VOLUME 5, NUMBER 9
We are all one people Ireland, Scotland, England & Wales
NOVEMBER 1995
Shaking the Foundations of Tradition With a Fiddle
By MAURA McCAY
CAPE BRETON Island has been fertile territory for traditional music. A long line of talented musicians such as Rita MacNeil and The Rankin Family have emerged from there.
The most recent music sensation from the area is a cat of a different colour and he's taken the Canadian music scene by storm. Ashley Maclssac, only 20 years of age is making waves in more ways than one.
His story reads like a fairytale. Plucked from obscurity in 1992 by influential New York theatre director JoAnne Akalaitis, who happened to hear him playing at a square dance near Creignish, on Cape Breton's southwest coast. Maclssac was introduced to her ex-husband composer Philip Glass and invited to New York City, where he entered a world previously only imagined.
New York took the country out of the boy and Maclssac began meeting influential people and performing at Carnegie Hall with Paul Simon and touring with fellow traditional music upstarts, Ireland's Chieftains.
At times decried as a heretic by ultra-traditionalists, who would have him remain loyal to the music's Seventeenth Century Scottish Highland originals, Maclssac has methodically set about recasting Cape Breton's musical tradition onto a varied, contemporary backdrop. As an example, one of his crossover collection includes his own cover version of the old Bee-Gees disco hit Stayin' Alive.
"If people don't like it, then they don't like it," says Maclssac. I like it, so that's all that matters." Although his style blends a more contemporary sound, Maclssac is quick to point out that the basis of his work is still true to his traditional roots.
"I still play the fiddle the same way whether I'm playing with a band or at a square dance," he says, noting that his style is unswervingly true to the time-honoured Cape Breton sound he's been exploring since he first picked up the fiddle at eight years old.
"I really do play fiddle only one
[>articular way, the way I earned." It's only the arrange-
Ik %
W M
ments on top of his playing that deviate from the island's cherished musical tenets, he says.
Maclssac does admit that he is now targeting mainstream audiences and the result is a more foot-stomping, high-energy sound. "If I go to a bar and play slow airs, strathspeys and reels and jigs for an hour and a half, they're probably not going to dig it."
"I have to decide if I want to keep doing traditional stuff. Between when I was ten and 15,1 didn't have any friends my own age, I was playing square dances with 50-year-old people. Now, I have the urge to take the music to a different audience" — meaning an audience his own age. He "makes the music okay" for a young audience "by having a dance loop and a rock loop with a bass line."
Growing up in Inverness County in the town of Creignish, Maclssac began taking step-dance lessons from his aunt when he was eight and started playing fiddle soon after, learning the tunes from tapes and technique from his father, an electrician at the pulp mill. Every Friday night there was a ceilidh to hone performance skills.
By 14, Maclssac was touring with other East Coast musicians to small Celtic pockets in Boston and California. At 16, he recorded his first album, Close to
the Floor, a collection of traditional tunes.
He has become known for combining his step-dancing skills while playing the fiddle. Maclssac rides a characteristic crest of Celtic abandon, a theme underscored by his colourful stage costumes, which usually tend toward T-shirts, tartan kilts and Doc Martens.
His colourful sound and style brought him to the attention of the Canadian record music industry. Initially, music industry executives just didn't know how to package a solo fiddler and step-dancer from Cape Breton. But, a glimpse of the fiddler playing with a contemporary-style band at the East Coast Music Awards opened their eyes to the possibilities.
Record talent scout for A&M Records, Allan Reid says, "Ashley is a great violinist and piano player. But he also has that intangible, that energy, that presence, which says stardom. The challenge will be to help him find his own artistic vision."
Now, signed to A&M Records, Maclssac's major-label debut is set to be released with his new album Hi™How are You Today? He begins a tour to coincide with the disc release and will be appearing in most major Canadian cities in November.
Despite all the hype, Maclssac still remains true to his roots. He is one of Cape Breton's greatest ambassadors and at the end of every show he quotes bargain fares to the island and tells his audience, "Don't forget to go."
Home will always be Cape Breton to Maclssac. "The only time when I'm completely connected, when I'm completely relaxed, is when I play Cape Breton fiddle music," he says, "That's what Cape Breton offers me. I'm going to live in Cape Breton regardless of what happens."
WIN TWO FREE TICKETS
See Jurys Irish Cabaret, a full theatrical production with some of Ireland's finest performers. See two and a half hours of traditional and contemporary music, song, dance and laughter. Don't miss the special Riverdance production based on the dynamic dance which took Europe by storm at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. A much-beloved institution, Jury's Cabaret incorporates all that is loved about the Irish — their wit and sense of humour along with colourful and compelling entertainment,
_Turn to page 20 for full details._
IS
;8S
2^
£9K
NOT YOUR AVERAGE 20 YEAR OLD Ashley Maclssac is redefining traditional Cape Breton fiddling, much to the dismay of some music purists who would prefer to retain the original tunes imported to Canada from the Highlands of Scotland over 200 years ago.
FEATURES THIS MONTH
• Stompy's Corner... 3 • Irish Church........... 13
• Barra MacNeils..... 4 • Calgary Irish.......... 13
• Black Watch.......... 6 • Northern Ireland.... 13
• Fionna Blackburn . 7 • Newfoundland........ 14
• Studio 58............... 9 • Travels in Ireland.. . 15
• Rook Review......... 9 • Famine................... 15
• Paul Durcan 10-11 • Mary Robinson...... 15
• John Bruton........... 12 • Shamrock Rovers . . 16
I "Ireland Canada • ISSC........................ 17
Chamber................ 12 • Rankin Family........ 18
• Divorce Referendum.. • Henry Geraghty 19
13 • Memorials.............. 19