30-Minute Music Hour

(city traffic noise) >> I'm Andy Moore; it's the 30 Minute Music Hour! Tonight from Lafayette, Louisiana, the Red Stick Ramblers! (singing in French) (singing in French) (singing in French) OH, CATIN MOI, J'M'EN VAS, CHERE MOI, J'M'EN VAS MOI TOUT SEUL DANS LES GRAND MECHES OH, QUOI-FAIRE TOI T'ES COMME CA BEBE TU CONNAIT T'ES LA SEULE QUE MOI J'AIMAIS (singing in French) OH, BEBE VIENS DONC ME CHERCHER CATIN MOI J'SUIS LA TOUT L'TEMPS 'PRES T'ESPERER OH, QUOI-FAIRE TOI T'ES COMME CA BEBE TU CONNAIT T'ES LA SEULE QUE MOI J'AIMAIS All right. Hi out there, everybody, we're the Red Stick Ramblers from Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We'll play you one of our original numbers here. A song about traveling, called "My Suitcase is Always Packed." MY SUITCASE IS ALWAYS PACKED YES MA'AM IT'S A MATTER OF FACT SO BEFORE YOU GO GETTIN' ATTACHED LET ME STOP YOU IN YOUR TRACKS BEFORE THOSE IDEAS HATCH MY SHOES ALWAYS POINT TO THE DOOR SO IF YOU DON'T EVER SEE ME NO MORE BABY PLEASE DON'T GET TO THINKIN' THAT IT'S SOMETHING YOU LACKED MY SUITCASE IS ALWAYS PACKED YES, I BELIEVE IN TRAVELING LIGHT CAN'T PICK UP EXTRA BAGGAGE EACH NIGHT 'CAUSE ALL IT DOES IS SLOW ME DOWN BUT IT'D BE NICE IF I COULD CALL YOU NEXT TIME I'M IN TOWN DO YOU NEED ANOTHER JIGGER OF GIN THEY SAY THAT IT'LL MAKE YOU SIN AND THEN WE WON'T GET TO TALKIN' ABOUT WHO'S WRONG OR WHAT'S RIGHT BABY, I BELIEVE IN TRAVELING LIGHT MY SUITCASE IS ALWAYS PACKED YES, MA'AM IT'S A MATTER OF FACT SO BEFORE YOU GO GETTIN' ATTACHED LET ME STOP YOU IN YOUR TRACKS BEFORE THOSE IDEAS HATCH MY SHOES ALWAYS POINT TO THE DOOR SO IF YOU DON'T EVER SEE ME NO MORE BABY, PLEASE DON'T GET TO THINKIN' IT'S SOMETHING YOU LACKED MY SUITCASE IS ALWAYS PACKED OH, PLEASE DON'T GET TO THINKIN' THAT IT'S SOMETHING YOU LACKED MY SUITCASE IS ALWAYS PACKED All right. Thank you so much. - Thanks for having us. That's the record, if we could get a shot, Nathan,

thank you very much

"My Suitcase is Always Packed." Quick piece of business before we talk just for a minute, because we want more music. The Red Stick Ramblers, if you're watching during the summer new season of shows in June and July, the Red Stick Ramblers will appear July 11th at La Fete de Marquette; that's the Bastille celebration. And that's right, get a shot of that, the Bastille celebration in Madison. Rue de Dickinson. Dickinson Street, Madison, on July 11, the Red Stick Ramblers, for nothing, for free, kind of like you're seeing them tonight in your living room. But it's a very huge honor to have you. Come out and dance. Now, the first two numbers you sang were traditional, and en Francais. - Yep. Did you grow up in a French-speaking home? Yeah, my grandparents spoke French. It kind of skipped a generation of Louisiana because when my grandparents were younger there was some persecution. It was considered a sign of ignorance because most of the French-speaking people weren't educated in schools and things like that and they didn't have a written knowledge of the language, so it was kind of frowned upon for a while so it kind of skipped a generation. But I heard it growing up and then developed a love for it later on as I started playing the music and stuff when I was a teenager. So, you learned the language through music as much as through conversation. Yeah, yeah, a lot of the knowledge was through music and then traveling to other French-speaking parts of the world with music. And then back to Louisiana, where I like to say that people treat dancing as a constitutional right. Absolutely, yeah. It's part of the whole mixture. The Red Stick Ramblers are famous for playing all night. We only have 30 minutes on the 30 Minute Music Hour, but there's some marathon dance parties. Definitely, yeah. And the two-step is the most popular dance, right? Yeah, it's a two-step and waltz and then there's some kind of bluesy jitterbug stuff, but that's the three major food groups as far as that goes. Could you give us just a 60-second two-step dance instruction? Nancy Newhouse, come here for a second, please? Would you please? We're going to step out here. Come here, come here. This is Linzay Young. Nancy Newhouse. You wouldn't mind volunteering for a two-step? Absolutely not, I'd love to. - Northerners tend to want to polka, so watch out for that. - Okay. You might want to take your headset off, or not. And then maybe a 60-second lesson, 60-second demo, and then more music. - Not very good at this. I'm not a very good teacher, so this is kind of the stance, and then it's two steps to one side and two steps to the other. So if we're going to my right first, we'll go right, left, right, and then your weight falls on your right foot and then left, right, left and your weight falls on your left foot. And it's sort of a traveling dance,

so it'd be like

one, two, three. One, two three. One, two, three. Sort of like that. Then you could do a little turn. And if we were in a dance hall, we'd be going in a giant circle because once upon a time the band didn't have much amplification so people would all get their turn if they traveled in a circle. And that's pretty much it. So, play us a little bit and we'll give it a shot. We'll try it! - Sounds good. Thanks, it was fun.

Andy

Thank you, Nancy! That was my first dance instruction. (laughter) All right, we're gonna do a little "musique anglaise," as Chas likes to say. This is a song that he wrote. Tell them all about it, Chas, a little song. It's in English, and this is a little song about growing up in the South and coming from Mississippi and Louisiana and hospitality, and all the hospitality that we found all over the world, especially here in Wisconsin, We love you, Wisconsin. LAY DOWN IN THE GRASS TROUBLES COME AND TROUBLES PASS IT'S JUST MY LAZY SOUTHERN SUMMER DAY CLOTHES OUT ON THE LINE SOMEBODY'S BAKING BUTTERMILK PIE IT'S JUST MY LAZY SOUTHERN SUMMER DAY WE CAN LAY AROUND LIKE A COUPLE SLEEPY HOUNDS IN THE EVENING IT SEEMS WE'VE GOT AS MUCH TO SAY WATCHIN' FIREFLIES LIGHT UP THE ALABAMA SKIES IT'S JUST MY LAZY SOUTHERN SUMMER DAY WE CAN LAY AROUND LIKE A COUPLE SLEEPY HOUNDS IN THE EVENING IT SEEMS WE'VE GOT AS MUCH TO SAY WATCHIN' FIREFLIES LIGHT UP THE ALABAMA SKIES IT'S JUST MY LAZY SOUTHERN SUMMER DAY IT'S JUT MY LAZY SOUTHERN SUMMER DAY All right, we're gonna change things up now just a little bit. Do something that Mr. Kevin Wimmer over here, currently residing in Opelousas, Louisiana, do something, I think we're gonna call this a little old style. Old style, yes, I had to switch fiddles here. This is live-on-the-web television. We're gonna do something old style called "fiddlesticks." You might have heard the expression "Oh, fiddlesticks." Well, today you get to see it in action, Linzay's got a pair right there. I got my other fiddle to open tuning, cross tuning. And this is something we learned from Dewey Balfa, great Cajun fiddler from Basile. His nephew Tony would play the sticks and Dewey'd play the fiddle. And here we go. One fiddle, two people. Need to tune there. Oh, yeah! - Too early in the morning. (tuning) See if it holds this time. I might've been whacking on it a little too hard there. (tuning) All right, here we go again. All right, one more minute, gotta stick in there. (tuning) I'm picking tight. Pause for edit. (tuning) Fiddle's used to the humidity. It's drying out up here under the lights. Third time's the charm. (singing in French) ( laughter ) Oh, fiddlesticks! Thank you all. Take that, American Idol. - (laughter) Well, it looks like we've got time for one more tune here. I want to thank everybody for having us on the show. We'll see you all at Fete de Marquette. Finish up with one here, a song about homemade moonshine whiskey. We wrote about a friend of ours from Opelousas, Louisiana, something called "Made in the Shade," and I'll invite you to check out CMT.com. On YouTube there's a video on there that we made for "Made in the Shade." Check it out. WELL, YOU'VE HEARD OF WHITE LIGHTENING HEARD OF MOUNTAIN DEW MOONSHINE WHISKEY I'M SQUEEZING TOO DOWN IN OPELOUSAS THAT'S IN LOUISIANE FOR STUFF OF THAT SORT I KNOW JUST THE MAN HE'S GOT A LITTLE WHITE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF TOWN WITH EMPTY LIQUOR BOTTLES JUST SCATTERED AROUND HE'LL FIRE IT UP FILL 'EM ONE AT A TIME UNDER HIS CARPORT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE IF YOU SEE ME AT A PARTY ON A FRIDAY NIGHT JUST PICKIN' AND DRINKIN' AND FEELING ALL RIGHT CHANCES ARE MY BACK POCKET'S GOT A LITTLE THIRST AID IT COMES FROM OPELOUSAS AND IT'S MADE IN THE SHADE LET ME TELL YOU MORE ABOUT IT 'FORE YOU TAKE A SWIG HE'S GOT AN EMPTY BEER KEG ON A PROPANE RIG HE'S GOT MILES OF COPPER TUBING COMING OUT OF THE TOP SO YOU GOTTA SIT A SPELL BEFORE YOU SEE YOUR FIRST DROP HE SAYS SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WE'LL KILL SOME TIME THEN HE BRANDISHES A BOTTLE OF HIS MUSKY FINE WINE GOT NOTHING TO DO TILL LATER ON TONIGHT SO PASS ME A BOTTLE EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT IF YOU SEE ME AT A PARTY LATER ON TONIGHT MAYBE COOKIN' AND A-LOOKIN' LIKE I'M FEELIN' ALL RIGHT CHANCES ARE MY BACK POCKET'S GOT A LITTLE THIRST AID COMES FROM OPELOUSAS AND IT'S MADE IN THE SHADE IF YOU SEE ME AT A PARTY ON A SATURDAY NIGHT JUST PICKIN' AND GRINNIN' AND I'M FEELIN' ALL RIGHT CHANCES ARE MY BACK POCKET'S GOT A LITTLE THIRST AID COMES FROM OPELOUSAS SAYING IT'S MADE IN THE SHADE COMES FROM OPELOUSAS AND IT'S MADE IN THE SHADE Thank you!