On the Road Again Opelousas, Louisiana

Carlisi, who now lives in the Florida Panhandle, retired from .38 Special in 1997. Since then, he played in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame house band for nine years and performs at charity events. Carlisi and Donnie Van Zant started a couple of bands together, playing teen clubs in the area when they were in high school. “Most of the musicians around Jacksonville, Orange Park and Green Cove Springs knew each other.” Carlisi’s neighborhood was rich with talent. Billy Powell, who became the keyboardist for Skynyrd, lived three blocks away. Skynyrd founders Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, and Allen Collins also lived in Jacksonville. “We’d go over to Billy’s house and play,” says Carlisi. “Leon Wilkeson was two streets over, and I’d jump on my bike and ride over to Allen’s house.” When Carlisi went off to college in Atlanta, Ronnie, Billy Powell, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and Bob Burns took to the road. After Carlisi graduated from Georgia Tech, he, Donnie Van Zant and Don Barnes founded .38 Special. Several years later, when Skynyrd and .38 Special’s rehearsal studios were near each other in downtown Jacksonville, Carlisi and producer Kevin Elson sat down with Ronnie after recording a demo. “I remember sitting there, just Ronnie, Kevin and me, and Ronnie just started singing — he never wrote down the lyrics; they just came to him,” he says. “I picked up a dobro and we worked on the arrangement together. That was ‘Four Walls of Raiford.’” After the air crash in 1977 in Gillsburg, Miss., that killed six people, including Ronnie, the band’s survivors quit performing for 10 years. Johnny brought the group back together a decade later with Rossington and other musicians. They still perform at area events. Although they’ve traveled the globe making music, these days, Johnny and brother Donnie live next door to each other on several acres in Clay County. They still make music and travel, performing as The Van Zant Brothers. “We moved back to Clay County 40 years ago and found this great land with horses out near the Black Creek Swamp,” Johnny says. “We traveled so much that it’s nice to be back in Clay County. We love it here.” The brothers often get together in their backyard studio to work on projects. “Right now, we’re working on a gospel album,” he says. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.” He’s also still performing and recording with Lynyrd Skynyrd. As for the legacy Skynyrd has in Clay County, Johnny says he has high hopes. The 90-acre Ronnie Van Zant Memorial Park in Lake Asbury was built in 1992 and is a popular place for recreation. “You know, it’s great to live here,” he says. “Maybe one day, they’ll even put a Skynyrd museum here.”

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Atlanta-based journalist Pamela A. Keene went to high school with Jeff Carlisi and later wrote about Southern Rock, Capricorn Records, and the Allman Brothers Band when she worked at The Macon Telegraph and News.

on the road again | OPELOUSAS, LOUISIANA Opelousas, Louisiana

8:30 a.m. Enjoy breakfast with locals at Chicorys at the Palace, located on a corner of the historic Opelousas Courthouse Square. Locals have been visiting this spot for years, since Greek immigrants opened a restaurant called The Palace Sandwich Shop. It closed in 2019, but new Chicorys owners carry on the name and tradition.

10 a.m. Head over to Le Vieux Village Heritage Park for an overview of the cultural significance of Opelousas, Louisiana’s third oldest city. With a name than translates to “old village,” the site offers buildings from centuries past, including the home of Marie Francois Venus, one of the oldest Creole homes west of the Mississippi River.

11 a.m. The Heritage Park also contains the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum. New York City had an exponential rise in orphans in the late 1800s, so two charity institutions found homes for the children across the country until 1929. About 2,000 of these orphans arrived in Louisiana and the museum tells their stories.

12 p.m. South Louisiana residents love their boudin, a sausage stuffed with rice, pork, and Cajun seasonings. Enjoy this delicacy at DezMeaux’s Boudin, but take it a step further with their fried chicken wings stuffed with boudin.

1 p.m. Opelousas sits in the center of St. Landry Parish and is one of several cities that have spawned American music genres. Head north on Interstate 49 with a stop at the St. Landry Parish Visitor Center to view the statue that honors musician Amédé Ardoin, known as the father of Creole music, which evolved into today’s distinct zydeco genre.

1:30 p.m. Up the road in Ville Platte, visitors can learn about swamp pop, a genre of music that includes Fats Domino, Hank Williams, Bobby Charles, and Dale and Grace. The music marries a New Orleans-style R&B with country, Cajun and Creole influences and the railroad depot-turned-museum highlights when swamp pop singers made the Billboard charts.

3 p.m. In the neighboring town of Eunice, learn about the roots of Cajun music at the Cajun French Music Hall of Fame & Museum. Visitors can increase their scope of this unique American musical genre with a short walk to the Jean Lafitte Prairie Acadian Cultural Center, a national park which hosts weekly events, including music sessions.

4:30 p.m. Swing by the Savoy Music Center in Eunice where pioneer accordion builder Marc Savoy crafts “Acadian” squeezeboxes that fuel dozens of local Cajun and zydeco bands. Visit on Saturday mornings and join in the weekly jam session.

6 p.m. Finish the day with a relaxing meal at Café Josephine in the quaint town of Sunset, just south of Opelousas. Try Creole and Cajun dishes such as gumbo, or something more modern like their Zydeco tacos, spiked with a drizzle of Sriracha and pecan pepper jelly.