Friends of Fiddler's Green | |
---|---|
Genres | Celtic, Folk, and Roots music |
Years active | late 1960s to present |
Labels | Fallen Angle Music |
Members | William Laskin, Ian Robb, James Stephens, Alistair Brown, Ian Bell, and Jeff McClintock |
Past members | Tam Kearney, David Parry, Jim Strickland, Laurence Stevenson, Ian Clark, Cherie Whalen, Rick Avery, John Bowden, Rosemary Brown, Margaret Christl, Peter Shepheard, and Stewart Cameron. |
Friends of Fiddler's Green is a Canadian folk music group based in Toronto founded in 1971 and still active as of 2024. The members of the group at the time of its first recording, 1981's This Side of the Ocean, were Alistair Brown, Tam Kearney, Grit Laskin, David Parry, Ian Robb, Laurence Stevenson, and Jim Strickland. Another half-dozen former members from the band's first 10 years are listed on the back of the album.
In all the years since, the lineup has stayed remarkably consistent, with only Jim Strickland having left the ensemble. David Parry remained performing with the group until his death in 1995, as did Tam Kearney until his death in 2013. Additions to the line up have included singer & musician Ian Bell, and also Jeff McClintock on keyboards. Jeff was later replaced by Cherie Whalen, only to rejoin the band after Cherie's departure for family reasons. Due to ill health, Laurence Stevenson retired from the band in 2020 and esteemed fiddler James Stephens has stepped in.
The name of the group is derived from Fiddler's Green, a mythical place of dancing and happiness. Tam Kearney and Jim Strickland, both Scottish immigrants living in Toronto in the 1960s, founded Fiddler's Green Folk Club on Eglinton Avenue, behind the YMCA. Gradually a nucleus of musicians developed, initially doing warm-ups at the club, and then performing as a group. Ian Robb arrived from England, in the early 1970s. The arrival of other singers gave the group a distinctly Scottish flavor. David Parry [1] was an enthusiast for mumming and brought a dragon's costume to the mix. At festival performances, the members may present English Mummers Plays, Morris Dancing or Scottish country dancing. The Vancouver Folk Music Festival documented a reviewer who claimed that Friends of Fiddler's Green were among the best British bands touring North America [2]
Although they are not typically a touring band, they have also performed in the United States.
In the folklore of folk music, they are known as the inspiration for the Stan Rogers' song, Barrett's Privateers. [3]
In 2003 they were given the "Estelle Klein Achievement Award" at the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals. [4]
The award recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to the folk music community in Ontario through their work as an artist, academic, organizer, or presenter. [5]
The keyboardist for the group, Jeff McClintock, was arrested by the religious police in Saudi Arabia, probably in connection with his work with an otherwise all-female fiddle ensemble, the Frillyknickers.
Northern Lights Festival Boréal is an annual summer music festival in Sudbury, Ontario. It is one of Canada's oldest continuous music festivals, having been staged every year since 1972 until the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Mariposa Folk Festival is a Canadian music festival founded in 1961 in Orillia, Ontario. It was held in Orillia for three years before being banned because of disturbances by festival-goers. After being held in various places in Ontario for a few decades, it returned to Orillia in 2000. Ruth Jones, her husband Dr. Crawford Jones, brother David Major and Pete McGarvey organized the first Mariposa Folk Festival in August 1961. The inaugural event, covered by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, featured all Canadian performers. The festival grew in popularity, size and rowdiness until the popularity of the 1963 festival, and the lack of sufficient security, led to a backlash from town locals. The city of Orillia secured a court injunction to prevent the festival from continuing in the town limits. The first festival held in the Toronto area, in 1964, was at Maple Leaf Stadium. The subsequent three festivals were held at Innis Lake in Caledon, northwest of the city. In the 1970s it was held on the Toronto Islands before shifting to Harbourfront (Toronto) and Bathurst Street and later Molson Park in Barrie. In 2000, the Mariposa Folk Festival was invited back to Orillia by city councilors Tim Lauer and Don Evans. The festival continues to be held in Orillia. As well as folk music, the festival highlights other aspects of folk culture including dance, crafts, storytelling.
Ian Robb is an English-born folk singer and songwriter, currently based in Ottawa, Ontario. He was a founding member of Friends of Fiddler's Green, and a columnist for Sing Out! He is also a member of the Canadian folk trio Finest Kind. He wrote a parody of Stan Rogers song "Barrett's Privateers", titled "Garnet's Homemade Beer". He was the recipient of the 2005 Canadian Folk Music Award for Best Traditional Singer, for his work on the CD Jiig.
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"Barrett's Privateers" is a modern folk song in the style of a sea shanty, written and performed by Canadian musician Stan Rogers, having been inspired after a song session with the Friends of Fiddler's Green at the Northern Lights Festival Boréal in Sudbury, Ontario. The song describes a 1778 summer privateering journey to the Caribbean on a decrepit sloop, the Antelope, captained by Elcid Barrett; when it engages in a failed raid on a larger American ship, the Antelope sinks and all the crew is killed except the singer, who returns six years later "a broken man", having lost both his legs in the disaster. Although Barrett, the Antelope and other specific instances mentioned in the song are fictional, "Barrett's Privateers" is full of many authentic details of privateering in the late 18th century.
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David Parry was a Canadian folk musician, storyteller, actor, stage director, and teacher. He was an important presence in the Canadian folk music scene from the mid-1970s up until his death in 1995. He worked both as a solo artist and as a member of the Friends of Fiddler's Green, a ceilidh band based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was married to writer and musician Caroline Balderston Parry. Their son Richard Reed Parry is a member of the rock band Arcade Fire and their daughter Evalyn Parry is a prominent spoken-word performer and musician.
Ian Bell is a Canadian folk musician, composer, and singer-songwriter who has been active in the Canadian folk music scene since the 1970s. With Anne Lederman, he was part of the seminal Canadian folk group Muddy York. He has been the leader of The Dawnbreakers and Professor Chalaupka's Celebrated Singing School. Bell has performed at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival and the Mariposa Folk Festival, among others. He has contributed to the development and preservation of Canadian folk music for more than twenty-five years. He sings both old songs and his own original compositions. His music has a Celtic flavour. He is a versatile musician who plays several instruments.
Owen McBride is an Irish-born folk singer and storyteller, primarily performing traditional Irish and Scottish music. McBride settled in Toronto in 1963 and became a fixture in the Toronto folk scene. McBride was a key figure in the folk revival movement in Canada and in North American in the 1960s and early 1970s, appearing at major folk music festivals like the Mariposa Folk Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festivals. For this role, he was inducted in the Mariposa Folk Festival Hall of Fame in 2019. He continues to be an active performer in the folk music club and festival scenes.
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