HOLLAND COLLEGE • November 1, 2001

INSIDE
 
 
 

 

College

Bigfoot mystery

Milkman calls

Heavy hopes

Royal future

Home school

Down's Syndrome

Gay pride

STDs

Celtic revival

Masons:
100 years

Chef shortage

Woodcutters obsolete?

City Hall wired

Bootlegging: the Maritime way?

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FRONT PAGE

    
Celtic music: Is it hot, or is it not?

By Ryan Gillis
Staff reporter
With the release of their debut album and a successful North American tour, MacKeel seemed to be on top of the Celtic music scene in Atlantic Canada in 1998. Two years later MacKeel broke up. What happened?
Kevin Brennan, the former lead guitarist for the band, said Celtic music peaked in 1998 on the heels of Ashley MacIssac, then crashed once he disappeared.
MacIssac reached a much different audience, Brennan said. "For the first time, kids in inner-city Toronto were picking up Celtic albums."
MacKeel's debut album, Plaid, sold about 46,000 copies in Atlantic Canada. "We were riding the tail of the Celtic music scene," he said.
It wasn't easy. Touring, although very exciting, was hard work. In 1998-99 MacKeel spent 292 days on tour. It is the only way a Celtic act can make it. "Money is everything," he said. The band had to pay a manager 20 per cent and an agent 15 per cent. Celtic bands need to sell as many records and get as many corporate sponsorships as possible just to survive.
This financial struggle isn't only being felt by bands like MacKeel. The Barra MacNeils, a Celtic band from Cape Breton, recently lost their record deal because of a drop in record sales.
"It'll be eight to 10 years before it's cool to be in a Celtic band again," Brennan said.
But is the struggle for Celtic acts in Atlantic Canada so clear cut?
Andrea Beaton, a fiddler from Cape Breton, has been involved with Celtic music since birth. Her father, Kinnon, was once one of the most popular fiddlers in Cape Breton.
She is the first cousin of well-known fiddler Natalie MacMaster and the niece of the master fiddler, Buddy MacMaster from Cape Breton. Celtic music is a very broad music style, Beaton said. Some forms of Celtic music may be declining in popularity, but others are booming.
The demand for Cape Breton fiddling is up, mainly because of tourists in the summer months, said Beaton. The local fiddler released her first CD, A License to Drive ¬Er, last February and things have gone well, she said.
Beaton said there will always be room for other types of music in Atlantic Canada, but fiddle music is still very popular. "Fiddle bands draw more of a crowd."
Beaton has performed in shows all over the world. Recently she travelled to Boston, New York, Cape Cod and Scotland.Beaton said it was different when her father was playing fiddle. There weren't as many fiddle players coming from Cape Breton, making it easier to get noticed. But fiddle music didn't sell as many records as now making it harder to succeed.

  "It works both ways." Buddy MacMaster was another reason why it was tough to make it as a fiddler in past decades, he said. "You were always in Buddy's shadow."
There's no doubt to be successful in the Celtic music scene you have work hard and really want to make it, but sometimes it takes a little luck to get noticed, Beaton said.
"You gotta get a break." Beaton's advice for new performers looking to make a name for themselves is simple, "Play, practice and don't give up."
Scott MacAulay, the director of the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada Centre in Summerside, said Celtic music is as popular now as it has ever been. MacAulay said the definition of Celtic music has changed.
"It's not uniquely Celtic anymore."
Since the college opened 12 years ago, attendance has grown every year. There are now over 400 students from P.E.I. and 200 off-Island students taking weekly lessons at the college. Attendance for festivals across P.E.I. have been growing and Celtic music is starting to have an increasingly large role in the music business.
Students at the college come from all over the world. There are students from Singapore, Hong Kong, Scotland and Germany enrolled at the college, MacAulay said, which is having an impact on the music.
And artists such as Jimmy Rankin have started to mix country, folk and pop into their music causing the lines between Celtic music and mainstream music to become blurred. That's fine, he said.
"Whatever is good will sell." For years, people from all over the world have looked to Atlantic Canada for Celtic musicians. Countless fiddlers and other musicians have travelled to Scotland to perform and teach Celtic songs to the next generation of musicians.
"There is no shortage of talent in the Maritimes," said Brennan. "Halifax is the Seattle of Celtic music."
(Seattle is said to be the world centre for Grunge music.) Being the world centre for Celtic music has its problems too. Celtic bands have a much easier time getting recognized than other types of music, Brennan said.
"It's easier to get doors open if you're a Celtic band."
Years ago, record companies only looked for Celtic acts, he said.
"If you didn't have a fiddle in the band, you didn't have a prayer."
Over the past couple years, Halifax's Sloan has become one of the most successful rock bands ever to come out of Atlantic Canada.
But for every Sloan there have been five unsuccessful Celtic bands, Brennan said. To be successful in any business you have to make money. With the power of record companies behind them, bands such as N'Sync can't fail, Brennan said.
"Talent will bring you a long way," Brennan said. But. "Money doesn't talk, it screams."