Category: Concert

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Concert Event Local History

Ashley tomorrow, Matilda and Eva Steele birthdays

ASHLEY BRINGS FIDDLING THE CAPE BRETON WAY TO THE IMPERIAL

ashleyMacIssac09Ashley’s coming to the Imperial Theatre, Saint John, Sunday at 8 p.m….Cape Breton’s native son, Ashley MacIssac, that is…and reportedly back on track!

They’re billing it ‘traditional fiddling the Cape Breton way: fast, furious, phenomenal!’ A real stompin’ Celtic kitchen party where traditional song and exceptional musicianship take centre stage! A return to his traditional fiddling roots!

As flamboyantly outrageous and controversial as any Canadian entertainer, Ashley now, reportedly, has put spontaneous misbehaving and rudeness behind him. I’m sure Conan O’Brien will be glad to hear that, should he ever think of interviewing Ashley again!

No one, however, has ever questioned Ashley’s musical genius. As one admirer of that genius proclaimed 15 years ago: “Don’t be judgin’ this here fiddle music before you’ve treated yer ears to the stuff. As you may already know, the devil’s in the kitchen and Ashley MacIssac is leading him around by the horns. The (then) 20 year old Cape Breton wunderkind has made (masses of) fiddle lovers out of fiddle haters!

“The kilt wearing, Doc Marten-stompin genre bender has crossed jigs, reels, strathspeys and airs with a submersive sound-scape of rock, fusing it all into a new raw exhilarating Celtic passion”.

Ashley, now, has returned to his earlier influences, a tradition known as the ‘Cape Breton Way’, defined by the recordings of Winston ‘Scotty’ Fitzgerald, Angus Chisholm and Buddy MacMaster, his original influences.

Ashley Dwayne MacIssac was born at Creignish, Cape Breton on February 24, 1975…he’ll be 35 on that date this year! At an early age he began immersing himself in the recordings of those three masters. Picking up a fiddle physically at the age of eight, once he set his bow to strings he was never the same again. A-tuned he began playing anywhere anyone would listen, at neighbours and relatives , at school…wherever people gathered. By 14 he was playing local festivals, pubs, church halls, clubs. Then, with local bands he began touring Celtic communities across Canadaand into the US, as far as Massachusetts and California,. At 16, in 1992, he recorded Close To The Floor, his first traditional album. A Cape Breton Christmas followed a year later. Before he was 18 he’d toured internationally with both John McDermott and the Chieftains.

His name then spread globally, earning him fame as an extraordinary talent who could breath new life into old fiddle music. And he was soon performing at prestigious venues world-wide, winning acclaim and sharing stages with the most elite entertainers. So although his career has had it’s thorny moments Ashley MacIsaac is still a spectacular act, master of the blazing fiddle. For more info visit www.ashleymacissac.net/

And don’t miss Ashley at the Imperial, Saint John this Sunday, Jan.31, 8 p.m. Tickets are $20, $25, $30. on-line www.imperialtheatre, at the Imperial box office or by phoning 674-4100 (outside directory 1-800-323-7469).

MATILDA’S 90TH BIRTHDAY SATURDAY

Matilda Murdoch has been part of the Miramichi’s cultural community for most of her 90 years. A Celebration of her Birthday, a milestone in this province’s fiddling history, takes place this Saturday, 7 p.m., at the Community Center, Loggieville. An unbelievably energetic and stirring fiddler, even at her age, ‘Maddy’ has a unquenchable love of music so the party’s apt to roll right on into Sunday’s early hours. Come prepared. If you play a traditional instrument bring it along. There will be music, dancing, food, camaraderie and Matilda, Queen of the Bow will be front and center, wielding it as only she can! If you love her music….the over 200 inspired tunes she has written…pop in and say ‘hello’. “It’s gonna be a shaker of biblical proportions,” I’m told. Everyone’s invited, so feel free to bring friends.

Matilda Murdoch was born January, 1920, at Loggieville, now a part of Miramichi City, where she still resides. When she was eight, her father gave her a fiddle:within months she was playing tunes. Her first public performance at 11, was in 1931, and has been thrilling and amazing a continuously growing army of fans ever since. Her playing still holds audiences entranced. Her original compositions were played even by Don Messer during his radio and TV fame. Her style has been a subject of study, not only in the Maritimes, but by fiddlers throughout North America and, in recent years, in Ireland.

In fact, Tracey Robinson (of the Miramichi’s Dirty Nellys) on Jan 10, commented on Matilda’s Birthday Facebook page that: ‘A recent trip to Ireland brought me to Doolin, a small village on the western coast, about five miles north of the Cliffs of Moore. A sign as you enter reads The Hub Of Irish Music and indeed the three pubs there were totally dedicated to it. I made my way to McDermott’s and found Irish music was, indeed, alive and well. In fact there were six musicians (The Ceili Bandits) blasting out their stuff, and of these six, five were current All-Ireland Champions. Not being able to resist, I introduced myself and when I told them of my travels and that I was from the Miramichi they instantly, asked ‘did I know Matilda Murdock?’ Like Alex (Alex Baisley had the exact same experience two days before in a Galway) , I was shocked. I said yes, and soon was sitting, 4000 miles from Miramichi, tapping my feet to the tune they played next, Matilda’s Loggieville Two Step!

Matilda as a fiddler has garnered international recognition as a composer, player and teacher. She has been elected to both the North American Fiddle Hall of Fame in New York State and the New Brunswick Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2002, she was the recipient of a Stompin Tom Connors Award at the ECMA’s in Saint John. And that same year was proclaimed a Freeman Of The City of Miramichi and, more recently, honoured with the Order of New Brunswick. Join Matilda Saturday at her 90th Birthday Celebration!

EVA STEELE’S 95TH BIRTHDAY

dancing up a storm
Gerry and Eva doing the Charleston

It’s 25 years, at least, since I took my first Charleston dance lesson from Eva Steele at a St. Patrick’s Day Dinner in the, then new Saint John Trade & Convention Centre. She would have been 70 or so and I was, well…a little over 50!

But Eva has always seemed so young, the eternal Irish Colleen, since she immigrated here from Erin. And she she been the darling of the Comhaltas (Coal-tas) Saint John Chapter since their inception here: front and centre at most of their events.

Well, Eva’s Surprise 95th Birthday Party last Saturday at the city’s lavish new Chateau Saint John was no exception. The cream of Comhaltas singers and musicians were there to pay her a musical homage. Even this paper’s retired editor-in-chief Fred Hazel took a turn at the mike to dedicate his rendering of Danny Boy in an impressively deep voice to Eva. And a song written in her honour was read dramatically by its composer. Also heard were Stuart Hook, Bruce Neill, Tom Noel and and Keith Facey in the time we were there.

Also in attendance, among a multitude of invited guests, was the 2009 honorary Irish Gala chairwoman Helena Hook, originally from Athlone, Ireland, who with Dr. S. Kumar, was honoured last St. Patrick’s Day as an Irish Person Of The Week. It was a year of double honours for the Hooks: Her husband Stuart Hook was inducted into the Comhaltas Music Hall Of Fame at a Canada East Region Gala event in Toronto, for his dedication to traditional Irish music and culture. Stuart has been a member of the Saint John branch for more than 15 years. Although he was born in England, Helena says he is more Irish than even she is. And it was through the nurturing of Comhaltas that he found the confidence to play instruments and sing. Their local chapter has done the same for others and is always seeking new members. They meet Tuesdays, 7 p.m. at O’Leary’s, Princess Street, Saint John. For more info visit www.comhaltas.ca.

PARK AVE. FIDDLE JAM SUNDAY

The Park Avenue Fiddlers host a Fiddle Jam, Sunday, 7:30 p.m. at Park Avenue United Church, Saint John East. All fiddlers, accompanists and fiddle fans are invited. Coffee or tea is served with free-will offering to help with expenses. For info phone 847-81034

Categories
2008 Performers Concert Country and Western Festival Memories

Adam Olmstead

A.G. Olmstead Closes ANE with Memories of Jimmy Rodgers

[from August 2008]

Remember Peach Pickin’ Time In Georgia? In The Jailhouse Now? Keep On The Sunnyside? California Zephyr? Or Gonna Sing, Sing, Sing?

If you love the songs of Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family and Hank Williams, Sr. then you’ll revel in the Atlantic National Exhibition’s Closing Concert by A.G. Olmstead & His Old Time String Band tomorrow night, Aug 31, 8 to 10 p.m., on their Building One main stage.

Hailed as a new Jimmie Rodgers on CBC Radio One interviews and concert segments and by leading Nashville session players, who thrilled A.G. when several volunteered to back him on a debut CD a year ago.

“I grew up knowing most of the older artists’ repertoires,” A.G. told me early this spring, “especially Jimmie Rodgers’ because Dad played his records almost every night. Jimmie was his favourite singer and I guess he just naturally became mine, too.”

And, although Jimmie was born in Mississippi and A.G. (Adam to his friends) far north of the Mason-Dixon line in our Maritimes, with St Stephen now his home base, he does sound a lot like the ‘father of country music.’ Even the songs A.G. writes have a Rodgersesque feeling that is nostalgic. Songs about trains, tragedies, drinking and home that he’ll mix with old favourites in concert!

And, although A.G. never railroaded as Jimmie did, he’s has worked blue collar jobs, built logging and construction roads, rambled and lived in many of the same parts of the US that Rodgers did.

At 15, A.G. left NB for a US school with a music curriculum, after graduating, busked for three years in New York where Rodgers was formally signed by RCA, then spent three years playing California clubs, then a three year residency in Texas which was Jimmie’s favourite state and where he lived during his years of great fame. Then travels in Europe, followed by a tour of our Canadian west, a year back home writing and refocusing. Then two years in Nashville, playing clubs, haunting recording label offices, sitting in on jams and backstage parties, getting to know a lot of musicians, some very famous, although he didn’t realize that at the time. Then a recording session at O’Banyon’s Terrace Studio, and a CD of a dozen songs that he’d penned, produced by Alan O’Bryant and recorded, mixed and mastered by Tim Roberts, two prestigious names.

And, amazingly, one of the Nashville based musicians who backed A.G. on that recording, Chris Henry, is making the trip up to play mandolin with A.G.’s band Friday! Chris’s high energy vocals and blistering mandolin solos bring audiences to their feet every where! And Toronto’s Foggy Hogtown Boys fiddler John Showman, a 2004 Juno nominee is joining them: On upright bass there’s Sam Petite who plays with two renowned Toronto string bands. And on banjo NB’s multi-instrumentalist and 2005 ECMA nominee, Al Scott.

Categories
Concert Country and Western Event Local History

Stompin’ Tom mentions 3 great NB performers.

Stompin’ Tom said hello and congratulations to Ned Landry on receiving the Order of New Brunswick this year to go with his Order of Canada from a few years ago. He also mentioned that he was sad to hear that George Hector had passed away and between songs told the story of how he met Big John “T-Bone” Little and the encouragement he received from Big John when he was starting out.stompintomnedlandry

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Concert

Miramichi Country Music Hall of Fame Inducts Five

Bill Mullin’s Miramichi Country Opry, 1720 Route 420 in Red Bank.

Miramichi Country Music Hall of Fame inducts four living and one deceased to its five year old sanctuary. Jimmy Lawlor. James Swazey, Ernest Taylor, Pat Gaudet and the late Albert Doucet.

Tickets for the entire event: meet & greet, inductions, dinner and concert are $25, concert only $10 by phoning 622-4403 or 836-9988.

Categories
2008 Performers Album Release Concert Country and Western

Stew Clayton’s Yodeling My Way Back Home CD Released!

Stew and Juanita Clayton
Stew and Juanita Clayton
Stew and Juanita Clayton giving an impromptu performance

Seldom have I seen an audience rise so quickly to sweep in a wave across an auditorium floor to a CDs for sale booth than at intermission during the Stew and Juanita Clayton Concert at Exhibition Park, September 1. The nearly 800 rose almost as one to meet the father and daughter duo as they reached it and, at 5 a.m. when we drove them to the airport their CD cases were all but empty.

Seldom, either, have I had as many calls after a concert for a recording stars address saying “well, I bought one but I’d like to get a couple more” or “I bought Juanita’s because I only had enough for one, now I’d like to get one of her father’s” or “there were so many I couldn’t make up my mind. How do I contact them?”

That’s right, the long reigning star of Winnipeg’s Sunshine Record label has recorded over 30 lps, cassettes and CD’s in the past half century and he said while here that he was thinking of doing another.

That one Yodeling My Way Back Homearrived Christmas week! Stew records the old fashioned way: He walks into a studio with backing musicians and wings it the way Wilf Carter always did! And if you think that didn’t work for Wilf in fairly modern times…well, toward the end of his recording career in the early 1980s, Wilf’sWalking The Streets of Calgary RCA Camden lp according to a survey by a Sam the Record Man Halifax store manager, Jimmy Dean, of their outlets and other national distributors was the top seller of its release year but when R.P.M. Magazine, compilers of Canada’s Top 100 records at the time, didn’t even list it, their answer when he inquired was: “Oh, we don’t chart anyone over 60. They’ve no career left.”

Anyhow though it may never officially get its dues either, Stew’s new CD Yodeling My Way Back Homewill be a joy to the ears of anyone who remembers the great years of Country & Western music. An eleven times international yodeling champion Stew explains his choice of songs for this CD in this way: ‘For many years I have been asked why I don’t put more yodel songs on my recordings. When doing shows, folks who stop by my booth will nearly always ask ‘which album has the most yodel songs on it?”

“Well, on this new release there is only one selection…the Johnny Cash Song …that isn’t a yodel song. I sincerely hope all my fans and all those who have ever felt bereft at the lack of yodeling on records now will enjoy this recording. I made it especially for them.”

The yodel songs are: The Old Harvest Waltz, I Love To Hear Her Yodel, The Yodeling Trucker (a comedic demonstration of voice dexterity and endurance), Answer To My Little Yodel Lady, The Yodeling Farmers Song, Blue Mountain Yodel, My Little Artic Sweetheart, Yodeler’s Waltz and the title song: Yodeling My Way Back Home. All ten were penned by Stew.

Copies of it are available by calling him at (204) 242-2670. You will likely get the message: “Hello, this is Yodeling Stew from Manitou. If I’m not here I’m most likely out doing a show somewhere but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.” Which he will do! Or write: Stew Clayton, P.O. Box 147, Manitou, Manitoba, Canada R0G 1G0

Categories
2008 Performers Concert Country and Western

Patti Page Sold More Records Than any Woman In History!

Do you remember How Much Was that Doggy In The Window?

At The Imperial
At The Imperial

… a #1 chart hit for Patti Page?

How could anyone not know of the singer who in the past 60 years has sold more recordings than any woman has in history? I talked with Patti for an hour a few days ago and her voice was so vibrant and young it amazed me. It was like talking to someone I’d known a lifetime, as I have nearly…her voice.

Still wintering in San Diego, she will soon be winging north from California for a concert at Saint John’s Imperial Theater Thursday, Apr. 10 at 7p.m., one of two in Atlantic Canada. This rare Patti Page Canadian Tour starts in Halifax the day before.

Miss Patti Page, The Singing Rage, as she has been known since 1946, sold over a hundred million copies of such hits as Allegheny Moon, Old Cape Cod, I Went To Your Wedding and many more….an incredible 111 charted hits from over a hundred albums and an amazing 16 of them Gold.

Born Clara Ann Fowler in Claremore, Oklahoma, population 4000, if country fans now think of Patti as only a pop singer, they should remember her recording of Tennessee Waltz sold over 10 million copies and topped Country, Pop and rhythm and Blues charts, for three months, one of a very few by either a male or female artist to ever chart on all three. That was in 1950. In 1951 she made Top 10 hits of both Mocking Bird Hill written by Vaughan Horton (Wilf Carter’s US manager), and Hank snow’s Down The Trail of Aching Hearts. She, also, made giants hits of Mister And Mississippi, Detour (a big 1946 hit for Spade Cooley), Changing Partners, Cross Over The bridge, Poor Man’s Roses , and in 1973, Hello We’re Lonely, a duet with Tom T. Hall. Also South of the Border, Y’All Come, No One To Cry To, Mom and Dad’s Waltz, Old spinning Wheel, and many more.

But, my own favourite Patti Page recordings are I Want To Be A Cowgirl’s Sweetheart, written and recorded by an old friend, Patsy Montana, in 1936, the first disc by a female singer to sell a million…Patti yodels beautifully on it…and I Wanna Go Skating With Willie.

She also made hits of such folk era songs as Jamaica Farewell, Danny Boy, Scarlett Ribbons, Try To Remember, and such movie themes as Boys Night Out and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. She starred herself in Boys Night Out and Elmer Gantry.

Patti only met Hank Snow once she said but told me … a real surprise … of hours on movie shoots with Elvis Presley. “I met Elvis first in Las Vegas”, she said. “He brought his mother into my dressing room at the Sand’s. I was her favourite singer, he said, and she loved my version of I don’t Care if The Sun Don’t Shine, a song he later recorded.”

“Then my husband, Charles O’Curran”, Patti said, “a choreographer at Paramount was assigned to work with Elvis on six of his movies. The first time I was free to visit him on the set was when they shot G.I.Blues. That was a year before I was signed for Elmer Gantry and it was sure a thrill!”

“Then, when Paramount shot Blue Hawaii in the islands, we’d get together at the hotel after dinner, Elvis would bring a guitar, others would get their instruments and the two of us would sing for hours. They were great nights!”

She’ll tell a lot of those stories during a wonderful recital of her hits when she appears at Saint John’s Imperial Theatre, April 10. Get your tickets now at their box office or phone 674-4100, if out of town call 1-800-323-7469.

Patti lives most of the year near Bath, New Hampshire where she and her second husband, Jerry Filiciotto grow and sell organic foods and maple syrup products.

“In fact, we spent Christmas there,” Patti said, “so I had a taste of the winter you folks are having!”

Patti was the feature act at Maine’s 2007 incredible Fryeburg Fair that I’ve visited several times as an ANE rep.

Last April’s Column

“She was The Rage back in the 50’s and the 60’s but what does Patty Page sound like now?” a lot of people have asked in recent weeks.

Well, the duets she did with Vince Gill on the Grand Ole Opry early this year answered that… her voice is just as sensational as ever, virtually unchanged by age! Tapes sent me of the satellite radio and Nashville Television coverage of those performances by Rocklands Entertainment Inc., the tour agency bringing Patti to Atlantic Canada … Halifax’s Rebecca Cohn Auditorium April 9 and Saint John’s Imperial Theatre Thursday, April 10, both at 7 p.m.,..for the first time ever, thrillingly verify that!

By introduction Vince Gill said of her: “ A finer woman or finer singer never graced this earth.” And Brian Edwards, Rockland’s president, says, “Patti looks much younger than her 80 years, a beautiful woman! In fact, time has added an even more thrilling depth to her wonderful voice!” Patti’s singing of her ten million selling hit that night, the Tennessee Waltz and her beautiful duet with Vince Gill on Home Sweet Oklahoma, a new song tribute to the state both were born in, are proof of that … both performances brought capacity audiences to their feet, wildly applauding! And so did her singing of another of her great hits Mockin’ Bird Hill !

Of course, Patti, has never taken a hiatus from recording. After years with Mercury and Columbia … two stints each … when she ruled the airwaves, she recorded with Epic until 1975, when she signed with Avco. Then, in 1981, she switched to Plantation, placing My Man Friday on Billboard’s pop charts in 1982 and several others on country charts!

Patti launched her own CAF label in 1998 and won a Grammy as Best Traditional Pop Singer. In recent years she has released Live At Carnegie Hall 50th Anniversary Concert, Child of Mine and others. They are for sale on her website www.pattipageproducts.com/hilltop or at her Hilltop Farm near Bath, New Hampshire.

Patti Page over her long career as a vocalist and actress has sold over 100 million records, more than other female recordings artist yet her April 10 concert at Saint John’s Imperial…her only N.B. concert … still has seats left, just $50, at the Theatre box office, by dialing 674-4100 or 1-800-323-7469.