These remembrances of French banjo maestro Philippe Bourgeois are a contribution from Gilles Rézard, Thierry Loyer, and Christian Séguret. They were written in French, and translated into English by Angelika Hernmarck.
On July 14, 2025, we lost one of the greatest banjo players France has ever known: Philippe Bourgeois. In the 1980s, he established himself as an essential reference, to the point of being recognized among the finest banjoists in the world. His playing — both virtuosic and deeply sensitive — left its mark on an entire generation of musicians, in France and across Europe. I am one of them, and I owe him an essential part of my own musical journey.
He became one of my banjo “idols” after I first discovered him at a Crazy Ducks concert in the 1970s.
Philippe was the embodiment of that famous drive: an almost unreal rhythmic precision, utterly electrifying. He possessed an exceptional sound, an absolutely perfect attack, unlike anything I have heard in anyone else since.
In 1984, he recorded his solo album in Nashville with American “superpickers” such as Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.
He was part of some of the most active bands in France — Transatlantic, Bluegrass Rendez-Vous, Uncle Sam — and others would speak of these projects far better than I could. The tributes by Thierry Loyer and Christian Séguret below complete my story.
In the 1990s, I contacted Philippe to meet in person. I went to see him, and the connection was immediate. We quickly decided to organize banjo workshops together, relying on our two very different styles and approaches, and wanting to offer that complementarity to the students. We called this workshop “Banjo Safari”.
The first edition took place in Raslay, in Maine-et-Loire, where he was living with his partner Valérie. Several others followed, in the Drôme and in Paris. Later, we organized another kind of workshop open to all bluegrass instruments, naturally named Bluegrass Safari, which would eventually give rise to Bluegrass Nature.
Through this collaboration, I discovered in Philippe an efficient and discreet working partner, someone who went straight to the point without detours, and with remarkable intelligence.
We even considered putting together a stage repertoire as a duo!
That said, a banjo duo without a dedicated singer is not an easy thing to promote… but it simply appealed to us. And without a doubt, working alongside such an accomplished musician enriched me immensely on a musical level. It was a rather atypical project, one must admit — but Philippe was also a fantastic guitarist and mandolinist, with the same incredible drive he had on the banjo.
I carefully treasure a live recording made during a Bluegrass Safari workshop in Vesc (Drôme), along with a few promotional tracks and a rehearsal with a band called Appalaches.
Emotion overwhelms me as I listen to these tracks again and write these lines.
I think back to those happy, simple, warm moments full of friendship we shared, and I find it very hard to speak of him in the past tense…
Thank you, Philippe, for sharing your music and your friendship with such sincerity and simplicity.
Gilles Rézard
Philippe’s sudden passing has deeply affected the two women in his life: Valérie, his wife, and Camille, his daughter.
Today, Valérie and Camille carry a dream: to retrace Philippe’s footsteps in the United States, especially the place where he recorded an album simply titled Nashville, which had made a profound impression on American musicians.
This journey would be a way for them to keep Philippe’s memory alive.
To help make this project possible, a fundraising campaign has been created. Anyone may contribute, as a sign of friendship and gratitude towards Philippe, and in support of Valérie and Camille.
In life, there are moments of obvious revelation — sudden flashes of certainty.
For me, it happened on a Paris underground platform. Two musicians, two kids, an improbable duo — banjo and double bass — were giving everything they had to make travelers stop and listen to an incredible version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown. Impressive drive, unique tone, effortless banjo flow: I had just encountered a prodigy, a great musician — Philippe Bourgeois.
The three of us became friends immediately. I took part in the recording of their first album, Crazy Duck, and I must say that Philippe’s maturity during the sessions, the quality of his recordings, the abundance of innovative ideas in his banjo solos, as well as his organizational skills and artistic direction, left me in no doubt about his future. He would be among the greatest of his instrument.
We shared an extraordinary number of musical projects — within Transatlantic, of course, but also Le Captain Cook, Hervé’s albums (Le Fou du Roi), my own (Travelin’ Dobro), and others. I remember the time when, together with Hervé Verdier, he dreamed of creating a musical venue near Pantin — and I, then a young architect, was involved.
Endless days, absolute happiness, a world to reinvent, moments of immense brotherhood — that project was an enchanted interlude.
Always innovative, always full of energy, always grounded yet tinged with utopia, sharing projects and music with Philippe was pure joy — and ideas were never lacking.
A musician of the highest calibre, he played guitar, mandolin, and banjo with equal mastery. His ever-alert mind behind mischievous eyes and a gentle smile, his great reserve, made him a kind soul — enigmatic, some would say — of deep sensitivity and fragility, for those who truly knew him.
Philippe regularly came to our home to share a family meal, play his new compositions, or talk about his projects.
Those were privileged moments I cherished. We talked about jazz, great soloists, the small bluegrass world, music, and the musicians who touched our hearts.
Philippe Bourgeois is no longer here, but his music — his albums (listen to Nashville), his recordings — are tangible proof of his immense talent and exceptional creativity, placing him among the pantheon of the greatest musicians and true masters of the banjo.
In my heart and mind, an artist like Philippe Bourgeois remains immortal.
Aloha, my friend.
Thierry Loyer
Philippe has gone. Far from France, where his immeasurable talent first blossomed; far from his earliest friends, whom distance had gradually separated from him; but above all, far from his ability to make the banjo, guitar or mandolin ring out with equal brilliance — instruments he played with the same ease — before a stealthy attack condemned him to silence.
Philippe was an exceptional musician; all who heard him can testify to that. Fortunately, recordings remain as evidence — including his album Nashville, recorded in the early 1980s. But he was also a distinctive and endearing man, whose charming quirks were fondly recalled by everyone upon hearing of his death.
Those who played with him remember his musical “tics”: the way he would, on stage, ask a nearby musician — just before starting a tune whose title meant nothing to him — to hum the melody, twirling his index finger around his right ear, before launching into a confident and dazzling introduction, as if he had practiced the piece for hours. Or the way he would tune a colleague’s bass by pressing his ear against the instrument’s head, refining the pitch amid the surrounding noise with a precision worthy of the finest modern electronic tuners.
I travelled tens of thousands of kilometers in a van with Philippe in the bands we shared: Transatlantic Bluegrass, of course — of which he was a pillar — but also Bluegrass Rendez-Vous, and Peter Rowan’s band, whom we accompanied on a memorable European tour.
We would pass the time laughing, listening to cassette tapes over the van’s sound system, joking, swapping stories and gossip. In the best of cases, we rehearsed vocal harmonies. Philippe, meanwhile, would settle on the back seat, instrument in hand — most often a mandolin — and let notes flow for hours.
I hesitate to say that he was “practicing,” so natural, unthinking, playful, and seemingly effortless the process appeared. Instrumental practice, as all musicians know, requires strong coordination between both hands — a quality unevenly distributed, shaped by neurological development, neural connections, who knows… Philippe had been blessed by nature in this regard. I do not believe I ever met a musician as gifted or as responsive as he was, even in the face of fatigue and excess.
He was programmed for music, and developed these qualities to an extreme — obsessively at times — sometimes at the expense of the most basic social demands, and therefore of his career, which I feel never matched the magnitude of his exceptional talent.
I have always known how fortunate I was to share so many musical adventures with him. But now that he is gone, I regret that distance loosened our bond, and I savour these shared moments with sadness.
I loved singing that Bill Monroe song, carried along by the unmatched drive of my companion — a song whose title says exactly what I wish to whisper to him today:
Goodbye Old Pal…
Christian Séguret
