225BatonRouge.com

In the days after Hurricane Katrina drowned most of New Orleans in Gulf Stream muck and unbearable lawlessness, Eric Frey and Chas Justus of the Red Stick Ramblers welcomed a few evacuees into their Breaux Bridge home. There was little to do but jam during those long, dark nights, but as heartbreak turned into healing Frey plucked out a new tune on his trusty banjo. He called it “Katrina.”

Sounding like a lost hoedown from Bob Dylan and The Band’s Basement Tapes, the defiant, stomping track found its way onto the Rambler’s recent CD release, Made in the Shade, a jumping set of tunes that sees the band’s fiddle twins attack Cajun, swing and country & western styles and takes no prisoners in the process.

Just as Frey and Justus sheltered friends from the storm, so too has their Baton Rouge-based band harbored an old-world style of music, keeping it vibrant and relevant for a new generation. The Cajun quintet’s confidence throughout Made in the Shade only helps the cause. Though styles shift from track to track, it is lead vocalist Linzay Young’s whiskey-in-hand and wink-in-his-eye delivery on the empty bar shuffle “Don’t Cry, Baby” as well as the Chuck Berry-influenced title track that stitches this vivid patchwork together.

The Red Stick Ramblers return to Baton Rouge on March 29 to headline the Zapp’s Beerfest at 8 p.m. at the LSU Rural Life Museum.

For details on the festival as they are announced, visit rurallife.lsu.edu or call 765-2437. redstickramblers.com