EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy

Artist Information

Biography

String wizard and songsmith EJ Ouellette ("ou-LETTE") takes listeners on a wild ride every time he performs. Leading his band Crazy Maggy, the guitar journeyman and fiddle master demonstrates creativity and passion with original songs and fiddle-driven rock tunes. Ouellette jumps genres easily, merging rock, pop, reggae, roadhouse, jazz, Celtic and Appalachian feels throughout his work. This is a great dance band! Alongside saxman Steve Baker, Ouellette's love of the music is plainly evident.

EJOCM's music is showcased on the band's first CD, "Rock the Bow 5.0." Music reviewer Bruce Menin writes, "The combination of fiddle and sax is a revelation and a dream."

Instrumentation

EJ Ouellette on fiddle, acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin & vocals
Steve Baker on saxophone, percussion & vocals
Peter Whitehead on guitar & vocals
Michael Gruen on bass
Carl Bergman on drums & percussion

Discography

"Rock the Bow 5.0"

RAD/TRAD Records released EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy's first CD, "Rock the Bow 5.0" in 2007. Rock the Bow 5.0 has been played on many Triple A radio stations nationwide. You can listen to additional Maggy tunes at www. crazymaggy.com.

"Rock the Bow 5.0" is available to purchase on iTunes, CDBaby (www.cdbaby.com/cd/ejocm,) and from many other online retailers. The CD is also distributed via bricks & mortar retailers in New England and on the West Coast.

Audio

• The Green Groove
  Listen   Download
• Down the Road
  Listen   Download
• House of Love
  Listen   Download
• Don't Stop Your Love
  Listen   Download
• Let Me Tell You This
  Listen   Download
• Liberty Set
  Listen   Download

Lyrics

• Down the Road
• Don't Stop Your Love

Video

Introducing EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy

Photo Gallery

Press

• Rock Notes by Steve Morse, Boston Globe [+ Show ]
  

  EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy at the Plough & Stars Ouellette is a Celtic fiddle master, but he has ...EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy at the Plough & Stars
  
  Ouellette is a Celtic fiddle master, but he has also pushed this group in exciting new directions. Dips into Jean Luc Ponty-style jazz and Celtic/world-beat fusion are some of the offshoots of this powerful instrumental band, which plays with precision and passion.
  
  -- Steve Morse, Boston Globe
  

• Review of Boston Celtic Music Fest by Daniel Gewertz, Boston Herald [+ Show ]
  

  Hub Celtic fest allows young scene to be heard Boston Celtic Music Fest Davis Square, Somerville, ...Hub Celtic fest allows young scene to be heard
  Boston Celtic Music Fest
  Davis Square, Somerville, Saturday
  
  The Boston Celtic Music Fest is all about group consciousness. A celebration of the largely young, vibrant local scene, it is not about stars, divas or egos.
  
  Though traditional folk dominated, there were occasional experimental bursts, with TradBot's merging of Celtic melodies, electronics, looped rhythms and robotlike break-dancing the most audacious at the VFW Hall. Devo meets the Chieftains?
  
  EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy was a delightful electronic fusion surprise. Tenor sax and fiddle lead a fearless band. A stylish fiddler, Ouellette exhibits a keening, propulsive edge, merging the jubilant and the plangent in a single verse.
  
  Meanwhile, at Jimmy Tingle's Off-Broadway theatre, a traditional "Fiddles in the Round" was sparked by Doug Lamay's triplet-rich Cape Breton ferocity and the elegant Brendan Tonras, a wonderful veteran of the 1950s Boston Irish dance-hall scene...
  
  The evening show, at First Church in Harvard Square, was a generally pleasing tribute to Celtic composers in Boston, with 11 performers, including Laura Risk, Ellery Klein, Jackie Schwab and Robbie O'Connell. Despite learning new material, and playing in new groupings, the might was neatly executed. What was missing was the extra fire and theatrical heat a true Celtic star would lend a finale. But the night gave off a nice shine without stars.
  
  -- Daniel Gewertz, Boston Herald

• Fiddling with Tradition by Scott McLennan, Worcester Telegram [+ Show ]
  

  Fiddling with tradition Fiddle jam band gets dancers clogging, moshing By Scott Mclennan Enter...Fiddling with tradition
  
  Fiddle jam band gets dancers clogging, moshing
  
  By Scott Mclennan Entertainment Columnist
  smclennan@telegram.com
  
  The fiddle-ridden music of EJ Ouellette and Crazy Maggy conjures musical accents ranging from French to Celtic to Scottish. Though to Ouellette, it's all one language.
  "I see it as a New England style," he said.
  
  Ouellette explained how all those cultural dialects settled into a Northeast melting pot of music, and growing up in Haverhill, the fiddler heard all those sounds woven together into a common tongue, some of it eloquently expressed by an uncle who was a well-known Cape Breton fiddler. With his band Crazy Maggy, Ouellette takes the crossbreeding a step further as he shifts his music from very traditional settings into contemporary ones with the flick of his bow. He uses the RAD/TRAD label to describe his music, and coined the term as the moniker for his homegrown record label, which recently released Ouellette's "Rock the Bow 5.0," the fruits of an ongoing recording project Ouellette launched to turn his eclectic tastes into harmonious offerings.
  
  On "Rock the Bow 5.0," Ouellette and his band move from tunes that date back some 300 years to freshly penned pieces weighing in on issues as current as the war in Iraq.
  
  Crazy Maggy consists of Ouellette on fiddle, vocals and guitar, Worcester's Steve Baker on sax, Peter Whitehead on drums, Michael Gruen on bass and John Longo on guitar.
  
  While this lineup may resemble that of the Dave Matthews Band, the reality is that Crazy Maggy takes the fiddle-sax-guitar lineup down an entirely different road, one heading far deeper into the roots of traditional music.
  Though admittedly bitten by The Beatles when the Fab Four showed up stateside - prompting Ouellette, like countless other kids at the time, to invest in a guitar - the musician came to realize just how much fun the traditional music is to play.
  
  "The traditional tunes we play were the pop tunes of the day 300 years ago. And back then people had a more sophisticated sense of melody. You start playing that stuff and it just reeks of possibilities of things to do harmonically," Ouellette said.
  
  Ouellette has more than 20 years' experience as a studio musician, record producer, recording engineer and music teacher. He dove into the Celtic tradition and fiddle music around the mid-'90s and sealed his fate during a trip to Africa, where he was helping set up a recording studio.
  
  "I was playing my fiddle with all these African musicians and I saw how seamlessly it fit into any type of rhythm," Ouellette said.
  
  Building a band with a sax in the lineup again harkened to New England tradition. Ouellette explained that a jazz hybrid took root around New Hampshire when fiddle and horn duos were fairly common. But Ouellette breaks from tradition in the way he handles his music.
  
  "A traditional New England fiddler will put together a string of tunes, and he'll rush one in the other," he said. "We try to interpret the songs in fresh ways and do something like the Grateful Dead thing. We'll jam and explore the harmonics, or take a jazz approach to tunes."
  
  But as "Rock the Bow 5.0" will attest, Ouellette and Crazy Maggy do not over-think the material. Frenetic reels and jigs flow into equally upbeat pop-oriented tunes creating a unique musical program, one that showcases both musical chops and entertaining skills.
  
  The Crazy Maggy hybrid has found its way into various settings ranging from the traditional Celtic Festival held in Canton each June, where Maggy has become the popular crossover act, to rock shows headlined by Entrain, where Maggy is the more rustic part of the bill.
  
  "Basically we try to make the live show phenomenal. We know we're going over when people don't stop dancing. And we see all kinds of dancing, from clogging to moshing," Ouellette said.
  
  Crazy Maggy makes its Worcester debut Saturday at Cafe Fantastique inside Rotmans furniture store. The band has sets at 6 and 8 p.m.
  
  "I do well in work towns," he said of branching out toward these parts.
  Ouellette said that traditionalists have snubbed his band, and rock audiences are tough to woo. But he said that such struggles are part of being a working musician of any stripe.
  
  "Convincing people that your music is good is a hard sell for anyone. It's just hard to get noticed unless you have a pretty face and sweet melodies. People gravitate toward the visual these days," Ouellette said. "But I know I can get an audience interested once I'm in front of them. Getting through the door is the tough part."
  

• Review of "Rock the Bow 5.0" by Tom Nelligan, Dirty Linen [+ Show ]
  

  The Reel World Small-label British and Celtic Music “To wrap things up for this month with some ...The Reel World
  Small-label British and Celtic Music
  
  “To wrap things up for this month with some good old loud folk-rock, there’s the Massachusetts quintet E.J. Ouellette & Crazy Maggy, whose CD Rock the Bow 5.0 [self-released (2006)] features some great fiddle-based instrumentals in a rock-and-reel style that is classic both in speed and volume, except that these guys frequently add a wailing saxophone to the fiddle, buzzing electric guitar, bass, and drums. The result is a neatly unconventional touch to tunes like “Morrison’s Jig” and “The Opera Reel.” As with the Searson disc above, the songs go in a different stylistic direction, in this case roadhouse rock with little discernible Celtic flavoring, but I guess that means you basically get two albums in one.”
  -- Tom Nelligan
  

• "Go Bow!" CD review by Bruce Menin, Merrimack River Current [+ Show ]
  

  Ouellette and Crazy Maggy are among the most prominent practitioners of rad-trad, fusing traditional...Ouellette and Crazy Maggy are among the most prominent practitioners of rad-trad, fusing traditional values and forms to modern, nay "radical" sensibilities.
  
  There's a lot of bottom here, guaranteed to get your legs moving and toes tapping. The combination of sax and fiddle is a revelation and a dream. The music itself achieves what Ouellette sets out to do. It marries the rootedness of tradition with the urgency of the outward edge. There is balance in the arrangements, the harmonies are terrific, and the instrumental competence is of a very high order. The band rocks.
  
  If you can walk away from the opening track without two-stepping, this album isn't for you. But you'll be awfully lonely out there. The rest of us will be dancing our tails off.
  
  -- Bruce Menin, Merrimack River Current

• "Crazy at Castle Hill" The Salem News [+ Show ]
  

  Fiddle rock band Crazy Maggy jams at outdoor concert series Grab a lounge chair, some dinner or y...Fiddle rock band Crazy Maggy jams at outdoor concert series
  
  Grab a lounge chair, some dinner or your dancing shoes. Better yet, grab all three and head to Ipswich to take in a summer concert series...
  
  Tonight the entertainment will be provided by fiddle-rock jam band EJ Ouellette and Crazy Maggy. The band, based in Newbury, blends ancient Celtic and French music with modern lyrics for a sound band leader E.J. Ouellette has dubbed, "rad/trad."
  
  "We call it radical/traditional music," he says. "We're rocking ancient tunes."
  
  The band was started in 2001 by Ouellette, who sings, composes, produces and teaches music and plays fiddle and guitar. Rounding out the clan are saxophonist Steve Baker, drummer Peter Whitehead, guitar and mandolin player Michael Kelley and bassist Paul Eddy. The guys originally called themselves Drowsy Maggy, after a fiddle tune Ouellette played, but he quickly realized the group was "anything but drowsy." The guys of Crazy Maggy are known for their trademark "Maggy moments," or extended instrumental jams the group tends to engage in. They typically play outdoor concerts and festivals and are fixtures on the jam band circuit, and are in the process of releasing their first full-length album, "Rock the Bow 5.0"
  
  Ouellette also runs Pine Island Music Resource, a music school and production company in Byfield. This will be Crazy Maggy's third performance at Castle Hill, and they're looking to pack the mansion's lawn. With a good band and some good weather, Harrison says the concerts attract 1,500-2,000 people.
  
  "It's beautiful," Ouellette said. "A lot of our fans come out to see us; the acoustics are great and the setting is just wonderful."
  
  As long as the band is on stage, Ouellette promises lots of dancing, which is inevitable with the upbeat instrumental sounds they deliver. Crazy Maggy is often accompanied by those rocking to their tunes, as well as Irish step dancers...
  
  -- Rebecca Schoonmaker, Staff writer

• Fiddler with the Proof [+ Show ]
  

  There is a hint of that wonderful old archetype, the mad fiddler, in the eyes of EJ Ouellette as he ...There is a hint of that wonderful old archetype, the mad fiddler, in the eyes of EJ Ouellette as he explains exactly what Rad/Trad music is.
  “Radical-Traditional music. I’m coming from traditional fiddle music; they’re instrumentals. We reinterpret them in a modern concept. Traditional music such as Celtic, Irish, Scottish, French, Quebecois, Appalachian, blues, and rock,” he says. “We use different rhythms, different syncopations – rock ‘n’ roll interpretations, funky interpretations. Then we jam on them,” he says. “A lot of times, we take a single tune, and ‘suck the marrow’ out of it. We’ll jam on it in the middle, and come back out with the tune at the end.”
  Ouellette and his band play Rad/Trad with a vengeance. He and his band, Crazy Maggy, will be opening for Leon Russell on April 17.
  Ouellette has been a teacher, performer and producer of music for more than 20 years.
  “This is how we’re doing it,” he explains. “For example, we have a tune, ‘The Opera Reel.’ It’s actually a New England fiddle tune, passed back and forth between the French and Irish and the Scottish. We add a strong backbeat to it, and a saxophone.”
  Fiddle and sax, the melodic heart of Crazy Maggy, may seem like an odd match. Not so, says Ouellette.
  “They used to be popular up in Canada and Nova Scotia with the fiddlers in New England in the ‘30s and the ‘40s, where there used to be horn and clarinet sections playing the tunes,” he says. “I’m actually carrying on a New England tradition.”
  Ouellette, who describes Crazy Maggy as a “family” of musicians, has been at the Maggy musical journey for more than 10 years.
  “I’d always been an acoustic player. I played bluegrass in the ‘70s, and I’ve always loved folk music, many kinds of music. I’ve owned a recording studio for 20 years, and I’m a teacher. I’ve recorded in so many different styles,” he explains. “And then at 40, I had a sort of midlife crisis. Fiddle had always been in my family. One grandfather had been a fiddler in Quebec, the other in Cape Breton. I had fiddlers in my band. One day, when I turned 40, I said, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ so I dropped everything to learn how to play.
  “I understood what was going on with it; I already had something of a trained ear,” he says. “But physically, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I picked up this instrument, and my ears heard something that my body wasn’t capable of producing. I just dug in. Mostly self-taught.”
  Not only have Ouellette’s efforts paid off, they’ve actually paid dividends.
  “What I’m finding is that I’m getting a wider audience by bringing it to people who would not normally hear the music,” he says. “They get exposed to it, then they go out and buy fiddle records.”
  The current line-up of the band is Peter Whitehead, a drummer who played with the Boston band Letters to Clio; Steve Baker on sax, Paul Eddy on bass and Michael Kelley on guitar and mandolin. Brian MacKinnon also plays bass and increasingly, guitar.
  “We play a wide range of gigs, and are getting an increasing level of exposure,” Ouellette says. “When we play festivals, you see the little kids get up and dance. The college kids – we played recently at Bentley – love it. We played for a senior citizen center and sold 15 CDs, which was really interesting. We’re finding an audience.”
  
  -- Bruce Menin, Merrimack River Current
  
  Interested?
  Imagine Studios will present Leon Russell and his band in concert at Newburyport City Hall on Sunday, April 17. Opening will be local Rad/Trad fiddler E.J. Ouellette and his band, Crazy Maggy. Tickets are on sale now at www.imaginestudios.org, by phone at Boss Tickets, 978 834 0500 or at one of several regional outlets listed on Imagine’s web site. For more information, call 978 834 0367.

• Fiddle-rock jam band goes 'Rad/Trad' in Port [+ Show ]
  

  They call it "Rad/Trad" -- the treatment of traditional music in a not-so-traditional way. Newbu...They call it "Rad/Trad" -- the treatment of traditional music in a not-so-traditional way.
  
  Newbury's E.J. Ouellette has been perfecting the new sound for the fiddle for the last decade, most recently with his band, Crazy Maggy.
  
  Together, they have taken the stringed instrument and infused it with rock, urban dance grooves and jazz elements. They've paired it with instruments it's not used to playing with, like the saxophone, electric guitar and drums.
  
  Finally they've set it all to twisted arrangements and contemporary lyrics and themes to expose new audiences to a style of fiddle music they have never heard before.
  
  Ouellette believes the ancient melodies and syncopation, combined with a modern rhythm section, pop sensibilities and arrangements, can draw in music lovers of all ages and backgrounds. And in the process, he welcomes the chance to bring life to old tunes.
  
  "The term 'Rad/Trad' has been popping up, and it usually implies a blending of two or three styles of music, for example mixing traditional old-timey music with contemporary folk music," says Ouellette.
  "I don't consider that radical enough. We go a bit further. We play 'the tunes,' and then we jam and squeeze out all the rhythmic and harmonic possibilities the tune has to offer."
  
  EJ Ouellette & Crazy Maggy bring their unique sound to Newburyport Saturday night for a concert at Belleville Congregational Church on High Street.
  

• "They're 'Crazy' good" [+ Show ]
  

  Celtic trad-man EJ Ouellette brings his five-piece fiddle-rock band to the Dolphin Striker on Saturd...Celtic trad-man EJ Ouellette brings his five-piece fiddle-rock band to the Dolphin Striker on Saturday, Nov. 13 at 9 p.m. They gave a killer performance Sunday night at the Stone Church. A fine way to wrap up brunch. Ouellette is the smiling fiddler. For information, visit www.ejouellette.com.
  
  -- J.L. Stevens, Seacoast Newspapers

• Daughters of the Appalachians, Six Unique Women [+ Show ]
  

  "Beyond the Dolphin Striker" E.J. Ouellette, the fab-fiddling frontman of Crazy Maggy -- well kno..."Beyond the Dolphin Striker"
  
  E.J. Ouellette, the fab-fiddling frontman of Crazy Maggy -- well known for his musical prowess at a certain Ceres Street tavern -- is taking a turn on a Newburyport stage for this series of monologues. No, he won't be speaking the words of storyteller Linda Goodman, but he'll be creating Appalachian sounds for each of the six characters. The actors are directed by Marc Clopton and Arlene Barnard. And the man at right controls that fiddle.
  

Setlist

Crazy Maggy plays selections from their CD, "Rock the Bow 5.0", and additional Maggy tunes. They are continually developing new material.

Sample set list:

Waking Sleepy Maggy
House of Love
Let Me Tell You This
Don't Stop Your Love
Old French Set
Jenny's Jam
Delnabo
Niel Gow's Lamentation
Morrison's Jig
Down the Road
Drowzy Maggy
The Opera Reel
The Green Groove
Beatrice
Jack Broke 'da Prison Door
Lament for the Lasses
Liberty Set
Maggy in Majorca
Oopic Waltz
Tater Patch
Tarbolton Reel
Waking Sleepy Maggy
Say Old Man Can You Play the Fiddle?
Dirty Little Town
Intuition

The band usually performs two 1.5 hour sets, but is capable of playing well into the morning.

All instrumental tunes are original Rad/Trad Maggy arrangements.

Basic Requirements

Calendar