cajun music; she had actually grown up listening to Swamp Pop but was intrigued by the music that sang of her family's roots and joined the group that welcomed her with open arms.

A couple of months later, Randy Vidrine invited Yvette to play at Randol's Restaurant with his band, the Lafayette Rhythm Devils. While it was "the most stressful three hours she had ever spent," as she was still learning how to play guitar, she was hired and spent ten years playing regularly on Wednesday nights at Randol's, as well as touring festivals throughout the U. S., Germany, and France.