Music of the Miramichi
"Miramichi Music Lives On" by Steve Heckburt
Miramichi has a music all its own – Mi’kmaq drummers, Acadian fiddlers, Irish and Scottish singers and dancers. For centuries accessible only by foot, freshwater canoes and saltwater ships, our river keeps evolving its own way.
Dr. Louise Manny got the ball rolling, working on a 1947 commission from Lord Beaverbrook. She collected and recorded the songs of local fishermen and lumbermen, broadcasting them over CKMR every week from 1947-1965. With James Reginald Wilson, Louise published the defining folklore book Songs of Miramichi.
In 1957 she founded the long-running Miramichi Folksong Festival, now in its 69th year. From her stone on the city square she calls us anew: “keep the Festival alive.” River folks keep rising anew to Manny’s challenge.
Alex Milson led the Festival when I first sang there, a fresh-faced schoolboy in the 1960s. A steadying emcee and accomplished singer, Alex penned the first folksong lamenting the ruinous Escuminac Disaster of 1959.
Giants bestrode that stage. Glenwood’s Wilmot MacDonald sang acapella, evoking long winter nights endured by men working the Miramichi lumber camps of yore. Hearing Wilmot sing Lumberman’s Alphabet would raise the hairs on the neck of an eagle: “A for the Axes, and that youse all know…”
Strathadam singers Marie and Perley Hare shone. Marie’s upriver voice of perfect pitch echoes in the Kin Centre still. Perley invariably belted out the lumberman’s classic Guy Reed, dredging up bass notes only a bullfrog could match, his hands thrust into the back pockets of his woodsman’s pants. He taught me this song backstage. One year Perley died an epic death – in the Black Horse clutching a beer, after delivering Guy Reed’s closing line “until you cross that dark valley {spoken} to that great eternal shore.”
Alex passed the torch to Maple Glen’s Hiram Baisley, an inventive riverman who dutifully answered the Manny’s call. These days, everybody’s hero Melanie Ross directs the Festival with great leadership and dauntless stamina, after taking the reins from long-time leader Susan Butler.
The new generation of singers rises. Melanie, in her youth a roving ambassador who’s sung the songs of Miramichi in far-off countries, notes: “We have young people performing at the children’s show, helping the festival serve a large demographic audience.” Today I must count myself among the Festival seniors … but the youngest performers in our self-renewing Miramichi Folksong Festival are as fresh as three years old!
The music of Miramichi runneth over like our great river itseld. New talent keeps arriving from the auld country. Irish emigrant Gerry Roberts graces many a river stage with a golden voice you could take a bath in … with his authentic feel for modern Ireland and a folksong repertoire broad enough for any occasion. Scotland’s Ian Craig’s becomes the light in our harbor, wedding the skills of a luthier with craft of a songwriter and a keen eye for up-and-coming upriver talent.
Others keep stepping up. Jim MacDonald dials up a lifelong love of music with his Packinshed studio recordings for songwriters anon. Nordin bluesman Terry Whalen plays river streets and rocks up a novel blues barn. Rogersville’s Jimmy Arsenault, with two of the best guitar hands on the river, is a master in restoring cherished instruments once deemed beyond repair.
When Chris Larsen takes his keyboard into the upper register, he lifts any congregation into ephemeral heaven. Picker Aubrey Stewart hits for extra basses when he digs down to sing his Water Street ode The Night They Tore the Tavern Down. Aye brethren … many a soulful tune wafted from the fondly recalled Ambassador … sometimes a fair bit off-key, like hymns sung by festive churchgoers late on Christmas Day.
First among equals among river musicians in my books is the peerless Paul McGraw. Anyone who’s spent an evening in one of Paul’s fun-filled kitchen parties on Water Street sees firsthand the rooted wisdom he weaves with scores of come-from-away tourists who crowd into his ample kitchen. Once they’ve set foot inside Saltwater Sounds, Paul etches downhome joy in every face with a brilliant blend of songs and story-telling matched by none, as unique a genius as walks among us.
But then, none of us is as smart as all of us, what? The great big group matters more than any individual. Everyone who’s ever written a song they deeply feel, and sung it for others, knows the simple truth of music: wrought well, music speaks to everyone.
Our Miramichi knows well: music is the universal language of humankind. When music of far-off lands comes to us in easy streams, a new day of peace, tolerance, and understanding canna be far behind.
