File: macinnisbillysenior06-oh-declinesqdances_M.mp3
Speakers:
BM – Billy MacInnis Sr.
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
BM:A lot of them dances was just a fiddle and a piano: not even vocalists, and you could in them days put 100 to 150 people in a hall just with a fiddle and a piano. Very simple, but it's changed a lot compared to today. It seems even today, if you had a fiddle and a piano, and a lead player and a drummer and a bass player, you'd really be goin' some to put 150 people in a dance hall today. That's an example, Leonard McDonald's band there would put – I played there several times: Kingston Legion, New Haven. I don't know what they're licensed for, but I'm guessin' probably 120. Well I bet you there was nights Leonard McDonald had 150 people in that hall. Ten years ago you couldn't even draw 60 people, the crowds just disappeared.
KP: Why do you suppose that was?
BM: Well, just a sign of the times. A lot of them people that liked the old time [music] and danced the old time sets, and liked the old country waltzes, a lot of them have died off. And not only that, if a married couple B If he dies or if she dies, the other one stays home, they stop goin' out. Another thing too, the television, cable TV came along in the 80s. And Cable TV kept a lot people home. The police with their breathalizer units kept a lot of people home. It's a combination of several things. I don't really think it was 'cause the music was not popular anymore. I think it was just a combination of too many other things that kept people home. But there's a lot of young upcoming fiddlers, a lot of good young fiddlers, not only here on PEI but all across Canada. And it's a darned shame, because as far as dances – Unless it comes back and I'd be awful surprised if it would, but I don't think too many of these fiddlers will ever get to actually play for any old time dances. Fiddling is popular amongst the kids, step-dancing is popular, but square dancin' is not. There's no – You don't see any kids or teenagers or people in their 20s that are square dancin'. There's nobody teachin' it. Perhaps if there was maybe the old-time dances might come back.
