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Richmond, VA Cain O'Rear, September 2006 The Ramblers aren't afraid to get rowdy in concert. The Lost Bayou Ramblers have played shows for sit-down audiences in their time. But they prefer a standing crowd with the same kind of fire you find in the Louisiana hot sauce they sell at their shows. "We encourage the crowd to be rowdy, and we ourselves get pretty rowdy at times," said Chris Courville , the drummer for the five-piece affair. "Sometimes we're standing on tables, and sometimes we're standing on the upright bass that's on the table." The Ramblers, who play the National Folk Festival this weekend, hail from Lafayette, La., a part of the Acadiana region in southern Louisiana known as "Cajun Country," that stretch of the Gulf Coast settled by French-speaking Canadians, French Louisiana Creoles, Spanish and Germans nearly three centuries ago. And, yes, folks, these guys play real-live Cajun music, which Courville describes as anything that's played by Cajuns with Cajun instruments. (Zydeco, also native to the region, is more blues- and funk-based than "Cajun," Courville said.) Though they don't necessarily play traditional Cajun, Courville said, the Ramblers do sport some traditional Cajun instrumentation, with brothers Louis and Andre Michot playing the fiddle and accordion, respectively, the two hallmark instruments for the genre. The other Rambler instruments include guitar, drums, upright bass and lap steel. The brothers Michot grew up in a musical family. Their dad played in a Cajun band when they were young. So, as small fries, they were often called on to stand in on triangle, and, eventually, more challenging instruments like guitar. As for their songs, Courville said the Ramblers play a lot of two-steps and accordion-based songs that come from traditional Cajun music. But he said they also play a lot of Cajun swing, which was popular in the region during the 1930s, when Texas swingsters like Bob Wills and Milton Brown dominated the airwaves. "All they heard all the time was Grand Ole Opry stuff," Courville said. "A lot of people started mimicking that kind of music. We do a lot of those types of songs." And music isn't the only thing the band exports from home. They also sell hot sauce from the Pepper Landry's Company, which Courville says is one, if not the last, of the companies that actually uses Louisiana-grown peppers in the sauce. "Tabasco doesn't even use Louisiana-grown peppers," Courville said. "They use some from an Asian country. But this is all natural ingredients. We've got garlic, cayenne and habanera."

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