The official magazine of the Bluegrass Music Association of Canada Volume 12 Issue 2 April 2018 bluegrasscanada.org PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT NO.42167060 Festival Issue and more! Canada $7.00Table of Contents On the cover County Rd 44 playing at Quinte Isle in 2015, photo by Sarah Bea Columns News Fun Listings Canada V o l u m e 12 I s s u e 2 The official magazine of the Bluegrass Music Association of Canada Volume 12 Issue 2 April 2018 bluegrasscanada.org PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT NO.42167060 Festival Issue Exclusive Q&A with Emory Lester, everything Eddie Poirer, your best banjo, and more! Canada $7.00 MARCH 2018 BLUEGRASS CANADA MAGAZINE 3 TABLE OF CONTENTSBluegrass Music Association of Canada BMAC is a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and promotion of bluegrass and old-time music in Canada, and supported by the volunteer efforts of its members. BMAC MISSION STATEMENT The BMAC mission statement as enacted in the by-laws: a) Dedicated to the preservation and promotion of bluegrass and old-time music throughout Canada. Goals: b) To support individuals, groups and organizations involved in bluegrass and old-time music. c) To provide leadership and promote education among fans, clubs, bands and artists. Specifically: 1) The establishment of bluegrass categories in the Juno Awards; 2) Lobbying with other musical genres for changes in US laws to allow easier access to the US by Canadian musicians; 3) Establishing a national bluegrass awards program not in conflict with the two existing regional awards events; 4) Sponsoring Canadian Bands to Showcase at IBMA; 5) Supporting Canadian bands efforts to play in other parts of the country; 6) Seeking grant funding to achieve these goals. V o l u m e 12 I s s u e 2 Email: membership@ bluegrasscanada.org Website: bluegrasscanada.org Publisher Gord DeVries Editor Mike Kirley Art Director Sarah Bea Publishing Consultant James Kerr SUBSCRIPTION One Year $25 / Free with Membership The Bluegrass Canada magazine is digitally published quarterly in January, April, July and October, online in the ‘Members Only’ section of the Bluegrass Canada website. For more information email membership@bluegrasscanada.org. • Individual BMAC memberships: $25/y • Organizational memberships: $50/y All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without the written permission from the Publisher. PRINTED IN CANADA. CANADA POST CANADIAN PUBLICATIONS MAIL SALES PRODUCT AGREEMENT No. 42167060. Send change of addresses and underliverable notices of Canadian addresses to BMAC, c/o Gord DeVries, 22790 Amiens Road, Komoka, ON N0L 1R0, 519-719-2501 Please send articles, calendar information, photos and letters to: Bluegrass Canada Mike Kirley 831 Rose Street, Cambridge ON N3H-2G2 Email: mikekirley@gmail.com Telephone: 519-653-4975 Deadline for submissions is 45 days preceding the month of publication. BMAC BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Murray Hale mhale@green-vision.ca 705-474-2217 Vice-President Brian Powley brobriansbluegrass@gmail.com 613-544-9898 Secretary-Treasurer Roland Aucoin raucoin72@gmail.com 905-572-0116 Magazine Editor Mike Kirley mikekirley@gmail.com 519-653-4975 Membership/Website Gord DeVries gord.devries@rogers.com 519-719-2501 Grants & Funding Sarah Bea sarahbea@gmail.com Social Media Carol Boyer carol.boyer@sympatico.ca General Wilson Moore wmoore@ns.sympatico.ca Ongoing Volunteers Gloria Jean Hansen (ON, Contributor) Nellie Holmes (ON, Event Calendar) Nancy Keddy (NS, Contributor) Denis LePage (ON, Contributor) Sue Malcolm (BC, Event Calendar) Jerry Murphy (NS, Event calendar) Joe Rohrer (ON, Contributor) Nancy Tellier (ON, Event Calendar) Advertising Rates & Specs Gord DeVries 519-719-2501 CD Reviews Pat Moore patmoore@patmoore.net Printing A & B Print Inc., 519-652-0321 4026 Meadowbrook Dr. #135 London ON N6L 1C8 Distribution Strictly Addressing, 519-433-4242 4-1025 Hargrieve Rd. London ON N6E 1P7 Canada 4 BLUEGRASS MUSIC ASSOCIATION OF CANADA BLUEGRASSCANADA.ORG MASTHEADNew Look Greetings to all bluegrass enthusiasts. I hope you are all enjoying another hardy Canadian winter by playing and listening to your favourite bluegrass selections and artists. Your executive has been working diligently on our current and projected goals. We are excited about a new system of communication which should make communicating among us much easier, and eliminate the need to travel long distances to meet. We are also excited about our quarterly magazine, and the upcoming changes. We are striving to include even more Canadian content going forward. Please help us. We need good writers with great stories and/or information. Mike Kirley is our editor and the person to contact if you have ideas. festivals. The promotors for these events work very hard to organize them and appreciate your support. There have been many new bluegrass bands emerging in our country and I encourage festival promoters to give these new bands a chance to showcase. It is not easy to get a band established, and the quality of music is much improved from years ago, with lots of original material in addition to our favourites. Last of all, let’s remember our mission statements: 1. To support individuals, groups and organizations involved in bluegrass and old-time music. 2. To provide leadership, knowledge and education for fans, clubs. bands and artists. “We are striving Murry Hale, president of the BMAC. By Murray HaleExciting changes ahead for Bluegrass Canada PRESIDENT’S MESSAGEEddy Poirier was born in Rogersville New Brunswick in 1943, and like so many of this country’s bluegrass musicians that grew up on Canada’s East Coast, he was exposed to and absorbed much of the rich musical heritage associ- ated to the area. His father was a re- nowned fiddler, and got Eddy started early on the instrument. Eddy however was not content to focus all of his musical energies just on the fiddle, and soon began learning how to play the banjo and the guitar. It was on the banjo that Eddy would record I’m Going Back To Old Kentucky. According to the scant informa- tion I have been able to find online, the album was released in 1970 on the Paragon label. Paragon was a Canadian country music label owned and operated by Jack Boswell. The label was very popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s releasing liter- ally hundreds of recordings, many if not most with Jack acting wholly or partially as producer. The copy of the album I have (thanks to the local thrift store) while in great condition for its age, does not offer much in the line of details. The cover features a serious looking Eddy Poirier posing with his Gibson banjo, gazing intently across a field alongside a river somewhere. From his attire, it appears that the weather may have been somewhat inclement, so one is tempted to think that perhaps the album’s title signifies Eddy’s intent to relocate to a warmer clime. In any case, it’s a nice colour photo, with the word “Bluegrass” placed under the title so there can be no mistake as to what we will be listening to. The playing on the album is quite good, with what I assume is Eddy also singing as well as performing on the banjo. (Un- fortunately, the liner notes do not indicate whether or not Eddy is the lead vocalist, but I will assume he is). There is no listing of the other musicians who play on the re- cord, but there is a notation thanking Hank Theriault, Bob Forrest and Doug Watters on the album’s back cover, so perhaps they made up the rest of the band. The quality of the music itself is very good, although the listener should understand that recordings of this nature would have been done quickly, with an eye to keeping expenses as reasonable as possible. To these ears, it sounds like the band was basically recorded live off the floor. But the playing is tight, and the renditions of the songs lively and well performed. Eddy has a crisp clean style on the banjo, and we get to hear some great solos. The album is quite short, around 30 minutes of length. The material featured is standard bluegrass fare, and the musicians seem quite familiar with it. One unique number is the fourth pick on side one, “The French Song”, which features Eddy singing in French (which may have been a first in bluegrass). If you would like to listen to this re- cord, someone has been kind enough to put it up in its entirety on YouTube. As well, there are a number of videos featuring Eddy Poirier available online. Eddy is an outstanding performer and his work is well worth looking up. By Mike Milner To these ears... the playing is tight, and the renditions of the songs are lively and well performed. Revisiting a classic album by Eddy Poirer An alumni of the Humber jazz program, Mike Milner is currently enjoying his retirement by playing bass and listening to good music. I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky MARCH 2018 BLUEGRASS CANADA MAGAZINE 7 BLUEGRASS CLIPPINGSCabin Fever and Coffee Having been invited to report about the bluegrass scene on the East Coast, I am pleased to say that bluegrass is alive and thriving here. The winter is certainly not my favorite time of year. One tends to sit back and reminisce about what happened last summer and what is coming up this summer on the bluegrass scene, all the while sitting here and watching the snow, ice, rain, and more snow. I think this feeling is called “Cabin Fever.” Thankfully, the venues and jams in the area keep our minds active until spring dawns. When I consented to do this column, I immediately dug out some of my copies of Bluegrass Canada to see what others have written about. I ran across an article written by Ralph Gray called “The Main Gate” in the January 2016 issue. In it, he references having coffee for those early risers at festivals. I can identify with him, as we also have a smaller unit and to ensure peace and harmony, it is better to, as quietly as possible, make my own coffee and take it outside under the canopy. There have been a couple of festivals in Nova Scotia that I know of, which have kept a coffee pot brewing most of the time, with emphasis paid to early mornings, and as popular a gathering place for attendees, akin to the “old office cooler”. You’d be surprised at how much loose change accumulates in the saucer which sits silently by the coffee pot with the only stipulation that you carry your own personal coffee mug—“No Mug, No Coffee”! Have you ever noticed how people tend to tip toe around in the mornings and speak in hushed tones? I have. I am not a morning person, and there are obviously more of us than I had realized. A lot of bluegrass musicians tend to be rather nocturnal creatures. There seems to be a kindred spirit among those who silently move about early mornings, and a lot of great chit chat about what time the latest jam shut down. One peaceful, completely still, sunny Sunday morning, while sitting outside my camper with people silently moving about, out of nowhere came this VOICE, slowly strolling down the road, singing, “High On a Hilltop” at the top of his lungs. The silent movers, dogs included, stopped dead in their tracks, the world turned sideways and out of more than one unit came, “What was THAT?” I laughed. He smiled and moved on. This individual has since moved to Bluegrass Heaven, and, though it has been a few years now, I can still see in my mind’s eye, that silent Sunday morning. Memories are great! There seems to be a kindred spirit among those who silently move about early mornings. Nancy survives the winter reminiscing about festivals past Nancy Keddy is the host of “Bluegrass Atlantic”, a 2-hour showcase of regional, national, and international bluegrass artists. It airs every Tuesday evening at 8pm on CIOE 97.5 FM, with a repeat broadcast airing Thursday mornings at 1am. The show is also available to listen online at By Nancy Keddy MARCH 2018 BLUEGRASS CANADA MAGAZINE 9 EAST COAST BLUEGRASSNext >