Three Alsatians, one Burgundian, and two Americans, the perfect mix for a French bluegrass band, the Mart O Pickers, based in Strasbourg, France. The musicians are Rebecca Bowen (vocals, rhythm guitar), Alain Kempf (acoustic bass, vocals), Pierre Lajugée (mandolin, vocals), Denis Schoenfelder (lead guitar, vocals), Théo Sauer (banjo, Dobro), and Alex Neff (fiddle, vocals). Their music is 23% traditional bluegrass, 49% contemporary bluegrass (with influences ranging from the Lonesome River Band to Alison Krauss and Tim O Brien), 17% rearrangements of country songs, 13% adaptations of golden oldies, 12% a cappella gospels, and 7% of a pinch of this and a pinch of that, adding up to 121% acoustic music As accounting obviously isn t their thing, they prefer to stick to bluegrass music. The Mart O Pickers recorded their first CD (with liner notes by Christian Séguret) in 1994. Family Man , written by fiddler Alex Neff and recorded by the band at the Jazzophone studio in Strasbourg, was their contribution to the France Bluegrass compilation CD (with liner notes by Tony Trischka), which was released in 2004. The band was nominated for the French Country Music Awards in 2004.

Joël B. Espesset Q: Rebecca and Alex, you are the two American band members. How long have you been playing with the Mart O Pickers? Rebecca: I met the group in 1992, when they were playing in the street by the cathedral. At the time there was already Denis Schoenfelder, the guitar player, Pierre Lajugée, the mandolin player, and Théo Sauer on banjo, and there was a different bass player, Anne-Marie Wolff, who no longer is with the group, and I began playing with them in 1993.

Alex: And I m the newest addition to the band. I moved to Strasbourg three years ago. I had played bluegrass music before, so I asked around if anyone knew anyone who played bluegrass. Two different people gave me Becky s name, so I thought this must be a sign from above. I contacted Becky, I played with them a couple of times, and the rest is history. I d been playing bluegrass since I was this high. I learned to play by ear, listening to my Dad play the banjo and to my grandfather play the guitar, on Sunday afternoons when we would go to visit the grandparents in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Q: Why did you come over to this particular part of Europe? Rebecca: I m from Wisconsin. I don t come from a bluegrass family, but I started working in a music store where the owners had a bluegrass band. I was influenced by them and started playing bluegrass with the other people who worked at the music store. I came to France because I met a Frenchman, and I ended up marrying him and staying here. We really like this part of France, Alsace is very nice. Alex: I came to Strasbourg because I work for a university program organizing exchanges between U.S. universities and French universities, and I ended up here because of the university in Strasbourg. Q: You already mentioned three band members, but not Alain Kempf, your bass player. Rebecca: In 1996, we opened for Christian Séguret and Suzy Gott. Alain saw us play, and he didn t run out the door screaming, so we asked him if he wanted to play with us. He was recruited for a trial run, and we haven t been able to get rid of him since! Q: Alain, you used to play with Pipe Line before that Alain: That s right, but Pipe Line was not the first bluegrass band in Alsace. Lionel Wendling, the pedal steel player, kind of

launched bluegrass in Strasbourg. He used to play the banjo, and even bass, with the first bluegrass band in Alsace, the Gaston Schmürtz Bluegrass Pickers, in the late 70s! Q: What are the specific musical qualities of the other band members? Rebecca: We have a steady driving bass player, and an amazing fiddle player who plays fast and original solos. Denis has a very strong rhythm guitar and also plays solos, and then Pierre, a great bluegrass mandolin player. Our banjo player, Théo, has a sort of Tony Trischka influenced style, but he has also developed his own style, and he plays other instruments and other types of music as well. Alex: We don t have the same vocal line-up all the time. Usually Rebecca has the lead but not always, and the arrangements for the back-ups are really varied. All of us sing at some point, usually two or three of us on any song. Q: What does the band s name mean? Rebecca: I think Denis originally came up with the name about 15 years ago. The original nucleus, the original three pickers who started the band in 1987, Denis, Pierre and Théo, had other names in the past. It looks like an American-Irish-type word, but when you say it in a French way, it sounds like marteau piqueur , which means a jackhammer! Alex: But isn t there also something with marteau meaning crazy ? Alain: Who knows? But it can also cause trouble because many people can t spell it, the apostrophe is never in the right place, or they write it the French way Q: What about the Mart O Pickers sound and style? What kind of bluegrass do you play? Alex: Our repertoire is pretty eclectic. We have traditional bluegrass songs but we mix it with country, with Beatles songs I think part of that is because we

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play for a French audience that doesn t necessarily know the traditional American bluegrass repertoire. Q: What makes your music bluegrass then? Is it the feeling, the instruments, the singing, the repertoire, personal compositions? Rebecca: Pretty much all of those things. A traditional line-up as far as the instruments are concerned, and the way of singing, sticking to the high lonesome sound Alex: And it s all acoustic instruments, of course. I would say that everything we play with a five-string banjo or a mandolin becomes bluegrass. Rebecca: But we had a period when our banjo player was gone, he lived in a different part of France for three years, and that was still bluegrass! We had two guitars and a mandolin, but basically the same repertoire and the same type of vocals. Alex: And of course the specific rhythm that gives it the drive Q: Where do you usually play, and how often? Alex: Subway stations Rebecca: Well, if we had those, maybe! We play in concert halls, at cocktails or private parties, in bars, or in the street. Sometimes we play for outdoor events. We played for the bicycle festival in Strasbourg for several years, we play the Fête de la musique , the Handicap International , for Boy Scouts events Alex: We re not proud, you know. We ll play for anyone who wants to hear us ! Q: What was your best experience on stage?

Alex: About one year ago, we played at the U.S. military base in Heidelberg, Germany. We were required to play for the elementary school kids. They didn t necessarily know anything about bluegrass, so I dressed up like Bill Monroe, the hat and everything, we started the instruments, and we sort of gave them an overview of what bluegrass was, playing different combinations of instruments, then adding the fiddle, and in the end we all played together, doing the same show about six times during the day for different groups. Q: How would you compare to other French bluegrass bands? Alex: Well, we sing in English, we don t have anything in French. Some bands do that on the France Bluegrass compilation CD. Q: There s something really unique to the Mart O Pickers Rebecca: We re the only bluegrass band worldwide with a Pierre Lajugée guitar and a very special Pierre Lajugée mandolin! Pierre is an instrument-maker. He made the guitar that Denis plays in the band, and he made his own mandolin, which he plays in the band as well. Alex: It comes in handy sometimes, when we have little problems with our instruments. I bought my fiddle from him. He didn t make this one, but he refurbished it beautifully.

Q: Pierre, how did you become a stringed-instrument maker? Pierre: I don t come from a musical family, but I ve always enjoyed music, playing the fiddle, and working with wood. Coming from Semur-en-Auxois, in Burgundy, I spent about twelve years in Mirecourt, in the Vosges mountains, which has the only school for violin-making in France. After graduating, I taught violin-making for four years, and after working for a luthier there, I moved to Strasbourg to another workshop. I finally set up my own workshop in Ingwiller, here in Alsace, four years ago. Q: You make guitars and mandolins, 100% handmade, and also fiddles Pierre: I have made only two guitars, Denis plays one. But arched-top mandolins are much closer to fiddles. My basic trade is making and repairing the typical instruments in a string quartet: violins, violas, cellos, and occasionally double basses. I make a few mandolins for fun, as a sideline: Gibson-inspired A and F models, and a totally original one that I call a mandolin-violin, more in the shape of a fiddle, with a headscroll, a very versatile instrument that I usually play in the band. I make about four or five new instruments a year, mostly fiddles, the rest is maintenance, restoration, repair work for all types of customers, musicians

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Around or in the Paris area. Of course handmade, in the pure Mirecourt tradition, using maple and spruce, and ebony for the fingerboard. It takes me about one hundred hours to make a mandolin, working on my own, and without a dealer. I pay a lot of attention to sound, playability, and finish: no cellulose varnish, for instance.

Schaffhausen in Switzerland, at the Over Easy Bluegrass Festival, on June 26, 2005. Alex: We played near Neuchâtel in Switzerland, in front of an audience that knew about bluegrass and country, about music anyway. But it s true we haven t played for any typical bluegrass audiences yet. For many people that listen to us, it s the first time they ve ever heard Q: Who is your favorite mandobluegrass, and it s more out of curilin player? And can you imagine osity than anything else. bluegrass without a mandolin? Pierre: Tim O Brien! I met him Q: What are your current proa few times. Such a multi-faceted jects for the next few years? musician, and a fine writer! Sam Alex: Well, Schaffhausen in Bush of course, and especially June, and the Ancienne Chartreuse Jethro Burns Bluegrass without a in Molsheim, France, on July 1, mandolin? Impossible. That was 2005. Bill Monroe s instrument, we can t Rebecca: And for those conrewrite history But I think the certs we re working on quite a mandolin could be used more often number of new songs that we ve in other types of music. never played before. Some of them are new compositions. All the origiQ: Do you play any other innals are by Alex. struments or any other musical style? Q: Alex, do you compose by ear, Rebecca: I play a little bit of or do you write down the notes? fiddle, mostly Irish style, and I took Alex: No, it comes by ear first. piano lessons when I was little, Before I sit down with the guitar, I classical style and later chording, get it mostly together in my head, but I don t play much any more. because once you play a chord, it Alex: I dabble on the guitar be- messes the rest of it up I m not sides the fiddle, and I can find my sure where it starts. I usually get the way around a mandolin. I enjoy melody first, not the lyrics. Often playing jazz, swing, Stephane Grap- there s one phrase that seems to fit pelli stuff, and Django things on the well with one part, and then you do guitar, although it s out of my the rest around that. Like Family range. Man on the CD, that s where the Alain: I play a little guitar my- sound seems to lend itself well to a self. From time to time I play elec- story about a redneck family and a tric bass, as a substitute in love affair in a trailer park rock n roll, rhythm n blues or Q: What is for you the best deficountry rock, but no mandolin or nition of bluegrass, if any ? banjo. Alex: Is that a test ?! Well, seRebecca: Pierre also plays the riously, the difference between fiddle, the instrument he started out good and bad bluegrass is that it s on, Denis plays the bagpipes, the authentic. The fact that it s unFrench cornemuse . In fact he plugged, acoustic instruments, also played the bagpipes before he took makes it feel like it s sort of laid up flatpicking on guitar. Our banjo bare music, not hidden behind any player, Théo, plays the piano and filters. other instruments: mandolin, guitar, Rebecca: And the specific way harp, and of course the Dobro since of singing of course. When we re 2000. And he s a fine painter too! looking for harmony, we try to Q: What do you expect from a make it sound bluegrass. It s often typical bluegrass audience? Alain who finds the harmonies for Rebecca: Well, they clap after us. the instrumental solos Alain: We sometimes have a Alain: I think we ll discover our four-part harmony in some a capfirst real bluegrass audience in

pella gospels, where Denis sings bass. Q: What is the most important thing for the band: volume, tone, or timing? Rebecca: Certainly not volume! We spend more time talking about timing than anything else. Maybe we should work on tone more As far as the keys are concerned, we adjust the songs to the lead singer. Alex: We do a lot in D, but they drive me crazy because they do a few things in B flat, and there s one in C sharp minor, which on a fiddle is not a picnic ! Q: What are the main difficulties when you rehearse? Rebecca: When we re all together we work on the arrangements, to differentiate this song from the previous one. Then each person learns their solo or singing part, and then hopefully the next time, or the time after that, it will come together. We used to practice once a week, now it s more like every two weeks. Q: Where do you rehearse? Alain: In my basement. We do have neighbours, but they like it Sometimes we rehearse here, at Becky s place, and she s still there ! Q: Rebecca and Alex, is there anything typically French about the other four band members? Do they eat a lot of cheese when you rehearse or drink too much wine ? Rebecca: Oh, everything ! Alex: Well, there s always a certain French flavored accent when they sing, no matter how hard they try, but that adds charm to the band! Q: Rebecca, you sing with a Wisconsin accent !? Rebecca: Right, and I don t sound like a bluegrass singer either! Sometimes it s a funny experience to speak in French all the time, when the two of us speak French together, and as soon as we start singing, it s in English. Alex: And anyway everyone speaks English reasonably well in the band!

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