Offbeat Magazine – November 2012

The Revelers by Dan Willging Offbeat, November 2012 Whaddya do when your bread-and-butter band slows down due to a crazy little thing called life? Form another one. That’s what most of the Red Stick Ramblers did by forming alter ego band the Revelers for something totally different. Buy on iTunesBuy on AmazonThe U.K.’s Kent Records’…

Blake Miller

Grandson of well known accordion builder Larry Miller, Blake has been surrounded by Cajun music and culture his entire life. Hailing from the small town of Iota Louisiana, Blake, a fluent french speaker and songwriter, managed to acquire a degree in Francophone studies from The University Of Louisiana at Lafayette, and in the mean time founded the popular young Cajun band The Pine Leaf Boys and became a member of the premiere Louisiana roots band The Red Stick Ramblers. He has also served stints in just about every other Cajun/creole band of note including Balfa Toujours, Les Malfecteurs and Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole bringing his strong cultural identity and accomplished musicianship to the world.

Chas Justus

Hailing from Memphis, Tennessee, was born to play the guitar. He plays with a confidence and diversity that belies his young age being able to seamlessly switch from any of the numerous blues styles he’s mastered to country jazz and the Southwest Louisiana guitar styles that he has fallen in love with. Not only has his guitar playing been featured on numerous albums to come out of the Louisiana music scene but also his songs have been on quite a few albums, including Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy’s Grammy Nominated Adieu False Heart. His individualistic guitar playing, singing, and songwriting mark Chas Justus as one of the next Southern troubadours with a new song that sounds refreshingly old.

Daniel Coolik

A consummate musician’s musician, Daniel Coolik, originally from Atlanta, Georgia, swept into the Lafayette scene in 2009 and quickly added his name to many respectable rosters, loaning his talents to such groups as Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, The Red Stick Ramblers, Les Malfecteurs, and The Yvette Landry Band. Daniel was already an adept multi-instrumentalist in the Asheville, North Carolina scene where he focused on jazz mandolin as well as old time Appalachian traditional music, and has since emerged as a violoniste extraordinaire here in Acadiana. His abilities have taken him all over the globe, including Haiti, Thailand, most countries in Western Europe, and Canada.