Music 1253

1
Music 1253

• Music and the Politics of Cultural Representation
  in Nova Scotia

2
Tourism Marketing

• The province of Nova Scotia is routinely marketed
  through tourism promotions and popular culture
  advertisements as a sort of living Scottish
  antique.
• Bagpipers meet arriving tourists at border
  crossings and airports, greeters wear vests made
  from the Nova Scotia tartan (signifying that Nova
  Scotians are all part of one ancient clan), and
  all receive a welcome in Gaelic Ciad Mile Failte
  (One Hundred Thousand Welcomes).
• Tourism literature encourages visitors to attend
  one of the local ceilidhs, which are often
  professionally staged concerts rather than the
  informal gatherings the word implies.

3
New Scotland?

• The ascribed Scottishness is curious, considering
  that the population of Nova Scotia comprises a
  diverse range of ethnicities and heritages.
• As Ian McKay points out in his important essay
  Tartanism Triumphant The Construction of
  Scottishness in Nova Scotia, 1933-1954, Nova
  Scotia was not even the most Scottish province in
  Canada when it began to be branded as a true New
  Scotland
• In 1921, only 28 of population was of Scottish
  origin
• PEI and Ontario had higher percentages of
  Scottish citizens than NS

4
Tartanism

• Premier Angus L. Macdonald began rebranding Nova
  Scotia as Scottish in the 1930s
• Under Macdonalds premierships, Nova Scotia
  gained its official tartan, Gaelic motto, the
  Cabot Trail, Highlands National Park (featuring a
  replica of a shieling from the island of Skye),
  the Keltic Lodge Resort in Ingonish, and a Gaelic
  College in St. Ann, Cape Breton.
• Macdonalds Tartanism stemmed from a
  romanticized view of his own Scottish heritage,
  shrewd political strategy, and a strong belief in
  the economic promise of ethno-tourism.

5
Macdonalds Strategy

• Though a third-generation maritimer, Macdonald
  often spoke publicly and in personal letters
  about his proud Scottish lineage.
• This lineage was not portrayed as a connection to
  a living, evolving, twentieth-century culture,
  but as a link to an idyllic society from the
  past.
• Macdonald was a skilled politician and this
  portrayal of himself as a descendant of a great
  clan from the old country enhanced his populist
  appeal.
• However, Macdonald also saw the benefits of
  representing Nova Scotia to the world as a Folk
  society with ancient Celtic roots.
• Macdonald and his followers basically invented
  symbols, fabricated events, and outfitted the
  representatives of the tourism industry to appeal
  to American travelers who wanted to experience
  Scotland without crossing the Atlantic.

6
Hugh Trevor-Roper

• The links to a Scottish identity are even more
  tenuous considering that the representative
  tokens of Scottish Tartanism kilts, bagpipes,
  tartans have no real foundation in ancient
  Highland Scottish culture, as is usually claimed.
  
• Hugh Trevor-Roper explains how the Highland
  tradition of Scotland stems from the
  mid-eighteenth century, and is not an ancient
  tradition passed down through the mighty Scottish
  clans.
• In fact, Trevor-Roper argues that Highland
  culture owes much of its cultural identity to
  Ireland.

7
Scottish Tokens

• Tartans, kilts, and clans do not extend from an
  ancient past but are essentially modern
  inventions that simplify and stereotype Scottish
  culture for contemporary society.
• Nova Scotia Tartanism appropriated these
  superficial Highland Scottish tokens in the
  mid-twentieth century in a carefully crafted
  re-branding that still persists to a large extent
  today.

8
Helen Creighton

• Folklorist Helen Creighton recorded, transcribed,
  and documented music that she believed to be at
  the heart of Nova Scotias true Folk society
• Songs and Ballads collected had their origins in
  the collection of Francis James Childs English
  and Scottish Popular Ballads.
• More about this later (next week), but the
  Creighton collection reinforced the idea that
  Nova Scotian society was antimodern,
  predominantly rural, and backward

9
Why were these stereotyoes accepted?

• Money!
• Marketing of Nova Scotia as a haven of the past,
  unfettered by modern society - appealing to
  travellers.
• Folk and Scottish cultures provide tourists with
  a sense of the exotic but without having to
  travel far
• Convenience of a (mostly) similar language as
  well as modern conveniences (restaurants, golf
  courses, hotels).

10
Television

• Television and radio broadcasting, as well as
  recording technology, provided powerful new modes
  of tourism promotion and utilized the provinces
  rich musical heritage as another element in the
  marketing package.
• Don Messers Jubilee was broadcast nationally
  from Halifax, and featured down home country
  music and dancing.
• Don Messer was a fiddler, though his style was
  more American old time than Scottish.
• Singalong Jubilee, which ran nationally from
  1961 to 1974, capitalized on the American folk
  music revival.

11
Singalong Jubilee

• The show helped launch the careers of singers
  Catherine McKinnon, Gene MacLellan and Anne
  Murray, and was therefore an important vehicle
  for the development of a music industry in
  Atlantic Canada.
• The show was originally intended as a television
  vehicle for American folk singer Pete Seeger
  however Seegers involvement was cut short when
  his passport was revoked by the United States
  House Committee on Un-American Activities.
• While the American folk revival had direct ties
  to the communist movement, Singalong Jubilee
  reinforced the Folk culture stereotype advocated
  by Creighton.
• Many of the songs from the Creighton collection
  were regularly performed, and there was a
  preference for songs of the simple Maritime life.
  
• The house band played banjo, guitar, upright
  bass, and even a washtub bass. As the popular
  show evolved over its lifetime, new songs were
  incorporated into the repertoire.
• However, a number of these added further to the
  maritime Folk stereotype, such as Jim Bennetts
  Black Rum and Blueberry Pie.

12
Black Rum and Blueberry Pie

• Were living in the age of space as everybody
  knows.
• Most everyone is in the race as this here country
  grows.
• But, down among the lobster pots youll find a
  funny crew.
• Us Maritimers dont do things like other people
  do.
• We just like fishin, fightin, getting tightn
  starin at the sky.
• Chewin, spittin and just sittin watchin
  things go by.
• Climbing rocks and drivin ox and learnin how to
  lie.
• Drinkin black rum eatin blueberry pie.

13
Upper Clements Park

• A family theme park was constructed by the
  Progressive Conservative government under Premier
  John Buchanan in the mid 1980s. Upper Clements
  Park was strategically located in the Annapolis
  Valley riding of the then Minister of Tourism,
  Greg Kerr.
• Among the many attractions, the park featured a
  replica shanty fishing village, a pirate island,
  and a prospector cabin.
• Craftspeople worked on site at weaving, spinning,
  soap-making and other folk crafts.
• The live entertainment featured Victorian era
  clowns and bicyclers, a singing fisherman, a
  storytelling pirate, a Victorian school marm and,
  most perplexingly, a group of characters who
  lived in an old train shed and spoke with
  southern U.S. accents!
• A live band of musicians performed material
  largely derived from the Helen Creighton
  collection.

14
Sounds of Nova Scotia

• In the 1990s, the provincial government began
  marketing Nova Scotian music through a series of
  recordings titled Sounds of Nova Scotia.
• These recordings were simply compilations of
  tracks from previously recorded albums by local
  artists.
• The songs were largely folk-influenced adult
  contemporary tracks meant to appeal to a
  middle-aged tourist audience.
• Antimodernism and the fun, simple life were
  overriding themes with tracks such as The
  Bluenose, Small Town Wind, Sound the
  Pibroch, Song for the Mira, Jigging Medley,
  and Good Times.

15
Good Times

• Good Times is the first track on the Sounds of
  Nova Scotia, Volume 1 recording, and is performed
  by John Allan Cameron, who is often referred to
  as the godfather of Celtic music in Cape
  Breton.
• Each verse of the song begins with You ask me
  what I like about the Maritimes? and then
  proceeds to rhyme off a seemingly endless list of
  maritime stereotypes.
• Each verse culminates with a chorus that is meant
  to summarize East Coast life
• Good Times
• Its a big feed of lobster
• Its a cold Alpine in my hand
• Its a quarter to one and the funs just begun
• Singing Song for the Mira with this good time
  band.

16
Cape Breton Island

• The first two Sounds of Nova Scotia recordings in
  the series featured twenty-three tracks, nineteen
  of which were by Cape Breton artists.
• If music was going to be used as a marketing
  vehicle for tourism promotion, then Cape Breton
  with its perceived Scottish identity would be a
  focus.
• Tartanism and the Folk concept combined to create
  an attractive cultural package in Nova Scotia
  that served the political appetite to establish
  and expand an industry based on ethno-tourism.
• Cape Breton Island became the logical hunting
  ground for cultural wealth, as the traditional
  fiddle music served both the Tartanist and Folk
  ideals.

17
Cape Breton Summertime Revue

• The Cape Breton Summertime Revue encapsulates
  all of the most blatant Cape Breton stereotypes.
  This annual production was first staged in Sydney
  in 1986 in an attempt to capitalize on the summer
  tourist season.
• A smaller version of the show known as The Rise
  and Follies of Cape Breton had been operating
  since 1977.
• The production featured a combination of
  traditional Cape Breton fiddle music, and
  original songs that conformed mainly to a
  contemporary folk or country style.
• The musical performances alternated with various
  comedic sketches that highlighted the
  stereotypical backwardness of Cape Breton
  Islanders.
• Video Link

18
Revue continued

• The Cape Breton Summertime Revue attained its
  height of popularity at the very time that
  Canadian East Coast music was receiving national
  attention.
• The show actually toured Canada several times,
  presenting an entertaining parody of the Maritime
  lifestyle to audiences across Canada.
• This had positive economic spinoffs for the
  tourism industry.
• However, the national marketing of a stereotype
  only serves to further undermine Cape Breton in
  its attempt to rise from economic depression.

19
Cape Breton Fiddling

• Throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first
  century, Cape Breton fiddle music has been
  promoted through tourism literature as a pure
  legacy of Nova Scotias Scottish ancestry.
• In 1997, the official tourist guide for the
  province of Nova Scotia, dubbed the Doers and
  Dreamers Guide, featured a picture of Cape
  Breton fiddle master Buddy MacMaster on its front
  cover.
• The annual tourism theme for that season was
  Celebrate Our Music.
• Rather than extolling the stylistic plurality of
  the provinces musical culture, which includes a
  thriving alternative rock scene, an urban hip-hop
  community, a professional orchestra, a fine
  chamber music program, a country music legacy,
  and active Acadian and Mikmaq musical
  communities, the tourism industry focused
  predominantly on the Celtic music of Cape
  Breton as the main marketing vehicle.

20
Travel Literature

• Newspaper and travel literature play a
  significant role in furthering this Scottish Folk
  stereotype.
• In Travels in the Celtic World by Rannie Gillis,
  Cape Breton Island is literally and pictorially
  linked to Ireland and Scotland. Descriptions and
  pictures of Kisimul Castle and Loch Morar are
  juxtaposed against those of Highlands National
  Park and the Mabou Ceilidh.
• The book actually begins with the authors tale
  of a Cape Breton dance where fiddler Natalie
  MacMaster performed. The account features this
  astonishing description of her
• But Natalie MacMaster is not only one of the
  fastest rising stars in the new firmament of
  Celtic music. Nor is she just an attractive blond
  who happens to play the fiddle. Along with her
  musical peers, she is the descendant of a long
  line of Celtic musicians who can trace their
  ancestry back to a time before the Roman Empire.
  To a time before Caesar.

21
Gaelic Report

• Nova Scotia Museums curatorial report in 2002 on
  Gaelic in Nova Scotia by Michael Kennedy
• This report is an extensive overview of the
  history and state of Gaelic culture and the
  Gaelic language in Nova Scotia. It was sponsored
  by the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism and
  Culture under Rodney MacDonald (also a fiddler)
• Michael Kennedys Gaelic Report is intended as a
  warning of the pending extinction of the Gaelic
  language from its previous bastion on Cape Breton
  Island.

22
Gaelic Language

• Michael Kennedys Gaelic Report is intended as a
  warning of the pending extinction of the Gaelic
  language from its previous bastion on Cape Breton
  Island.
• It is curious, then, that the language is
  perennially tied to a mythical ancient Celtic
  culture and not promoted as a potentially vibrant
  and evolving modern language.
• This echoes Angus L. Macdonalds own conception
  of Gaelic.
• The Gaelic College was established by Macdonald
  in Cape Breton, not as a laboratory for a living
  mode of communication, but as an archive of a
  fossilized language that should be preserved as a
  museum exhibit.
• The result has been a language petrified from
  lack of use.

23
Gaelic Fiddling

• The issue of Gaelic is complex but most fiddlers
  generally agree that the sound of a correctly
  performed Cape Breton fiddle tune resonates with
  the sound of the spoken Gaelic language.
• This relationship does not involve the specific
  timbral or tonal properties of the spoken
  language but rather relates the rhythms of the
  language to the fiddle tunes and playing
  techniques.
• Efforts to associate Cape Breton fiddling with
  the Gaelic language as spoken in pre-emigration
  Highland Scotland also echo other attempts by
  fiddlers and tourism vendors to ascribe a pure
  Scottish lineage to the music.

24
The Vanishing Cape Breton Fiddler

• The perception of a threat to the local tradition
  from outside influences has persisted as a
  powerful identity myth on Cape Breton Island
  since the early 1970s.
• In 1971, Ron MacInnis directed a CBC documentary
  titled The Vanishing Cape Breton Fiddler.
• The main thesis of the film was the threat of
  extinction facing the fiddle tradition because of
  the dying off of the older generation of fiddlers
  and a lack of interest from younger musicians.
• The mainstream pop-culture influences of radio,
  television, and Hollywood cinema were viewed as a
  powerful source of cultural competition,
  distracting young Cape Bretoners from their true
  cultural roots.
• Video Link 1
• Video Link 2

25
MacInnis perspective

• As with many documentaries, The Vanishing Cape
  Breton Fiddler takes a particular stand without
  any pretense to objectivity.
• The script, interviews, and images were carefully
  chosen to suggest a Folk culture from a bygone
  era with a unique musical tradition on the edge
  of extinction.
• Director Ron MacInnis casts himself in a primary
  role in the film as an outsider entering this
  strange world.
• In contrast to the rural countryfolk he
  interviews, MacInnis is presented as the model of
  contemporary urban life, sporting a trendy 1970s
  hair style with complementary mutton chop
  sideburns, and driving around the beautiful
  countryside in a convertible.

26
Glendale Festival

• Formation of the Cape Breton Fiddlers
  Association and the staging of the first Glendale
  Festival in 1979 did not result because Cape
  Breton fiddlers believed in the premise of the
  film.
• Their true agenda was to demonstrate the strength
  and longevity of the tradition, which they
  believed was under no threat of extinction.
• Indeed, the very fact that 130 fiddlers played
  to over 10,000 fans at one concert in rural Cape
  Breton is a testament to the fact that fiddling
  was thriving as a tradition in the 1970s.

27
East Coast Music prior to 1990s

• The Atlantic region of Canada has produced a
  number of national and international popular
  music success stories.
• Hank Snow and Wilf Carter were each born in Nova
  Scotia and achieved international recognition as
  depression-era country music singers.
• Snow was also renowned as a country songwriter,
  having penned the country music standards Im
  Movin On, and Ive Been Everywhere.
• Carol Baker, Stompin Tom Connors, Joan Kennedy,
  Ron Hynes, and Gene MacClellan were also
  successful Canadian country artists.
• Rita MacNeil achieved national stardom as a
  singer/songwriter who combined elements of easy
  listening, country, folk, and pop music.
• Anne Murray became an international star in the
  1970s, with many hit songs and gold records in
  the United States and Europe as well as in
  Canada.
• In addition to country music, Matt Minglewood and
  Dutch Mason were widely respected blues artists
  from Nova Scotia, while the Nova Scotia band
  April Wine produced a number of hit rock singles
  in Canada in the 1970s, as did the PEI band
  Haywire during the 1980s.
• Halifax-native Sarah MacLachlan became a pop
  superstar during the 1990s.

28
No Music Industry

• Prior to the 1990s, however, there was very
  little in the way of music industry
  infrastructure in Atlantic Canada.
• Nearly all of the above-mentioned acts had to
  leave the East Coast to pursue recording
  contracts in central Canada or the United States.
  
• There were no major record labels with satellite
  offices in Eastern Canada, and few of the
  independent labels had any distribution or
  development arrangements with any of the majors.
• Celtic music was very popular locally and was a
  useful vehicle for the tourism industry, but most
  of the Celtic artists prior to the 1990s were not
  widely known throughout North America, though
  many were able to tour throughout parts of Europe.

29
John Allen Cameron

• Perhaps the one exception to this was John Allan
  Cameron, the so-called Canadian godfather of
  Celtic Music.
• While Cameron never received any wide airplay on
  mainstream radio, he was popular throughout
  Canada from the 1970s until his death in 2007
• He is seen by many as a trailblazer, bringing
  East Coast Celtic music to national (and to some
  degree international) attention.

30
Halifax Rock Scene

• The East Coast music scene began to attract an
  unprecedented amount of attention from the
  mainstream music industry during the early 1990s.
  
• In Halifax, indie rock bands such as Sloan, jale,
  Thrush Hermit, Hardship Post, and Erics Trip
  formed the core of a local grunge rock scene
  that paralleled a similar hub of underground
  music activity emerging out of Seattle,
  Washington.
• Sloan received a major recording contract with
  DGC Records (David Geffen Company) in 1992 after
  self-producing an independent recording titled
  Smeared in a friends living room.
• After their success with Geffen, Sloan went on to
  form the independent label Murderecords as a way
  of developing other local rock bands.
• The American label SubPop eventually poached many
  of these bands from Murderecords. In fact, most
  of the industry attention directed towards these
  indie rock bands was from record labels in the
  United States.

31
Rock not good for tourists

• The Canadian music industry paid relatively
  little attention to this activity compared to the
  emerging Celtic music scene despite the fact that
  Sloan went on to receive critical acclaim and
  impressive record sales.
• This confirms the importance of regional identity
  in Canadian popular music marketing.
• Sloan and other indie rock bands defied the
  regional Atlantic stereotypes there were no
  songs about the sea, no songs about the past, and
  no fiddles.
• Sloan played to a young, cosmopolitan, and urban
  market that was difficult to translate into
  commercial tourism revenues
• The kids who bought Sloan albums generally
  didnt vacation in Atlantic Canada.

32
Rankin Family

• The Rankin Family from Mabou, Cape Breton, also
  signed a contract with a major record label in
  1992.
• Various incarnations of this band had been
  performing at weddings and dances in Cape Breton
  throughout the 1970s but by the late 1980s, five
  of the twelve siblings in the family had formed
  the core of the band.
• Their music combined aspects of folk, pop, and
  country music in addition to traditional Gaelic
  songs and sets of fiddle tunes.
• Successful performances as part of the Cape
  Breton Summertime Revue and Mabou Jig tourist
  productions in Cape Breton led to an independent
  eponymous recording in 1989 with a follow-up
  independent record in 1991 titled Fare Thee Well
  Love.
• These recordings were phenomenally successful for
  an independent band playing traditional Cape
  Breton music. By 1992, they claimed to have sold
  nearly seventy-thousand independent records.

33
Record Contract for Rankins

• This success prompted the Canadian office of
  EMI/Capitol Records to sign the Rankin Family to
  a Canadian recording contract
• Additional agreement to nationally distribute the
  independent recordings.
• The title track to the Fare Thee Well Love
  recording was also released to radio as a single
  in combination with a music video that received a
  coveted regular rotation spot on the Canadian
  music video network MuchMusic.

34
Deterritorialization for Radio and Much Music

• The single and video to Fare Thee Well Love are
  examples deterritorialization.
• The title and subject matter of the song suggests
  a bygone era, and the melody conforms to that of
  a typical folk ballad or Gaelic song.
• However, the recording provides a contemporary
  easy listening arrangement for the song that
  easily transcends any regional style.
• There are no fiddles in the recording, and the
  piano provides surface melodic accompaniment
  along with an oboe, while the bulk of the sound
  is characterized by a thick synthesizer patch and
  a highly processed drum kit.
• The video is neutral with respect to location and
  era except for the colour scheme, which is brown
  and white, suggesting an old photograph.
• None of the band members play instruments in the
  video and only appear as singers. Video Clip

35
Reterritorialization of Image

• While the hit single contained no regional
  references, the band parlayed this success into
  future successful recordings and performance
  tours by promoting their traditional Maritime
  roots.
• They appeared on MuchMusic and performed live at
  the 1994 Juno awards, each time performing a song
  in Gaelic.
• Their live concerts continued to feature sets of
  fiddle tunes with step dancing, while they
  continued to record traditional Cape Breton music
  along with maritime folk standards.
• Their first major label release North Country was
  preceded by a release of the single Rise Again,
  a Cape Breton anthem about overcoming hardship.
  Video Clip
• Once again though, the instrumentation on Rise
  Again featured the synthesizer, piano, oboe
  combination that was so successful on Fare Thee
  Well Love, and avoided any sonic reference to
  Cape Breton music.
• The band identity therefore had clear roots in
  traditional Maritime culture, but their music was
  skillfully packaged to better fit standard radio
  formats.

36
More Signings

• Following the success of the Rankin Family with
  EMI, the other major record labels began scouring
  the East Coast for other potential success
  stories.
• Record industry lore began to spread regarding
  the untapped wealth of musical talent in Eastern
  Canada.
• Over the next few years, each of the major record
  labels operating in Canada signed East Coast
  acts
• The Barra MacNeils (Polygram)
• Lennie Gallant (Sony)
• Great Big Sea (Warner)
• Ashley MacIsaac (Universal/AM)
• Natalie MacMaster (Warner)

37
Delocalized Regionalism - Great Big Sea

• The Newfoundland band Great Big Sea first gained
  attention for their energetic live show
  consisting of Irish and Newfoundland folk songs
  as well as derivative original music.
• Initially a mainstay of the Atlantic university
  pub scene, the band benefited from the Canadian
  recording industrys brief interest in East Coast
  music during the 1990s.
• The marketing campaign made every effort to
  juxtapose the musicians with their Atlantic,
  neo-Celtic roots.
• Television interviews and music videos were shot
  next to the Atlantic Ocean, and the first major
  label release Up displayed pictures of an
  accordion, a fiddle, and an old broken bridge on
  the CD cover, which was lined on its right side
  with a picture of the sea.
• The album largely contained a mix of traditional
  and original songs.
• However, the albums first single was a Celtic
  cover version of the song Run Runaway by the
  British glam-rock band Slade. Video Clip
• The follow-up album Play featured a similar
  treatment of the popular R.E.M. song Its the
  End of the World As We Know It.
• The popularity of the original versions of these
  songs allowed the music to become
  deterritorialized as part of an international pop
  repertoire.

38
Delocalized Regionalism - Others

• Other East Coast acts applied the same strategy
  of reterritorialization of style and image, and
  deterritorialization of musical content.
• The Cape Breton band The Barra MacNeils released
  John Sebastians Darling Be Home Soon as their
  first single on their first major label release
  Closer to Paradise
• The Newfoundland band The Irish Descendants
  released Donovans Catch the Wind on their
  breakthrough release Gypsies and Lovers.

39
Delocalized Regionalism

• The combination of deterritorialized sound and
  reterritorialized image was the perfect national
  (and international) marketing strategy
• Music could be played on standard radio but image
  still reinforced exotic, rural, backward,
  Scottish roots
• This strategy was not aimed at increasing the
  appeal of this music for a potential American
  audience.
• None of these cover recordings received
  widespread distribution or radio play in the
  United States.
• Rather, the decision to record recognizable pop
  standards was aimed at a national Canadian
  market.
• The artists increased their national
  marketability by releasing deterritorialized pop
  hits.
• Yet the stylistic aspects of the original
  versions of these songs were transformed to fit a
  reterritorialized ideal of Atlantic Canadian
  culture.
• In the process, the lyrical content and the
  semiotic associations of the original releases
  were nullified, and the songs were refashioned as
  East Coast Celtic songs, with their implications
  of a rural seaside setting, party atmosphere, and
  quaint, simple lifestyle.

40
Local Labels

• Local independent labels also signed agreements
  with major labels for marketing and distribution,
  as well as some artist development.
• Groundswell Records, which managed a small
  catalogue of East Coast acts including Rawlins
  Cross and Laura Smith, signed a distribution
  arrangement with Warner Music Canada.
• Halifax-based distribution company Atlantica
  Music signed a national distribution deal with
  EMI
• New EMI-sponsored record label called Latitude
  Records to find and develop local artists.
• This represented a high point in the development
  of the East Coast music industry, and there was
  great anticipation over who would be the first
  artist to sign with Latitude.

41
Damhnait Doyle

• As if to further add to the perception of a vast
  wealth of unspoiled East Coast talent, Latitude
  Records first signed a junior employee of
  Atlantica Records named Damhnait Doyle
• She was purportedly overheard singing in the
  mailroom.
• Doyle was to be developed as an alternative pop
  singer, but her clearly regional name and
  fairytale rise from obscurity provided just
  enough of a regional identity to appeal to the
  new market for East Coast music.
• By 1997 however, Atlantica, along with Latitude,
  had folded, owing thousands of dollars in sales
  revenues to local artists.
• The Latitude artists, including Damhnait Doyle,
  were briefly picked up by EMI Canada before
  eventually becoming independents again.

42
The New Economy?

• The development of a music industry in Atlantic
  Canada beginning in the 1990s was perceived by
  many as a potentially lucrative economic sector
• Particularly in Cape Breton and Newfoundland
  where the coal, steel, and fishing industries had
  recently collapsed.
• Local musicians hoped for record deals and
  high-profile performances, while tourism vendors
  eagerly anticipated waves of new tourists who
  would come in search of the music.
• Government agencies fuelled this speculation by
  providing funding for industry initiatives. In
  Nova Scotia, much of this was directed to Cape
  Breton.

43
Another Boom Bust

• The expected economic boom never materialized.
• In fact, the East Coast recording industry
  replicated a twentieth-century pattern of
  industrial boom and bust that characterized the
  ship building, coal, steel, and fishing
  industries.
• Each of these industries relied heavily on
  government subsidy and corporate investment from
  outside of Atlantic Canada that dried up once
  profits proved scarce.
• The music industry followed suit, and there are
  warning signs that Nova Scotias offshore oil
  industry may suffer the same consequence.

44
Fiddling still thriving

• Along with the hopes for a wave of economic
  prosperity arising from the music industry, came
  a fear that commercialization of Cape Breton
  music would result in the dilution or eradication
  of its traditional roots.
• This also never materialized. In fact, the
  opposite occurred a renewed interest in Cape
  Breton fiddling with more youth than ever picking
  up the fiddle bow.
• In fact, Cape Breton fiddle music became part of
  a global Celtic revival where Celtic musics in
  various forms attained an unprecedented degree of
  international popularity.

45
Celtic Renaissance

• The deliberate focus on Celtic music in Atlantic
  Canada was understandable considering how easy it
  was to align this musical genre with tourism
  marketing initiatives.
• In addition, the 1990s witnessed worldwide a rise
  in popularity of various musics collectively
  termed Celtic.
• Riverdance, Titanic soundtrack, Braveheart
  Soundtrack, Afro Celt Sound System, Celtic Tides
  CD etc.

46
Ashley vs. Natalie - Cape Breton Fiddle Stars

• On the surface these two Cape Breton fiddlers
  share a number of commonalities.
• Both were born in the early 1970s (MacMaster in
  1972 and MacIsaac in 1975)
• Both from small towns in Inverness County on Cape
  Breton Island (MacMaster from Troy, and MacIsaac
  from Creignish).
• Both began playing the fiddle at a very young age
  and signed recording and distribution deals with
  major Canadian record labels in the 1990s.
• Both fiddlers incorporate popular music styles
  into their fiddling performances, but also retain
  certain traditional elements in their shows,
  including fiddling while step dancing.
• Despite these similarities, the two fiddlers
  maintain vastly different public personae, and
  have embarked on completely divergent career
  paths.

47
Ashley Discovered

• Ashley MacIsaac first came to national attention
  in the mid 1990s, following a remarkable series
  of events.
• In 1992, he was contacted by the American theatre
  director Joanne Akalaitis after she and her
  husband, composer Philip Glass, had seen MacIsaac
  perform at a Cape Breton square dance.
• Akalaitis and Glass were collaborating on a new
  production of Georg Buchners Woyzeck and wanted
  MacIsaac to perform as part of the play.
• A few years after his performance in Woyzeck,
  MacIsaac visited New York again, and he contacted
  Philip Glass while he was there.
• Glass invited MacIsaac (and his fiddle) to a
  dinner party for a surprise guest who turned out
  to be the American pop star Paul Simon.
• Simon was so impressed with MacIsaacs fiddle
  playing that he invited MacIsaac to play on a
  recording that Simon was producing for his wife,
  singer Edie Brickell.
• When news of this reached back to Atlantic
  Canada, a media frenzy resulted.

48
Freakish Genius

• Ashley MacIsaacs good fortune fueled the notion
  of an untapped wealth of musical talent on Cape
  Breton Island.
• This was a true Cinderella story a young, raw,
  musician was discovered in his remote natural
  habitat by a world-famous and well-connected New
  York City composer who then graciously invited
  the fiddler into the inner sanctum of the musical
  elite.
• The story proved hard to resist for the local
  press.
• Adding to this powerful rags to riches narrative
  trope was the fact that MacIsaac was and is
  rather unique for a Cape Breton fiddler.
• His young age of eighteen was not in itself
  unusual for a fiddler, but his prodigious talent,
  commanding presence, and individual sound was
  remarkable for such a young musician.
• His fiddling technique is also quite
  idiosyncratic in that MacIsaac plays left-handed
  but with a right-handed fiddle. In other words,
  his fiddle is conventionally strung for a
  right-handed bowing arm, but MacIsaac plays with
  the fiddle on his right shoulder and bows with
  the left hand, and therefore essentially learns
  all of his fiddle tunes backwards.
• This unusual playing technique reinforced
  MacIsaacs persona as a rough, unrefined, and
  perhaps even freakish genius, an image which
  directly contrasted that of Natalie MacMaster.

49
Natalie MacMaster

• Natalie MacMasters talent was well known on Cape
  Breton from the time she began excelling at her
  fiddle studies.
• She was used frequently by the Nova Scotia
  Tourism industry as part of its Celtic marketing
  strategy in the 1990s.
• Her picture was featured frequently in the
  provincial tourist guides, and she was a frequent
  performer in government-sponsored campaigns.
• Two of these, the Coast of Difference and Sea
  Sell productions were touring musical variety
  shows that placed MacMasters fiddling front and
  centre.
• MacMasters obvious beauty, refined demeanor, and
  wholesome image combined to create the perfect
  marketing character for Nova Scotia tourism.
• She provided pure, traditional, family
  entertainment which, despite her potential sex
  appeal, deliberately lacked any overt sexuality.
• Her persona symbolized conservative family values
  and resulted in appearances in effective
  television advertising campaigns for Tim Hortons
  Donuts, Farmers Dairy milk, and General Motors
  Pontiac automobiles.

50
Ashley MacIsaacs Image

• Initially, perfect persona for the record
  industry
• Anything but wholesome and traditional.
• He did often perform in a kilt, but augmented
  this traditional dress with t-shirts and toques
  more typical of the 1990s grunge rock scene.
• Music industry could rally behind a grungy, rock
  fiddler
• First major label release Hi! How Are You Today a
  major success with Sleepy Maggie becoming an
  international hit single
• Features traditional fiddle tune with dance
  groove

51
Pop Fiddling

• Ashley MacIsaacs career eventually turned sour
• Many critics claim that he took the music to
  unwanted places
• However, Natalie MacMaster was and is just as
  inventive with her combination of fiddling and
  other styles such as flamenco, bluegrass, rock,
  etc.
• Deterritorialization of sound welcomed
• Deterritorialization of image not!

52
MacIsaacs Sexuality

• Unlike Natalie MacMaster, Ashley MacIsaacs
  public persona would ultimately be tied to his
  sexuality. The record labels knew how they could
  market a grungy rock fiddler, but a promiscuous
  gay fiddler was another problem entirely.
• He had been officially outed in Frank magazine
  in 1995, but MacIsaacs sexuality became a media
  obsession following a controversial interview
  with Patricia Hluchy that was published in
  Macleans magazine in 1996
• The article titled Ashleys Indiscretion was a
  singular piece of sensationalist journalism that
  castigated MacIsaac for his outspokenness
  regarding his sexual practices, while at the same
  time dwelling on MacIsaacs public comments.
• Backlash against MacIsaac had more to do with the
  disjunction between his open sexuality and the
  generic public conception of a Cape Breton
  fiddler.
• The excitement over MacIsaacs music was built
  not only on its novelty but on the idea that he
  was taking the tradition in new musical
  directions.
• His homosexuality, however, destroyed the
  manufactured masculine, Folk, Scottish identity
  normally associated with a male Cape Breton
  fiddler.

53
Natalies wholesome image

• MacMasters career could be described as a slower
  and more steady ascent, devoid of any
  sensationalized media scrutiny. In fact, she is
  adored by the mainstream press.
• Where Ashley MacIsaac presented a dangerous,
  threatening countercultural public persona,
  Natalie MacMaster offered a safe, conservative,
  and sexually neutral image.
• In addition, despite the slick musical
  arrangements and professional marketing campaigns
  used to sell her music, there is far less
  deterritorialization associated with Natalie
  MacMasters pop-culture product.
• Her music and image remain firmly tied to Cape
  Breton, and her public identity relies on this
  perceived authenticity, combining rural roots and
  traditional values.

54
Recipe for a fiddlers success

• Deterritorialization of sound results in wider
  access to music industry marketing, national
  radio playlists, and acceptance into pop culture
• Reterritorialization of image reinforces the
  traditional, roots of the music
• Music industry requires this combination to be
  able to sell the music
• Atlantic Canada not represented as modern, urban,
  industrial, educated