SOME BACKGROUND
AND
HISTORY
Cape
Breton is an island that comprises nearly a quarter of the
province
of Nova Scotia. It was isolated and poor for decades, which
helped
to preserve a traditional music that Scottish
settlers brought with them when they displaced the original Acadian
French population after the mid-18th century.
Scottish
traditional dance music
is distinguishable from the Irish style by its driving rhythm and the Cape
Breton style represents an end-member in the Scottish
spectrum.
In field recordings you can often here the fiddler loudly
stamping
out the time with his foot and accompaniment, as with contradance
music,
is often provided by a piano, adding to the percussive effect.
Eastern Prince
Edward Island is
within
radio range of Cape Breton and, since the dawn of the radio age,
traditional
music players on that end of the island have largely adopted the
driving
rhythmic approach of the Nova Scotians. Peter Chaisson
is a fiddler from
Bear River, PEI. Lem Chaisson (his distant cousin,
but good friend)
is a guitarist and singer from Rollo Bay, PEI.
The Chaissons
are one of the original
French families that settled "Acadia" in the mid-17th
century. The
branch that includes Peter and Lem (and me; we are all sixth cousins)
escaped "Le
Grand Dérangement" by literally hiding in the
forests of Prince
Edward Island for several years. Other branches were deported
to
France or Louisiana and others fled to Newfoundland and Cape Breton.
Several years
ago Peter and Lem
resumed playing traditional music after largely putting it aside for a
couple of decades while making a living and raising their
families.
Peter is a retired iron worker and Lem a former construction
worker.
Peter is one of the organizers of the annual Rollo
Bay Fiddle Festival (third weekend in July), and both Peter
and Lem
teach music workshops all summer long at the Rollo Bay Inn, which is
built,
like the festival grounds, on old Chaisson family land overlooking
Rollo
Bay.
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