The Red Stick Ramblers hail from south Louisiana, or what the group referred to as “Cajun country.” The band kicked off the Cajun Dance Party at the Ships of the Sea Museum with Linzay Young on fiddle and vocals, Daniel Coolik on fiddle and electric mandolin, Glenn Fields on drums, Eric Fey on bass and vocals, Chas Justus on electric guitar and vocals, and Blake Miller on accordion, acoustic guitar and vocals.
With a big smile and fiddle in hand, Young commented on the warm weather and then urged the audience to dance during their set by saying, “Someone needs to get up here and break the ice so everyone else will get up, too.”
After several people joined the crowd up front, more people congregated and began to dance. Young praised the audience by yelling, “The ice is broken!”
Ellen Bell, a Savannah native, said, “You can’t listen to this music and not move.” She described how fun they were and that there were “so many different beats with so many different moves you can do [while dancing].”
Bell and her group of friends were not the only ones that had a great time.
Couples danced and giggled while moving to a combination of traditional Cajun, Western swing, blues, and old school jazz (or what Young referred to simply as “dance music.”)
When a song ended, Young told the crowd, “We’re gonna keep on playing so you don’t even have to sit down.” He was focused on getting more people on their feet and moving to the music by saying, “We won’t keep you waiting. We are here to play for the dance party and that’s what we are going to do, so we’ll keep on playing.”
Bob Thompson from Columbia, S.C., called it “good, fun music with up-tempo Cajun lyrics.” Since it wasn’t his first Red Stick Ramblers show, he noticed that there were some different band members on stage. With that he said, “These guys are fun.”
The Ramblers even played a blues number for which Young joked, “You can only line dance if you have jeans with no back pockets.”
During the performance, guitar player Justus said, “Y’all like to get down here in Savannah, huh?” The Red Stick Ramblers show proves low-country residents can handle the taste of Cajun country after all.
