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Ramblin' Man
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Louisiana’s Red Stick Ramblers are helping create a new audience for Cajun music. By Brian Wise.
If you are lucky enough to visit Louisiana or attend the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival you might run across one of the exciting young bands – like the Red Stick Ramblers and the Pine Leaf Boys - bringing new vitality to Cajun music and creating a new audience for the genre. Interestingly, until recently both bands included a son of Ann and Marc Savoy in their line-ups – Joel and Wilson, respectively.
The Red Stick Ramblers also bring a rock ‘n’ roll, Western swing and what they call ‘Cajun gypsy swing’ to their music, as well as working within the traditional Cajun framework. Like its close relation Zyedco, Cajun music is continually evolving and shouldn’t really be thought of as a museum piece. Certainly, the Red Stick Ramblers treat it as a vibrant form.
I met lead vocalist and fiddler Linzay Young, at last year’s Crawfish Boil at the Savoy’s farm near Eunice. Though Joel, who won the French Music Association’s Fiddler Of the Year Award in 2007, decided to pursue other things, the musicians are still close. They played together as we devoured the Crawfish and the next morning appeared at the local theatre for an impromptu Cajun dance.
“Joel and I grew up playing fiddle together,” recalls Young when I accost him over some crawfish. He explains that he spent a lot of time in his childhood and youth at the Savoy’s house. “He and I played Cajun music together and when we moved to Baton Rouge in 1999 to go to school we were living together. He had made friends with Chas the guitar player and Glenn the drummer.”
Young, now a resident of Austin, Texas, is a Louisiana native from Eunice, and a Louisiana State University anthropology major. The other members of the red Stick Ramblers are drawn from around the country – near and far.
Drummer Glen Fields was a veteran of the Baton Rouge music scene and played with groups as diverse as The Racines, The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, and the Bluerunners. Guitarist Chas Justus, from Memphis, Tennessee, picked up the guitar in high school and, soon after, moved to Baton Rouge, LA. Bassist Eric Frey is from Clay, Alabama and learned to play upright bass at the age of 8, from his father, an avid bluegrass musician. He even studied under Cleveland Eaton, legendary bassist with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Fiddler Kevin Wimmer is a New York City native, whose mother was a world-renowned violin teacher at Julliard and the Peabody Conservatory. No surprise that he began studying violin at the age of three, eventually going on to study with legendary Cajun fiddler Dewey Balfa, an offer that gave him the perfect excuse to move to Louisiana.
“The twin fiddle sound that we started was going really well,” says Young, “ so we got Kevin from Balfa Toujours.”
Steve Riley also uses the twin fiddle sound for his Mamou Playboys and I am intrigued to find out how common it has become across Louisiana, as we do not necessarily think of Cajun bands having the dual attack.
“It’s not the norm but it is pretty common,” explains Young, “especially from the swing band era, which is what we like. It goes hand in hand with the Western swing too, which is something that we always play, being influenced by Bob Wills and all those guys.”
The line-up has developed across the course of four albums and an EP since 2001 and their self-titled album propelled them into prominence and quickly got them in invitations to Festival Acadiens and the Festival International de Louisiane and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. They have since appeared at France's Deferlantes Francophones Festival and numerous festivals across the USA (and now Australia). The group’s second album Bring It on Down appeared in 2003, followed by Right Key, Wrong Keyhole in 2005, after which they moved to Sugar Hill Records for the brilliant Made In The Shade. The Ramblers also provided backing on Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy’s acclaimed Adieu False Heart.
Young agrees that his band is trying to bring the music (which is essentially dance music) to a different, younger audience.
“I think the more contemporary thing about our end of it,” he says, “ is that we are combining things maybe a little more across the boards than other bands have. But band s like the hackberry Ramblers did Cajun music and they did Western swing and combined it all together. We’re not doing anything new but we are not the typical Cajun band. We all know where it comes from, we’re not ignorant to that.”
The title track of the latest album, Made In The Shade, is the perfect example of the way in which the Red Stick Ramblers have hopped across genres. It is a terrific rock ‘n’ roll stomp.
“It is kind of boogie-woogie, rock ‘n’ roll,” agrees Young. “I actually got inspired when Joel and I went to pick up moonshine whiskey from this guy from Opelousas. It’s what the song says, it’s a true story, pretty much everything about it. I was thinking of George Jones’ ‘White Lightning’ and I came up with the ‘Made In the Shade’ name for it. There was this guy making his whiskey under his carport. It’s what we should call this music.”
‘Made In The Shade’ is not only a killer song but the band puts in a thrilling show. Forget all your preconceptions about what you think Cajun music might be. The Red Stick Ramblers rock.
The Red Stick Ramblers will be appearing at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. Made In The Shade is available through Shock Records.
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