Baton Rouge Advocate
Baton Rouge, LA | April 29, 2005
By: John Wirt

Red Stick Ramblers Change Look But Not Sound

For singer-fiddler Linzay Young, guitarist Chas Justus and drummer Glenn Fields, the Cajun-western swing-jazz band they formed in Baton Rouge in 1999 was too cool to let go. When three Red Stick Ramblers stopped their rambling -- one moving to Canada, another into rockabilly, another to a conventional profession -- Young, Justus and Fields stood by their band.

"Chas and Glenn and I, we've always had a vision among the three us," Young said from his family's farm in Eunice. "After people started leaving, we just saw good things happening. Things get better each year. So we were determined not to give up on this thing we call the Red Stick Ramblers."

Besides the membership change, the band's address changed, too. None of the Red Stick Ramblers lives in Red Stick anymore. Everyone went west to Acadiana.

Despite the changes, the Ramblers remain mostly true to the unique roots-music blend they developed while some members were attending LSU. Blues and Creole songs, though, now outnumber Gypsy and Appalachian music in the group's set lists.

"It's more revolving around Louisiana music," Young said.

Being such young musicians, the Red Stick Ramblers often are asked why they play music their great-grandparents danced to. It's an easy answer. Young comes from the heart of Cajun country. He remembers hearing his grandparents speaking French when they gossiped. Eunice is also the Cajun town where Marc Savoy, an accordion player and maker, stages a weekly Cajun-music jam at his music shop.

"I grew up with older music in Eunice, playing Cajun music," Young said. "There's something about popular music that's not attractive. None of us really wanted to play anything but older music. As a musician, if you don't like that older stuff, I mean where are you coming from? There's such a wealth of it out there, in any genre. How can you know where you're going if you don't listen to what's been done before? It's like reading a history book. We all like history, too."

Cajun music came naturally to Young and his childhood friend and fellow fiddler, Joel Savoy, son of Marc and Ann Savoy. But there was a period when even Young and Savoy were seduced by mainstream music.

"Joel and I had our own little rock 'n' roll band in high school," Young revealed. "We played Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins. We wrote our own stuff, probably 20 songs. We were kind of proud of that. But he and I always played Cajun music, too."

Some rock spirit still lingers in the Red Stick Ramblers.

"We kind of have a rock 'n' roll mentality," Young said. "We like to rock out, get the party started, get people screaming and hollering and beer thrown everywhere."

With their electric guitar and bass phase behind them, LSU students Young and Savoy picked up their fiddles for the Red Stick Ramblers. The young men who loved old music played many south Louisiana gigs, toured the United States and Canada, appeared at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and performed in France. Things were going well, but a few members grew disillusioned with the touring that kept them away from home.

Before the release of the Ramblers' second CD, 2003's Bring It On Down, Savoy announced his pending departure. Mandolin player Josh Caffery and bass player Ricky Rees joined the exodus, too.

Things got shaky, but the band played on. The group found a great replacement for Savoy in Kevin Wimmer. The former New Yorker's folk-festival encounter with the late Cajun fiddle great Dewey Balfa became his entrée to south Louisiana music and culture. Alabama native Eric Frey took the bass slot.

The Ramblers got good news this week about their newly released third CD, Right Key, Wrong Keyhole. It's the most added disc to the Americana Music Association's Americana airplay chart.

The Ramblers' previous CD reached the Top 40 of the latter chart, too, but the group, for various reasons, did little to promote it.

"It kind of fell away because we weren't touring at the time," Young explained. "We released the record and took time off, which was kind of a dumb move. We don't intend to repeat that mistake this year. We're gonna be traveling and doing radio promotions, everything we can to get it in people's ears."

Recent gigs for the busy Red Stick Ramblers include Nashville's Mercy Lounge, the Old Settler's Music Festival in Austin, Texas, Festival International in Lafayette, Baton Rouge's Earth Day and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The band returns to Baton Rouge Sunday for FestForAll and May 5 for a show at their LSU-area stomping grounds, Chelsea's Café.