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Cedric Baetche, left, and Chris Ruppenthal bonded over a love of Django Reinhardt.
Mal-O-Dua (a variation of the French mal aux doigts or “pain in the fingers”) is a hard-working string duo that blends the frenetic jazz of Django Reinhardt, the slack key traditional music of Hawaii, and the Kentucky-fried thumb-picking style of Merle Travis. You won’t hear anything like it in Madison. Or just about anywhere else, for that matter.
“I don’t know of anyone who is doing specifically what we do. Not the Django-meets-Merle-meets-French-Hawaiian thing,” says Chris Ruppenthal, one half of the duo. “There are elements of Django in some modern French pop music. But not in the rootsy way we do it. And there were early French Hawaiian bands. But we don’t sound like them.”
The mash-up of styles is as unlikely as the meet-up of the players. Ruppenthal is a Wisconsin kid, born in Madison and a graduate of Slinger High School. A fan of industrial metal and punk music as a teenager, the closest he came to French music back then was the French horn he played in the school band.
Mal-O-Dua’s other half, Cedric Baetche, was born and raised in Reims, France, in the heart of the Champagne region. “As much as I was exposed to all the French artists of the past whose songs we cover with Mal-O-Dua, I also had an uncle who was a Sun Record artist fan,” says Baetche. “Starting around age 12, he would regularly make me mix tapes of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins. The sound of Elvis’ guitar player Scotty Moore no doubt planted the seed for finger style back then.”
But country music styles would have to wait. During those teen years Baetche picked up the bass and played the music of the bands of the era: The Smiths, The Cure, and later, Nirvana.
Fast forward to the summer of 1999. Baetche was bartending in Madison and a friend, another guitar player, showed him an up-close demo of the Merle Travis/Chet Atkins finger style. “It hit me pretty hard, and I knew right there and then that it was exactly what I’d like to do with a guitar. But it sounded and looked so far out of reach technically.”
“Hundreds of hours later,” Baetche says he started to get a decent feel for it. The technique requires simultaneously thumbing (with pick) the bass line while plucking the melody or lead lines with the middle and index fingers. And all the hard work became a fun reference, with the sore fingers inspiring the name Mal-O-Dua.
Baetche and Ruppenthal met at a Gypsy Caravan (another of Ruppenthal’s bands) show in 2007. Their mutual love of Django Reinhardt was a solid footing for all that was to come. French stuff only at the start. Then Ruppenthal came home from a visit to Hawaii with more than a t-shirt. Two ukuleles led the musicians into traditional island music, which also has some French roots.
Mal-O-Dua debuted the Hawaiian sounds at regular Thursday night gigs on the patio at Mickey’s Tavern. Seeing them live is to witness two masters revealing and revising history on an array of instruments. Slack key guitar, steel guitar, dreadnought, ukuleles. The Hawaiians call the uke “the flea” because of the high-pitched tone of the 4-stringed instrument. The flea sounds flitting above that country-picked guitar creates beauty and tension. Baetche’s vocals in particular give the sound a warm, world-weary vibe. With his authentic French accent, close your eyes and you can imagine sitting in a French cabaret.
A café like the Chat Noir, one of the first cabaret music clubs in the boho Montmartre district of Paris and the namesake of Mal-O-Dua’s latest release, Au nouveau Chat Noir.
The duo’s individual non-musical pursuits fit with their artistic ones. Ruppenthal is a professional screen printer. Baetche trained at Madison College’s culinary program and is a certified French baker. And this surprise fact: The duo has trailblazed by blending French, Hawaiian and Kentucky genres, but they’ve never performed in France, Hawaii or Kentucky. “The farthest we’ve gotten from home is Fort Collins, Colorado, for the Hawaiian Steel Guitar convention,” says Ruppenthal.
Madison music lovers benefit from the duo sticking close to home. It’s a short spin over to Mickey’s Tavern on Willy Street to see them play Aug. 1 (and Aug. 15).
