Red Stick Ramblers

by Linda Seida
The Red Stick Ramblers are a diverse group of six men who can play the haunting and heart-tugging traditional Cajun music of generations past and make it just as enjoyable and memorable for today's youth as it is for their grandparents. They intersperse the traditional tunes with fare they call "Cajun gypsy swing." Lead vocalist and fiddler Linzay Young, a Louisiana native who hails from Eunice, is a Louisiana State University anthropology major. Fiddler Joel Savoy attends the same school and is a math and French major. His parents are noted Cajun musicians Ann Savoy and Marc Savoy. Mother and son worked together with Tom Waits, recording the Cajun music featured on the soundtrack of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, a movie released by Warner Bros. in 2002. Bass player Ricky "Railroad" Rees is a college English teacher who hails from Lafayette. He has performed with such artists as the Bluerunners, Rockin' Dopsie, and Buck Senegal. Drummer Glen Fields, who spends his days behind the counter of a music store, has been a member of a variety of different groups, playing everything from jazz to punk. Mandolinist and guitarist Josh Caffery, who grew up near Franklin, LA, writes for a Lafayette-based newspaper, The Times of Acadiana. The only Rambler whose full-time job is as a musician is guitarist Chaz Justus.
Several of the band's members met for the first time while playing in Baton Rouge in a group called Brother Teresa. When the Red Stick Ramblers started making a name for themselves in 2001, the band received invitations to appear at the Festival Acadiens and the Festival International de Louisiane. Thanks to fine performances, invitations poured in from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, France's Deferlantes Francophones Festival, the Rhythm & Roots Festival in Rhode Island, the Cajun/Zydeco Festival in Florida, and the Tropical Heatwave Festival, also in the Sunshine State. Louisiana Radio Records issued the band's self-titled debut in 2002. Bring It on Down appeared a year later in 2003, followed by Right Key, Wrong Keyhole in 2005. The band made the leap to Sugar Hill Records for 2007's Made in the Shade.