TUNED IN: RADIO, RITUAL AND RESISTANCE Cape Breton’s traditional music, 1973-1998 By WENDY BERGFELDT-MUNRO Integrated Studies Project Submitted to Dr. Michael Welton In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts – Integrated Studies Athabasca, Alberta MAY 2015 Support for this project was provided by Athabasca University’s Graduate Student Research Fund Special thanks to Dr. Michael Welton for his wisdom and guidance And with deepest gratitude to the broadcasters, fiddlers, pianists, singers, dancers, storytellers, artists, managers and tradition bearers who took the time to share their thoughts. 2 ABSTRACT This study explores the role of local radio in the evolution and revitalization of Celtic musical culture in eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island from 1972 to 1998. Drawing on in-person interviews with radio programmers, musicians, dancers, tradition bearers and community organizers, this study focuses on four key producers and program hosts and how, through their radio programming choices, they supported and augmented the Cape Breton fiddle and song tradition. This study will uncover how these personalities were able to spark widespread community conversations at critical, axial moments in the tradition’s evolution. It will also show how these programmers established a ritual of radio listening with their audiences, which resulted in the formation of a vital and dynamic "telecommunity." This communal form, a conversational learning space, helped define and redefine Cape Breton traditional music, supported local musicians and ultimately became an assertion of a collective identity against global, neo-liberal homogenizing forces present in broader commercial styles. It provided a buffer against other potentially colonizing effects, such as tartansim. 3 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ 2 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................................ 8 RADIO ...................................................................................................................................................... 13 THE EARLY YEARS: GUS MACKINNON – THE PIONEER .......................................................... 18 Critical Conversation #1 A response to the “Vanishing CaPe Breton Fiddler” ........................ 20 CJFX – RAY ‘MAC’ MACDONALD – THE PROMOTER .................................................................. 24 Community Conversation #2 Why is it important to have traditional music on the air? ..... 27 CBC RADIO CAPE BRETON - BRIAN SUTCLIFFE – THE CRAFTSMAN ................................... 31 Critical Conversation #3 Will anyone outside Cape Bretoners be interested in this? ........... 34 CJCB SYDNEY – DONNIE CAMPBELL - THE COLLECTOR .......................................................... 38 Community Conversation #4 Hey, do you know this one? ............................................................ 39 CRITICAL COMMENTARY .................................................................................................................. 43 Ritual ................................................................................................................................................................. 43 Resistance ........................................................................................................................................................ 46 SOURCES ................................................................................................................................................. 51 4 INTRODUCTION “I do remember when I was quite young we had a radio. Well, there was a program called "Fun At Five". Well it was on, I'm quite sure, from Monday to Friday at 5 o'clock. We had it in the barn and when we would be milking our cows the radio was always on. I think that's when I started learning to try to step dance in the barn, waiting to take the milking machines from one cow to the next.” -Father Eugene Morris In one of the first locally written scholarly examinations of contemporary Cape Breton culture, The Centre of the World at The Edge of a Continent, editor Judith Rolls, who grew up in Sydney, shares a treasured memory at the top of her introductory essay. “I was among the fortunate to grow up listening to the strains of fiddle music and ‘Put a Nickel in the Parking Meter’ on CJCB radio.”(Corbin & Rolls, 1996, p. 8) she writes. We are to understand these memories are symbolic of a larger experience that defines her and the place in which she lives. It seems revealing that on an island so rich with authors, musicians, singers, songwriters, playwrights, visual artists, and dancers, it was a radio program that first came to her mind. Cape Breton is rooted in heritage cultures with strong oral traditions. The stories and songs of the Mi'kmaq, the Acadians, and the Scottish Gaels have baptized the Island with unique narratives that shape the peoples’ view of themselves and their connections with one another. Local radio has its own narratives too, shared an understood by Cape Bretoners. From recollections of CJCB radio host Ann Terry’s (MacLellan) eloquent descriptions of her trips to New York or Dominion Beach (Corbin & Smith-Piovesan, 2001, p. 67) to reflections on the humour presented on Clyde Nunn 5 and Percy Baker’s Fun at Five program on CJFX (MacLean, 2014, p. 265) and are social currency tying the community together with shared experiences and common reference points. Radio, like most news media in a democratic state, offers a trio of services to its citizens; it surveys the environment for change or adaptations, it provides a diversion from the environment, and it supports personal identity.(Savage & Spence, 2014, p. 5) In other words, radio is a companion, keeping watch when necessary, entertaining on occasion, and reinforcing the individual and communities’ impressions of who they are. In Canada however, radio also had one other function. It was an instrument of adult education from the 1940s to the 1960s. Predicated on the notion that citizens would listen to programs together, then meet in smaller groups to discuss what they had heard and possibly craft some kind of community response, this phenomenon found its local expressions in Eastern Nova Scotia’s Antigonish Movement and on the national Farm Radio and Citizen’s Forums. It informs the significant audience interaction with radio programs in Eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton from 1972 to 1998. It may also provide clues as to why radio continues to occupy such an elevated role in the community’s discourse. The strength of radio lies, in part, in a ritual whereby listeners ‘tune in’ to a favorite broadcast at roughly the same time at regular intervals, be it daily or weekly. Rituals themselves have a way of tying people together, in helping to create meaning, identity and sometimes community. This story is about how a cohesive community, sharing meanings around local music, were able at various times to form walls of resistance against cultural hegemonic forces, be they ugly stereotypes diminishing the dignity of the people, or broader commercial styles threatening to swallow up more vulnerable tradition. 6 Methodology This study involves an analysis of the work of four key radio professionals, the late Angus “Gus” MacKinnon (1924-1998), Ray "Mac" MacDonald, Donnie Campbell, and Brian Sutcliffe all of whom were active from the early 1970s to 1998. The narrative begins with the airing of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary entitled “The Vanishing Cape Breton Fiddler” (1972). It is also the same point in time that federal regulations came into effect, which regulated and increased the amount of Canadian content on radio. The study ends around the retirement announcements of two of the study participants in 1998/99. This time period is also significant because it roughly coincides with the launch of the Celtic Colours International Music Festival in the fall of 1997, effectively making Cape Breton one of the global hubs of the Celtic music world. It also marks the beginning of a new media web-based era that allows people to seek out and explore culturally specific musical forms beyond local radio offerings and person-to-person exchanges. Due to the nature of radio there is almost no written documentation of the programs themselves, but there are tapes of shows and there is human memory. Knitted together with threads from these sources this dialogue-based, ethnographic project involved taped audio interviews with each of the informants or, in the case of Mr. MacKinnon, an analysis of letters, articles, and tapes in the CJFX archives. Twenty-one tradition bearers, storytellers, dancers, singers, fiddlers, pianists, composers and recognized community cultural activists were also interviewed, selected on the basis of eras in which they were active, public recognition for their work in the form of recordings, invitations to teach, awards, interviews, and performances, and participation in different practices