By Charlene Arsenault

The fiddle was one of the first rock instruments, maintains EJ Oullette.

The fiddle, he continues, is the beat. “A rhythm instrument,” he says, “it connects seamlessly with any back beat. Putting a rock beat to fiddle tunes revs them up.”

So Oullette, an accomplished fiddle player, sees nothing wrong with marrying his instrument with a rock sound. In fact, the sound is rather saucy and bold. Introducing Rock the Bow 5.0, it’s his debut album for EJ Oullette and Crazy Maggy. It’s a 15-song mix of rock, R&B, ska and jazz adorned with a commanding fiddle and horn section that would easily get Papelbon stepping.

RTB 5.0 is the last release in a series of RTB releases. Starting with 1.0 in 2003, and progressing through 1.5 and beyond, there were 10 releases over a five year period. The band finally got to the point where it was, “OK, this is the one we’re going to promote nationally.”

“Each release had its own character,” says Oullette, “so it was an evolutionary process. Some fans have all of our releases. The earlier CDs are collectorís items.” Primarily sticking to New England initially, the band regularly hits five of the states. Now, since they are getting airplay in more than 120 stations, plans are to start heading more often to Alabama, Minnesota, Ohio, Colorado and many other places they wouldn’t have anticipated.

With a tremendous response from varied audiences and age groups, Oullette is convinced that “everyone loves a good fiddle,” and his goal is to bring the fiddle back to more of a mainstream audience. Most of his audiences, he admits, were completely unaware of the fiddle sitting in the context of pop before hearing Crazy Maggy. Everyone’s reference point seems to be “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band.

“We are unique in that we are playing roots music with a bent,” says Oullette. “A Maggy show is an amazing thing to experience. It is an event and everyone is drawing into the music and the performance. It amazes me to see how diverse our listening audience is. It is not just bluegrass, country or folk listeners. It includes them, but also mainstream listeners. This was my intent — to popularize fiddle music to a mainstream audience. It is working.”

In addition to fiddle and guitar, Oullette plays mandolin, banjo and steel guitar. He’s a ‘strings’ guy, and there’s no changing that — though he does tinker with drums, percussion and piano (then again — the fiddle really is percussive). Armed with songs about peace, love, pain, unrequited love and a little bit of social commentary, he says he’s more inspired by the traditional fiddle music than influenced.

A professional musician since he was 14, Oullette originally played guitar and bass in number bands, hitting everything from concert halls to clubs prisons, contra dances, and clubs. He’s no stranger to buskering, and played for a vice president, a governor and The Hells Angels all in one week, proving there is nowhere he can’t fit in — and there is nowhere a fiddle cannot fit, either.

“It’s a demanding mistress” he says of playing music professionally. “I’m constantly challenged to play better. I’m not trying to attain stardom — just play great music that I love.” o