J'ai Bu

The Québec Redneck Bluegrass Project originated from a busking trip to south-west China in 2006 by songwriter and guitarist Jean-Philippe Tremblay. While living in the city of Kunming, Tremblay, a native of Chicoutimi, Québec, formed the QRBP after encountering a number of touring Québécois musicians. For several years, the QRBP rambled about China, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and India, performing with equal aplomb, if not identical setlists, for corporate clients and indigenous populations. Now headquartered in the Québec village of Tadoussac, the QRBP line-up includes Tremblay, Madeleine Bouchard (violin), François Gaudreault (upright bass) and Nic Laflamme (mandolin and banjo).

A 13-track CD pocketed within a 240-page hardbound book, J'ai Bu (Just Love) chronicles the ragged-but-righteous QRBP saga through song, travel stories, photographs, recipes and original artwork. Frenetically engaging is one way of describing much of the music on J'ai Bu. Splendidly whimsical romps, such as ‘Jig-a-Loo’, ‘Moteurs’, ‘Bleu Diesel’ and ‘Canon Dans l'Front,’ are performed at hyperspeed and sung exclusively in Québec French, which makes the music intriguingly cryptic, if not totally incomprehensible, to non-Francophone listeners. The closing track, ‘Sans Extra’, showcases the QRBP at its wiliest, incorporating varying tempos and folk harmony singing in a fluid chambergrass setting.