Re: Charlie's comments on books. most of the old Cape Breton players had
good access to books, some were avid collectors and delighted in springing a
new tune. Once they did that, of course, it was available to those who heard
it and, if a good tune, became popular. Many of these books are now in
institutional collections and, so, in even greater concentration. For
instance, Bill Lamey, of River Denys and Sydney and, of course Boston, was as
great a historian as player. Bill particularly favoured the compilations of
Gow and MacIntosh and had the books to use in attempting to filter out later
changes.
So did a number of others. They were interested in finding out how tunes
were played in the days of their (the tunes') popularity and, in my humble
opinion, had considerable success. thirty years ago, I did some work on
recording history and, was interested to note that, the farther back i went
with Scottish records, the more they resembled some Cape Breton styles.
Skinner of course, was almost contemporary and, a different thing entirely.
i didn't know anyone who tried to play in his style but, everyone played his
tunes. now all is changed and, books are republished. But back 30 years it
was possible to buy books, especially the ones not yet republished, even in
Edinburgh, for a reasonable price. those were the books that had a lot of
'not too great' tunes but, each had one or two. Leo Sullivan
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