  |
LINKS TO MUSINGS ON THIS PAGE:
............................................................................................................................. Fiddle
Encounters Fiddles are definitely of the feminine gender. Just look at their shapes. There are the obvious curves, the long neck, like a Mondrian painting. But more than that, beyond the obvious, is the feeling of embrace, the need to coax, and the pleasure of response. The point was driven home most recently at a fiddle festival where I had the good fortune to observe a young woman bending for some dropped music. These moments are often hard to avoid, especially when viewed from the rear, and especially when said rear is comely in nature. Now before digging this hole much deeper, let me say in my defense, that such an observation is made - especially when one is fast approaching the speed limit in the time continuum - and lust aside, strictly as an observation of the fine hand of God hard at work in the beauty and art department. In the act of bending, said comely creature reveled what has become the indelible feminine mark of the times, a tattooed back. This one however was a departure from the more common fleur-de-lis pattern nestled proudly in the small-of-the-back of so many female twenty-somethings. Emblazoned right where you'd expect to see them - especially if you've spent a great deal of your life viewing the world from the business end of a fingerboard - were a neatly matched set of f-holes. Now having spent a great deal of my life viewing the world from the business end of a fingerboard, I can tell you that, were this young lady's back the belly of a fiddle, those f-holes were in perfect scale and Stradivarian proportion. I rest my case. Often, like female encounters, fiddle encounters can happen when you least expect them. Some bit of serendipity, best pondered later in life, will altered the entire course of your existence, throwing you into another orbit, née a whole new galaxy. I was eight years old when I first noticed that the kid across the street had a violin. Somewhere in that time period of the third grade, the schools gave musical aptitude tests, which I vaguely remember. In any event, it was determined that I did, in fact, have some musical aptitude. That, coupled with rapidly developing instrument envy directed at the kid across the street, was probably what led to my decision to become a musician. My father had a habit of reading the newspaper starting with the classified section. To him it was a prime economic indicator. Cruising the classifieds was sport to him. He was not looking for anything specific, just something intriguing. His motto, "There's an asking price, and a getting price." It was from the classifieds that we ended up with a pool table in the basement, and it was from the classifieds that we developed an urban poultry farm. My dad just couldn't resist the "good deal" presenting itself as a 6' tall incubator complete with over 100 duck and chicken eggs, which developed into another whole story. It was in the classifieds that he found the surplus Jitney from the airport, one of those little tractor-like tugs that pull the baggage wagons, just what we in the middle of the city. So it was modeled for me from an early age, and naturally, when I decided that it was to be the violin, I went to the classifieds and cruised the columns until I found what I was looking for. And there, under the heading, "Misc. Items," loomed my future, "Violin for sale. Good student instrument. Inc. bow and case. $75. Call…" My mother did the calling and eventually we bought the violin. And that led to trouble. Trouble was that my grandfather, Fred Williams, a West Virginia mandolin player, taught me to keep good time by tapping my toe. The conductor of the Elementary school orchestra thought otherwise, and had a habit of constantly stepping on my foot. She apparently didn't like my incessant fiddling either, which usually happened while she was paying attention to the trombone section. So much for school orchestras. Many years after that first encounter with the classifieds, while running Saturday errands, I chanced past a music store. Feeling a slight Premonition perhaps, and being somewhat of a music junkie, I stopped in. It was one of those intriguing old 1920's high ceiling storefronts, the door set back from the street, with windows on either side displaying any manner of song books, harmonicas, kazoos and used instruments. Just enough related ephemera to pique the curiosity and warrant a stop. The storefront sported a long narrow old-fashioned sign over the windows that read, "Folk Music." Not really needing anything, save perhaps a manuscript book, I took that as reason enough to venture in. I surveyed the premises, noted with passing interest the abundance of old, used, and definitely folk-issue instruments. I made my way to the sheet music rack, and after a bit of browsing, found a nicely bound manuscript book blank with possibilities, a profusion of empty staves ripe for inspiration. Heading for the checkout counter, I was distracted momentarily by the glint and shine of new varnish hanging on the wall. There tucked in amongst the old, hung a fiddle. It was all together too new, too bright, and lacking any of the well-worn marks of age so often associated with the acoustic maturity of older instruments. But still - and not unlike the aforementioned comely young maiden of the tattoo - it was, in its own way, compelling. On further examination the nicely shaped one-piece back - again, not unlike the aforementioned comely young maiden of the tattoo - was enough in itself to push me to the edge of purchase or barter, The heft of the instrument was right, not too heavy, good balance, nicely figured wood, the work of a craftsman. It looked good, but could it talk? I was a bit wary, having had some prior comely young maiden experience while once being forced to attend a fashion show luncheon, and overhearing one of the well formed models speak in a very uninformed and nasal manner - something along the lines of "Oh my Gwad didja see thwat?" The clerk handed me a bow, and upon applying horsehair to catgut, and unlike the most recent aforementioned comely young maiden of the runway, I found I liked the sound of this voice. Bold, strong, lively, warm, yet still a bit untested, crying out to be played. Predictably, it was love at first sight. As I recall, a bit of cash and a banjo in part trade finally did the deal. The label read "Conrad Goetz, 1972. Model No. 4," and featured the maker's mark, as well as a brand inside the one-piece back. Not that labels mean all that much, but at least this one had some pedigree. Violin labels have always been suspect, and a good appraiser never looks there first. Lacking copyright laws, thousands of student fiddles have been sold over the years bearing famous labels. Stradivarius, working in the 1600's would have needed six sets of hands and a hundred years of 40-hour days to produce that many originals in his native Italian shop. And he never worked in "Czechoslovakia, ca.1925," as a good number of labels have proudly proclaimed over the years. Mr. Goetz's 1972 model No. 4 improved with use. The wood, they say, begins to respond to the vibrations, and resonate to the tones produced. It was a fine instrument and one I took great care of, with the possible exception of the time I smashed it against a wall. But that's another story, which I probably should tell now. It
happened during a summer fiddle workshop in front of 20 or 30 students,
all eager to learn new tunes and techniques. Sitting in front of the
group, their tape recorders in the pause mode, I rambled on incessantly,
absentmindedly twirling my fiddle in my left hand - a habit mysteriously
acquired, and hard to shake - when out of the blue, in a startling
moment of poltergeist, the fiddle leapt from my hand, flew in a lazy,
slow-motion arch, which, I'm sure, in real time took only mere seconds,
impacted solidly against the wall, and exploded into a number of
separate pieces. The neck popped off the body, the pegs flew out of the
scroll, and the tackle - strings, bridge, and tailpiece - went flying as
well. The fiddle came apart in clean and repairable pieces, and fortunately there was a resident luthier on site who glued the whole thing back together overnight. Miraculously, there wasn't even as much as a scratch or crack on the instrument. That fiddle followed me for a good ten years, made two recordings, was hocked for a thousand dollars to finance a trip to Scotland, redeemed, and finally sold to an aspiring Irish fiddler, who, as far as I know is still playing it today. I've since moved on to other alluring fiddles, and remembering them all is like reading names on a war memorial: Antonio
Stradivarius, Czechoslovakia, 1920 I once knew an old fiddler who was a pool hustler. He didn't carry a custom cue, but always, "played off the wall." That was his gimmick. Claimed it threw off the competition. "You see," he once told me, "If you know what you're doing, you can play with any old stick." It's said that the classic American violinist Fritz Kreitzler, following the accusations of New York critics who claimed his fine tone was merely the result of owning a rare Stradivarius, once came on stage at Carnegie Hall, brought tears to the eyes with a stunning rendition of "Shone Rosemarion," then smashed his fiddle against the piano and walked off stage. It was, in fact, an inexpensive student copy of a Strad. If you know what you're doing… Somehow, these kinds of stories just lend credence to the notion that one violin is not enough. As a player I'm always searching for that perfect instrument. And I still find myself cruising the classifieds. Not necessarily expecting the "Strad-in-the-attic" sort of thing, but a sleeper, the unexpected. A fiddle encounter of the finest kind. :: BACK TO TOP :: ............................................................................................................................. First
Visit Home "Farrel is it?" the Old man affirmed more than asked, pronouncing my name with the long "a" so typical of Irish dialect. "Would this be your first visit home then?" It was indeed my first visit to Ireland. But home? I have no idea where my Irish ancestors called home. But I certainly felt at home. It was the last night of my first visit, and I found myself just east of Galway in the little town of Athenry where Monday nights are musically spent at the King John's Inn. It's the kind of place where even the tunes you've never heard before seem familiar. It was there I met the old man, a fine box player, Billy O'Toole. In his 80's, he still cut hay the old way, his forearms wiry from farm work. He played the melodeon with an authority and grace honed from years of experience and hard work. We stopped by his farm to give him a ride to the sessiun. He was ready, suit and tie and a hint of the open peat fire he prefers. Old Ireland personified. I do know the O'Fergal or O'Farrell, the Farrels, né Ferrel came from around Longford long before I came along. But in Ireland, an Irish surname is good enough to make you a friend at the drop of a hat, and besides, despite our differences, Billy and I had one thing in common, a shared passion for the music. The Irish poet Sean Golden wrote, "Traditional music derives from the rhythms and quantities of the lrish language whose consonantal patterns and long vowels and intricate prosody mirror the intervals and rhythms of song and dance." It was that song and dance that drew me to Ireland. As a musician, I wanted to know more about the "Road to Lisdoonvarna," and the "Humors of Ennistymon." I wanted to see "The Fields of Athenry." I wanted to visit a place where music was part of the fabric and dialect. A place where a fiddle and concertina are considered a prime source of the intervals and rhythms - more the rule than the exception, or just an interesting hobby. It's one thing to listen and learn from recordings and local sessions, but as Breandan Breathnach wrote in "Folk Music and Dance of Ireland, "There is only one way to become a traditional player or singer, and that is by listening to genuine material performed in a traditional manner." And I would be so bold as to ad to that, "at the source and in person." I've played the fiddle since I was eight years old, my grandfather Fred Williams being my first in-person source. He tempted me to play the old tunes with his time worn Gibson mandolin, promising it would be mine if I'd just learn to play "Little Brown Jug." I got to where I could play the tune inside out and upside down, but it was the old carrot in front of a mule trick. He never did give me the mandolin, and it wasn't until long after he'd died that my grandmother finally conceded to passing on the legacy. By that time the fiddle had become my weapon of choice. My passion for the concertina came much later in life, long after seeing the movie, Annie Get You're Gun at the drive-in movies where they sang Buttons and Bows. How was I to know at that tender young age, sitting in the back seat of our old Buick, that someday I could look back with some relevance, however vague, to that drive-in movie moment. The first person I ever really had a chance to listen to up close and personal on the concertina was Bertram Levy. We toured and recorded together in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Although not an Irish player, per say, Bertram's technique was nothing short of amazing, and I was intrigued enough by his music to want to try my hand at it. He had two wonderful old Jeffries concertinas, and loaned me one for a while. Now I should say here that in the world of concertinas, the name Jefferies is synonymous with Stradivarius. English made, Jefferies were the best of the best. Made from the late 1800's until about 1930, they're now old, rare, and considered the most desirable amongst the Irish music literati. Although I was interested and tried my hand at it, I never really followed up on the concertina. The fiddle was still my all-consuming passion and after all, I had Bertram as a neighbor, and I really didn't have to go all that far to hear the thing played. Years later, a visit to my old friend Dave Richardson got my fingers itching again. Dave lives in Edinburgh where he manages the affairs of his group, The Boys of The Lough. I got to messing around with and old concertina he had on the mantle. It had belonged to his father and, coincidentally, it too was a Jeffries. Soon enough I found myself wanting, more than anything, to have one of my own, and to pursue the Irish music that seemed so natural to the instrument and true at least to a part of my heritage. I found myself listening to the music of the O'Fergals with renewed interest and intent. I contacted a dealer in England, and the squeeze was on. Now living in Boston, I soon found that some of the best source material and inspiration was right in my own back yard. Boston is rich in Irish culture and sessiuns can be found literally every night of the week, and a few afternoons as well, at the literally hundreds of Irish pubs in the neighborhood. As I began attending these local gatherings, I came to realize how much I'd been missing. There's nothing quite so humbling as starting a new instrument at mid-life. I've chased the "Down East" fiddle players for years, visited Cape Breton, Toured in Scotland, recorded legendary musicians, but this was like starting all over again with a whole new frame of reference. All the old familiar fiddle moves proved to be no help at all. I'd moved into a parallel universe where strings became reeds and bows became bellows. And I knew that before long I'd have to go hear the music and see the instrument played in its natural habitat. The opportunity for that first visit began to look more real as I was invited to attend a conference mid July in England. Following the conference, a minimal airport hassle at Heathrow and £100 sterling paid to Aer Lingus put me right in the heart of West Clare. The flight to Shannon is about 45 minutes, and after a week in London, the rural landscape rising up to meet the plane as we landed felt familiar and friendly. A brief stop at the rental car desk got me on the road, and then a short drive north along the N18 on the "wrong" side got me to Ennis, 16 mile to the north. The heart of Clare country, one of the legendary musical hubs of Ireland. The Old Ground Hotel was suggested as a base, and it was good advice. Good food, a soft bed, and an encouraging staff when it came to sitting out front playing music. In fact, within an hour of arriving, we had a sessiun well underway in the courtyard, the manager bracing us with pints, half-pints and bottles to "insure against a musically void afternoon." I knew I was in user friendly country when an old gentleman walked past, stopped, suggested a tune which I didn't know, then obliged us by taking up my fiddle and playing the tune and a few more for good measure before continuing on his way. It was done in the same way one might stop and help with a flat tire. Just lending a helping hand. He mentioned in passing his name was George, George Chambers. Just another resident of Ennis who learned to fiddle along with his reading writing and 'rithmatic. I was further encouraged visiting a local gift shop that offered, among other things, postcards of concertina and fiddle players, displayed with the same sense of familiarity as sports heroes on trading cards. The center for musical information in Ennis is Custy's Traditional Music Shop on Francis Street. There I met the lovely Francis Custy, proprietor, and of course it goes without saying, fiddler. She keeps her shelves well stocked with recordings, books and instruments. I should have known I'd find it hard to leave without making a dent in my wallet. It was, "tourist on a spending spree," in a shop where I was welcome to test drive a variety of fiddles and concertinas, and leave with an armload of books and tapes, almost all of them new to me. Francis, recognizing my passion, suggested a rural sessiun that evening away from the crowds in Ennis, north along the Galway road in Crusheen. Really just a bend in the road and easy to miss, but there'll be a sign out front. And indeed there was, "Fogarty's Thatched Pub. Traditional Music Tonight." In July the days are long and sessiuns don't really get going until around 10pm. As the old saying goes, "Make hay while the sun shines," and most likely the patrons of rural pubs are hard at haying until the sun goes down. After all it is a farming community. We arrived early and thought we may have been mistaken as the bar was empty save for a lone patron at the bar nursing a pint. But by 10:30 the place was packed, the pints were built, and the music rolling with Francis on fiddle, and her friend Josephine Marsh on accordion. Two lovely ladies from Clare playing some of the best music I heard on my trip. Although I was interested in fiddle music, it was the old concertina players I wanted to find. Upon mentioning this to the clerk in the hotel gift shop, she said, supporting my notion that everyone in Clare either plays music or is related to someone that does, "Well then if you're from America you must know my cousin, he's got a bunch of old concertinas." Her cousin, she told me, was Gearoid O'AIlmhurain, a fine concertina player in the traditional Clare style. And in fact I had met him in San Francisco earlier this year where he's attending graduate school. We'd spent the better part of a stormy evening sitting outside the local pub after closing time in a rented car playing tunes following a Sunday night sessiun. But that's another story, and it didn't help me in Ennis. I have an old English LP anthology recording of Irish concertina players recorded in the late 1960's. I was curious if any of them were still around. One, Sonny Murray, as it turned out, lived just down the road from the hotel, and was more than obliging when I called him out of the blue on a Sunday morning and asked if we could get together. Although he only recorded a few cuts on the anthology, he is, in my estimation, one of the finest "old style" players around. You can't talk Irish concertinas without someone mentioning his name. If I were to make a fiddle comparison, Sonny Murray is to the Irish concertina what the old Applachian fiddler is to American traditional music, possessing a subtlety of phrasing and ornamentation that can easily be overlooked or mistaken for simplicity. As we all learn sooner or later, recordings are no real mark of a musician's ability or soul. You get that only from the player. And if traditional music is indeed derived from the rhythms and quantities of Irish language, then Sonny Murray certainly knows his grammar! Sonny owns and plays one instrument, an old English made Wheatstone, which he bought directly from the factory during a two-year stint in London working as a carpenter. The instrument is suffering some minor damage which Sonny claims is the result of his loaning it out for a year or so to a fellow who wanted to learn how to play. Compared to many of the aficionados I've met who can't imagine owning less than two, three or even more instruments, nor would even consider letting someone else handle their precious instruments, Sonny's attitude is typical of what music in Clare is really about. When I asked him what he did for an instrument during that time, he replied, "nothing, I didn't play at all!" Sonny claims to be self-taught: "I never learned a note from no man." However Sonny, like so many of the older players I've met, cites old recordings as an early influence. Recordings made primarily in America by great Irish players who answered the siren song, settling in hubs of Irish culture like Boston, New York and Chicago. There they recorded for Decca, Columbia, and lesser labels like Copley, or All-Ireland, catering to the Irish immigrant need for a taste of home. These little discs of cultural identity were carefully carried back to Ireland or sent back, and became the prime source of musical information for players like Sonny Murray. And Sonny himself is a prime source for one Of his biggest fans, his nine-year old grandson, Dillon Roach. During our visit, Dillon was constantly prompting granddad with, "play that tune you were playing yesterday," or "what's that tune..." Dillon's learning fast, and has a number of good tunes under his belt already, insuring the security of Sonny Murray's legacy. Back home in Boston, and prior to my first visit, I was often treated to the subtle phrasings and tune handling of the late Tommy McCarthy, a West Clare piper and concertina player who made frequent visits to "County Boston" to spend time with his son, Tommy Junior. The younger Tommy is a fine fiddler and a familiar face at local Irish music sessions, and it was always a treat to find the two of them in the snug, pumping out that ancient order of notes. One of my goals on visiting Ireland was to meet the man on his own turf and experience his music in its natural habitat. Having returned to the Old Ground, my head full of tunes and a bag full of goodies from Custys, I tried my hand at the Irish telephone. Following a successful call to local information I was arranging a visit with Mr. Mccarthy himself. With instruments packed I was soon on the road to the coastal town of Miltown Malbay, now best known as the site of one of Ireland's biggest musical gatherings, the annual "Willie Clancy Week," named for one of the great Irish pipers. I missed the big event by two weeks and although I'd have enjoyed the frenzy of it all, the place seemed much more, shall we say, back to it's more regular and rural self. It's not the easiest thing to arrive on a musician's doorstep cold, as it were, and expect to jump right into a sessiun, but Tommy was the gracious host all around, and within minutes of arriving, the tea was out, and tunes were played. Tommy's background as a piper shines through in his treatment of ornaments on the concertina. He played a lovely old bone-button 30-key Jeffries, and made it seem effortless. Tommy passion for the music was obvious, and he was more than accommodating when asked to play a tune slower, or to explain an ornament or two. Next on my list was a visit to Chris Droney in North Clare, and although the distance between Milltown Malbay and his farm in Bellharbour is less than 50 miles, the trip can take the better part of an afternoon. I softened the prospect with a dinner stop in Lisdoonvarna's "Roadside Tavern," memorable for it's fare of wild smoked salmon chowder and brown bread. Getting there is half the fun, so they say, and getting to the little coastal village of Bellharbour means crossing that great high barren plain, The Burren. Just crossing the Burren from Kilfenora to Ballyvaughn behind a tour bus on the narrow track road can make that 15 miles of the trip seem like an eternity. But coming off the moonscape of the Burren and down to the bay, the landscape turns from gray to green and the trip seems worth all the effort. As local directions would have it, Droneys in Bcllharbour is "just a mile and a bit" down the road from Ballyvaughn. "Just look for the B&B sign on the left." About seven miles later the promised green sign on the left appeared snuggled between stone gate posts, inviting travelers to turn in and stay awhile. The Droneys, run a classic bed and breakfast inn as part of their working farm. Typically whitewashed and overlooking the bay, there's nothing between you and the water save a herd of dairy cows intent on ignoring the view and seemingly music lovers all around. Like Sonny Murray, I was drawn to visit Chris through the classic recordings I'd heard of his music, and once again, I was reminded that recordings are not the best mark of a musician's ability, and that in-person experiences are essential to understanding the music. Melody and rhythm are nothing without person and place. For me music is just that combination, and often the actual melody becomes secondary and just seems to happen as I experience the rest. The tunes I've learned in Bellharbour will always be warm to me, wrapped in a late summer evening's fading light, accented by the random lowing of cows, and animated by the quick wit and humor of the man, Chris Droney. Chris is a big man with big hands, and he found it quite amusing that I could fit nearly my whole arm through the hand straps on his little instrument. "How could you ever play with such little hands," he laughingly asked. Athenry was the last stop, another hour or so towards Galway, and highly recommended by "Shaskeen" founder, Tommy Cussin. Tommy plays and builds banjos, and has been a mainstay of the Athenry sessiun for a number of years. His "Clareen" banjos are being played throughout Ireland, and his workshop walls sport more than one picture of all-Ireland winners strapped into his instruments. It was through Tommy that I met Billy O'Toole, Tom's neighbor and source of numerous tunes. In fact, we're told that just two years ago Billy won the All-Ireland melodeon title, which just goes to show that old wine is often the best, although to be fair to Billy, I never saw him once all night with anything stronger than a ginger ale. The trip back to Ennis following the sessiun at Athenry was, by comparison, a relatively easy ride, with two full lanes and only an occasional late night lorry on the N18. It was also a chance to reflect on the past few days and recall, not so much the music but the people who make the music happen. All in all it was a fine first visit home. Enough to make me want to go back again soon. As I stood in line to board my flight, I wondered if this was really any different than the ancient ques quay-side as ships set of for distant shores, a hundred years ago, full of promise and hope for a better life. Circling over the fields of Shannon, the plane full of brogue and humor, I was reminded of the thousands who themselves answered the siren song, making this same voyage, not, as I was, returning home, but intent on making a new home in a new country. And what did these travelers carry with them as reminders of home? For some photographs, for others objects. And for many, the music they carried with them tell their stories and keep their memories. "The Cliffs of Moher," "My Love Is In America," "Off To California," "Ships Are Sailing," "The Chicago Reel," "Farewell To Ireland." "The Green Fields of America." :: BACK TO TOP :: ............................................................................................................................. Fiddler's
Heaven If you're expecting lots of comments about pipers, singers, or anything other than the fiddle, my apologies, but this is a story about a fiddler going to fiddle heaven. And if you're looking for a fiddler's heaven, then Canada is as good a place as any to find it. I'm listening to a tape. Filtered through the underlying shuffle of dancing feet, whoops, yells, and percussive step dancing, is the amplified, slightly distorted, blast of a Cape Breton fiddler in full swing, ripping out a dance set. I had the momentary clarity of mind to grab my little cassette recorder and push the record button just in the nick of time before I was jerked back to reality. It's my proof that I was there. If you could hear it, you wouldn't need to read on. Many wouldn't believe me. It's the stuff of pure science fiction, being transported to another world. You see, as a musician, I'm convinced that Cape Breton Island is in another world altogether. It's a world where over the years, Cape Breton's Scottish, Irish and French cultures have nourished a unique musical tradition, one which has remained relatively intact to this day. In recent years the music of Cape Breton has spread, and today you can find people playing and listening to Cape Breton music from Texas to Ireland. To honor that rich Celtic diversity, Cape Bretoners played host this fall to what is expected to be an annual celebration. Known as The Celtic Colours Festival, the organization of the festival is best described in their mission statement: "The Celtic Colours Festival Society is a non-profit volunteer society formed to promote and maintain the Celtic cultures of Cape Breton, the Gaelic language, music, arts and crafts; and to heighten national and international awareness of the natural beauty of Cape Breton Island by the creation and presentation of an annual international festival celebrating our Celtic heritage and music, to be held during the beauty of autumn colours at various venues around the Island." By all accounts, they achieved their goal. Most all the venues, from the Center 200 in downtown Sydney to the Fire Hall in the village of Big Pond, were sold out weeks before the start of the Festival. Timing the Festival to start on the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving didn't hurt either. At every concert I met Cape Bretoners from away, and home for the holidays. Folks from Detroit, the Boston States, Ontario, and British Columbia, just to mention a few. The Festival opened Friday night, October 10th, with "Fosgail An Fhéis" (Gaelic for Open The Festival), a grand concert in Sydney's Center 200, featuring the Chieftains, Natalie MacMaster, Sharon Shannon, and the Mabou Square Set Dancers. It ended in the same hall a week later with "The Grand Ceilidh," featuring Ashley MacIsaac & The Kitchen Devils, Capercaillie, The Barra MacNeils, The Cape Breton Fiddlers' Association, The Damhsa Breacan Dancers, Scottish singer Ishbel MacAskill, Gaelic singers Catherine Ann MacPhee & Mary Jane Lamond, and a huge Gaelic Mass Choir organized for the occasion. As if that wasn't enough, the week in between was filled with workshops, exhibits and nightly concerts throughout the island. On the first Saturday alone you had your choice of six events. During the day there was step dancing with Mary Janet MacDonald at the Féis Mabou, The Gaelic Trade Show in Sydney, and a genealogy workshop at the Highland Village in Iona. That evening's concerts included "Winston's Classic Cuts," a tribute to Cape Breton's legendary fiddler Winston "Scotty" Fitzgerald, at the equally legendary Big Pond Fire Hall. Performers there included fiddlers Carl MacKenzie, Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert, Dougie MacDonald, Jennifer Roland, and myself, along with pianists Dougie MacPhee and Patricia Chafe, guitarist Gordie Sampson, and Irish accordionist Sharon Shannon and her band. Or, you could get over to the Cape Smokey Lodge up in Ingonish for "Peggy's Jig," another tribute, this one for the late Ingonish fiddler, Mike MacDougall, featuring singer Buddy MacDonald, fiddler Gordon Cote, piper Fred Morrison, and Irish musicians including The Bumblebees, Maire O'Keeffe, Eamonn Coyne, and Frankie Lane. Or if you were really energetic, you could drive down to the southwest end of the island to Port Hawkesbury for the MacLellan Trio Reunion. The Trio features fiddlers Theresa and (Big) Donald MacLellan on fiddles, and their sister Marie on piano. Their early 78-rpm records set a standard for Cape Breton music, and are still available to this day as reissue recordings. The concert also featured guitarist Dave MacIsaac, fiddler Alex Francis MacKay, and pianist Tracey Dares. Now if all these names are new to you, and just seem to be a jumble of Macs, you can rest assured that they're all the big Macs of Cape Breton music. If you were to attempt to make it through the rest of the week leading up to the final concert, you could go to a Piper's Gathering at St. Ann's, the annual Mabou Thanksgiving Concert, hear a celebration of family bands in Glace Bay, or a Celtic Women's concert in Port Hawkesbury, a concert of Cape Breton Keyboards in Sydney, or Acadian music in Cheticamp, attend the Highland Guitar Summit in Judique, take part in a traditional Cape Breton Gaelic Evening at Christmas Island, spend an evening at a rural ceilidh held in a barn in the Margaree Valley, or rave to the sounds of contemporary Celtic music in Sydney. A quick glance at a map of Cape Breton, and you'll soon realize that to have attended all of these events, you'd have logged more than a few hundred kilometers on your car. And those are only a sampling of what was offered. Now, if you're expecting lots of glowing reviews and comments about pipers, singers, or anything other than the fiddle, my apologies, but you see, this is a story about a fiddler going to fiddle heaven. Canada's
love affair with the fiddle as popular culture goes back at least as far
as the 1930s, when a fiddler from New Brunswick named Don Messer began
broadcasting a program of mostly fiddle music from Charlottetown, Prince
Edward Island. The show soon went national, and for the next 50 years,
the CBC broadcast the show weekly, first on radio, then television,
making Don Messer the Canadian equivalent of Lawrence Welk with a
fiddle. That interest in the instrument carries over to today's pop
culture, where Cape Breton's own Ashley MacIsaac has recordings that go
platinum in Canada, and he's touted in the headlines of a Cape Breton
tabloid as the island's first millionaire fiddler. Or take the example
of Donnell Leahy, an Ontario fiddler with roots in Cape Breton, whose
music video "Call to the Dance," featuring fiddle and step
dancing, is at the top of Canada's Country Music Television charts. I first thought I'd gone to fiddle heaven when I got the call inviting me to perform at the festival. And they'd pay me and everything. Not to mention that it was taking place right at the height of . . . no, not the fall colors or Canadian Thanksgiving, but the height of the fall salmon run in the Margaree River. Needless to say, I packed both my fiddle and my fly rod. Over the years I've brought numerous Cape Breton musicians to American festivals, and had a hand in getting many of them recorded. And if I were to consider for a moment such metaphysical concepts as karma or divine intervention, I'd qualify this as one of the two at work. I've always tried to combine my interests in fiddling and fishing in my travels. It's kind of a concept I've been working on over the years. At first there were these cultural enrichment tours where I got a state arts grant to perform in rural Indian schools, which, coincidentally, were mostly located at the mouth of salmon-bearing rivers, where coincidentally, I was able to . . . well, you know, fish. Then there were the two summer tours I did as a special guest artist with the Scottish-based band, the Boys of the Lough, where we toured outlying Scottish villages which were, coincidentally, located on or near prime fishing waters. And what with their fiddler Aly Bain's shared passion for the two F's . . . well, you know, we fished. Now this. For a fiddler, names like Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert, Alex Francis MacKay, J.P. Cormier, Dougie MacDonald, Dave MacIsaac, and Carl MacKenzie, are the stuff of legend. And to be asked to perform with them is the stuff of dreams. As I said before, I packed my two F's, along with some extra clothes, rosin, flies, and a box of fiddle recordings for easy listening on the way up. I chose the traditional method of travel, an '87 Mazda pickup truck sporting 173,000 miles on its ticker, and 14 hours of driving. Leaving early Friday morning, I arrived at the Big Pond Fire Hall just in time for the sound check Saturday afternoon. The Fire Hall was a lot smaller than I'd expected, and set up in the traditional manner with tables crowded around a small dance floor, the bar open at one end, and the stage in the middle. Despite my misgivings, the estimated crowd that night was well over three hundred people. Each of us got twelve minutes or three sets of tunes. In some cases the three sets of tunes stretched to twenty minutes, what with the tendency on the part of Cape Breton fiddlers to play as many as twenty tunes in a set. A tune a minute. It's the law, live with it. By the time Dougie MacDonald got up to play, the crowd was sufficiently in their cups to find the prospect of staying seated just too much to bear. With Dougie's first note, most of the crowd bounded to the floor and began to dance. Dougie is a younger player, a dance player, and one of my favorites. When he's not fiddling, he runs his own pulpwood logging operation. Before logging, he spent ten years away, working the mines in Ontario. I guess it keeps your fingers nimble. There were still a number of performers left on the lineup when Dougie started his riot. Fiddler Carl MacKenzie was the MC for the night, and in a gesture of frustration, threw up his hands and was heard to comment, "Well, so much for the concert, the crowd's running the show now!" Dougie had the common courtesy to end his set before things went totally wild, and Carl was able to get the rest of us up to play. It was a good night altogether, ending at around 1 am. Just enough time to head back to Sydney (a good 45-minute drive) for the evening session just getting started in the lounge of the Holiday Inn, Festival headquarters, and home for the week to most of the visiting performers. It was usually about 2 am by the time most of the groups returned from their various outposts, and the real fun began. Imagine a session at that time of night with Sharon Shannon, Sean Keane of the Chieftains, John Allan Cameron, Jerry Holland, and any number of hearty performers who still hadn't had enough. The Festival organizers saw to it that ample snacks of both the liquid and solid variety were provided, and that no one had to be anywhere until late afternoon the next day. I recall one evening -- and yes, this went on every evening, or more properly, every morning of the Festival -- when Paul MacNeil the piper fired up his weapon for a nonstop 45-minute raft of tunes at 4:30 in the morning by my chronometer. And we're talking full-blown Highland pipes here, folks! I don't know what the Junior Hockey League team thought about all this. They were the only other guests at the hotel that night. But given some of their post-game high school revelry, they probably thought it was par for the course. One of my favorite memories of the week was not a wild session or a hot concert performance, but a quiet Sunday drive ending up in an old fiddler's farmhouse sharing tunes in the shadow of an old wood-fired cookstove. On Thanksgiving Day, pianist Dougie MacPhee took pity and invited me out to the Delta Hotel in Sydney for their big annual Thanksgiving luncheon buffet. Once we'd put a good dent in their larder, including heaping portions of what Dougie referred to as the "mortal sins," we set out in his aging but sturdy Lincoln town car for the west side of the island, a drive that took us through most of the afternoon to Mabou, Port Hood, Judique, a visit with fiddler Buddy MacMaster, and finally ending up in Kingsville, at Alex Francis MacKay's farm, another legendary but perhaps lesser known site of Cape Breton fiddling. Alex Francis and his wife Jessie had just returned from the Piper's Gathering that afternoon up at St. Ann's. Alex Francis is one of the great older players, a Gaelic speaker, and keeper of a style of music fast becoming extinct in Cape Breton. His is a real old-time sound, his playing laced with Gaelic and speaking to Cape Breton's rich Celtic heritage. With Dougie at the ready on the piano stool, Alex Francis got out his fiddle and kept us up for a good while, playing the old marches, strathspeys and reels he's kept for so many years. Alex Francis has recently been introduced to the world of recording. Rounder Records has just released a collection of his music, recorded over the past three years by Cape Breton collector and musician Paul MacDonald. Sitting in his wood-paneled parlor, I felt a real connection to this music, sitting where fiddlers have sat over the years filling the room with that ancient order of notes, aging the wood with tradition. An aging formal portrait of his cousin, fiddle in hand, hangs on the wall by the piano. It's none other than the legendary Cape Breton composer, Dan Rory MacDonald. Talk about your tradition! Before we left, nothing would do but to move us out into the old farm kitchen and have tea. A time to socialize, chat, tell the odd story, and give ample time to leave gracefully. Of course we got back to the hotel just in time for another fine all-night, pre-dawn session. Following my evening with Alex Francis, I was slated to be part of the concert the next night on the other side of the island in the French Acadian fishing community of Cheticamp, about a two-hour drive from Sydney, if you stop to drool at the salmon pools along the way, where the Margaree River comes within casting distance of the road. Following a traditional Acadian dinner in the local parish hall, I had the good fortune to perform with my good friends J.P. Cormier and Hilda Chiasson, along with fiddler Donny LeBlanc, the Andre Marchand Trio, Eddy Arsenault, and the PEI-based group Barachois. At the parish hall soiree following the concert I also got a chance to meet the next generation of LFITs. (That's "Legendary Fiddler In Training.") Mark Boudreau is his name, and someday I'll say, 'Why, I heard him when he was only 12 years old, and playing like Winston Fitzgerald even then." Well, what do you expect, after all he's been playing now for two whole years! The other highlight of the Festival for me was the chance to get to know and play with some of the musicians I'd heard about, but had never met. Musicians like PEI fiddler and fisherman Eddy Arsenault, along with his family of musicians. Evolving out of kitchen sessions at the Arsenault home came the group Barachois, meaning loosely a "quiet pool of water." Anything but! These folks bombard the audience with Acadian song, music and humor, utilizing their feet, fiddles, pump organ, piano, guitar, harmonica, spoons, carpenter's saw, knives, a double-bitted ax, and a unique Barachois invention, the cardboard Co-Op box drum kit. Watching them do a stepping routine while sitting down and playing is better than Riverdance any day! And then there's the Irish performer Frankie Lane, who smokes more cigars in a day than most of Havana, has a penchant for American hillbilly music, favors wearing ultra tight Mariachi pants on stage, and plays great Irish music on the dobro. Frankie's association with the infamous Irish band "The Fleadh Cowboys" brought him on stage with groups like The Pogues, U2, and Bob Dylan. Not to mention his partner in crime, Eamonn Coyne, a Dubliner armed with a killer banjo and a Ph.D. in biophysics. Not only does Eamonn have a great repertoire of Irish music, but seems to know every Cape Breton fiddle tune ever played as well. With the exception of a brief spattering of rain the first day or so, midweek turned brilliant and sunny, with temperatures in the 70s. Following an evening of music in Cheticamp, I was finally able to get out on the Margaree River for a day of fishing. A good balance to nights full of music, wading a classic salmon river in shirtsleeves and giving salmon a proper scare. Of course this begs the question, did I catch anything, which prompts my oft-used reply, "That's why we call it fishing, not catching." But I can see why so many Cape Bretoners away from home miss the place, and why events like this are such a draw. Following my day on the river, my time at the Festival came to an end with the evening concert and dance at the Barn, a famous venue out back of the old Normaway Inn, nestled in the hills above the Margaree Valley. The Normaway is a classic fishing lodge just up the hill from the Margaree River that's been in the MacDonald family since the 1920s. The current MacProprietor is Dave MacDonald, a guy I can really understand. He shares my interest in the two F's. He keeps waders and fly rods in the lobby, loves fiddle music, and was responsible for turning the old utility barn into a venue. I had in mind quite a large structure judging from all the stories I'd heard about dances and ceilidhs held there, and from the sound on the numerous amateur tapes made at these various events, passed around among us aficionados. In reality, the Barn is tiny, not much more than a tractor shed with an addition. But pack 'em in they do. On this night the count was close to 250 people, some literally hanging over the edge of the loft. The Normaway is a bit off the beaten track, so I was surprised to see such a turnout, but was told it's often worse, with another whole crowd hanging around outside listening in through the recently added screened porch. In fact on this night, a bit nippy with a light frost covering the ground, a bonfire was kept going outside, but well within earshot of the music. This is where I had the momentary clarity of mind to grab my little cassette recorder and push the record button just in the nick of time before being jerked back to reality. I took lots of pictures, but somehow just didn't want to spoil the time by hovering around the events with a tape recorder being a secondhand observer. I wanted to feel the music firsthand. I wanted to be there. Oh, I did manage to get a few of Alex Francis' tunes on tape. But that seemed OK, and what with the final hour fast approaching, I decided to get a bit of the Barn on tape. I'm glad I did. I listened to it about six times on the 14-hour nonstop drive home the next day. Oh, I got a bit sore in the driver's seat, but the pain was forgiven as the miles flew by to the sounds of dancing feet, whoops and yells, and percussive step dancing, filtered through the amplified, slightly distorted, blast of a Cape Breton fiddler in full swing, ripping out a dance set. I'm listening to a tape. :: BACK TO TOP :: ............................................................................................................................. THE
CHINESE TATTOO He sat at the counter, his white and slightly soiled shirt rolled up to the elbows, taking a break from the kitchen at Tai Tungs, the Chinese restaurant just up from the corner of 6th and King Street. It was a weekly ritual to go sit at the counter for Chinese breakfast, a cup of sugared coffee, hum bao, and rice cakes. You'd have to get there early, before they officially opened at 11am, before all the dim sum was gone. This was quite an adventure in the early 1960s, as the popularity of dim sum had yet to become fashionable. He was Chinese, old, wizened, nursing a filter-less cigarette, and slowly soaking a rice cake in his coffee. It was his tattoo that caught my eye. Just below the elbow, on the inside of his arm, a faded green tattoo of a fiddle, drawn with architectural perfection. Just an outline. It was obvious from his few remarks to the counter help that he spoke only Chinese, or at least that's what I surmised. I've always regretted that I never did screw up my courage and ask him, or his counterpart, about the mark. I went back week after week, but I never saw him again. His tattoo, though, is indelibly marked in my memory. Now that tattoos mark the hip and fashionable, I often think about the Chinese tattoo, and wonder if it was a spur of the moment decoration, or a mark of affiliation? Either way, why a fiddle? Was the fiddle popular in China in the early part of the century? Was he enamored as a youth with a beautiful young girl's playing, the sweet sounds drifting out over the Strand in Shanghai? Or a player himself? Or perhaps a tong symbol, the mark of a secret society, strange enough in the emerging China of the 1920s to be deemed exotic at the time. I'm wondering if any folklorists out there have undertaken the study and lore of tattoos. There's a wealth of material to be had, and a lasting tradition. A quick trip to any well stocked magazine racks these days will reveal a whole world of body art and design, currently embraced as fashion. I admire from afar, but have yet to succumb to the temptation. My first real encounter with tattoos was in the Navy. Where else? I remember one burley boatswain who sported twin propellers and a US Government Inspected stamp right where you'd expect to find them. Another, most unsettling example was a dotted line tattooed around one sailor's neck, with the words CUT HERE, neatly inscribed. The classics were there too. The cross and anchor emblazoned with U.S.N., the hula girl that wiggled if you flexed your muscle just right, the rose and banner with MOM or woman's name of choice. SEMPER FI was big with the Marines, and there were always the homemade ones, LOVE, and/or HATE, on the knuckles and such. But browsing through all the magazines, and thinking back through all those Navy years, none have really stuck in my memory like the Chinese tattoo. I keep asking, why a fiddle? If he'd been Irish, I could understand. The mark would speak to a longing for hearth and home, jigs and reels, and high hopes in the new country. A Russian or Rumanian with the same mark would leave no doubt, a quick gypsy reference would do the job there. But this old Chinese kitchen worker? Perhaps, my imagination soars, he was a great musician, banished by the Cultural Revolution, and escaped to live a life in exile, scraping along washing dishes for a few dollars a week, meals and a room. Perhaps I should have asked if he needed a fiddle? But why mark him self? Does he spend his evenings at the Chinese social club? There, with a dwindling group of like marked compatriots, I can imagine him nursing hot tea around a smoky corner table, recalling the old battles and good times before the crack down? Or perhaps back in China a gracefully aging woman is remembering her youth, her violin, and her admirer on the Strand. He vowed they'd be together again once he made big money in the land of golden opportunity, their vow sealed with tattoos, hers a bow. I've heard this is how stories are made, a fleeting glimpse, a passing comment. For me, it will have to be a tune. That's my language. A jig I think. In the ancient Scottish tradition of pipers, a Tattoo. :: BACK TO TOP ::
|
