“The common thread is that it’s all dance music,” fiddler Linzay Young says of the genre-jumping nature of the Ramblers’ repertoire. “Three hour dances are not uncommon where we come from, and we’re there to please the dancers, so it’s less like a performance and more like a party.”

On Made In The Shade (Sugar Hill), the group's fourth album, The Ramblers romp and stomp through a crazy-quilt of originals and classic covers with the high-octane energy that could come only from a band accustomed to keeping dance-floors jumping for hours at a time. From the raucousness of "Laissez Les Cajuns Danser" (which positively bursts with both local pride and universal merriment) to the smooth, slinky swing of Count Basie's "Evenin'," the band conjures up a mood both heady and heartfelt.

While they’re not slaves to tradition, The Ramblers have a good deal of respect for it — as borne out by the stellar backing they provided on Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy’s Grammy-nominated Adieu False Heart, as well as in their championing the annual Black Pot Festival, a celebration of south Louisiana’s culinary and cultural history.

“Traditional music has a lot of social and cultural implications that pop music doesn’t, in terms of getting people together,” says vocalist Chas Justus. “It’s not as much about performance or virtuoso musicianship as it is about community. That’s a rebellious thing in a way, the desire to be real and not be co-opted or homogenized, and that’s what we’d like to be seen as representing.”

Video

“Made In The Shade”

Photos

click above to download a print-quality image