File: myersfenner06-oh-gettingstarted_M.mp3
Speakers:
FM – Fenner Myers
JD – Jim Dobson
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
KP: Was there music in your house when you were growing up?
FM: Yeah
KP : What kind of music was there?
FM: My uncle played the fiddle, my uncle Bernard played the guitar, and my Mom played the organ, my aunt Carey played the organ, someone played harmonica. It was like there was always music around, eh: Sundays especially – Ggo to church Sunday morning, play music on Sunday afternoon: a little bit of drinkin' going on, and…
JD: Just a little bit
FM: Still a little!
KP: Right. So what was the name of that uncle of yours who played fiddle?
FM: Joe Myers.
KP: Would there often, let's say on a typcal evening in your house be music?
FM: Oh yeah.
KP: Can you tell me about that?
FM: There was no television or anything, the only thing we had was a battery radio and didn't use it too much because you didn't want the batteries to run out. I picked up the guitar and the fiddle around the same time, I guess. I had pneumonia one time when I was a kid, and them times you didn't go to the hospital. My grandmother put me to bed, and there was nothing to play with so she brought me up [my uncle] Joe's fiddle. I wasn't supposed to have it, but I picked it up from there.
KP: Joe being your brother?
FM: My uncle. Christ, he wouldn't let you touch his fiddle; but I sneaked it up anyway and Jeez I picked up a couple of tunes, and then he let me play it after that.
KP: Was there any dancing in the community?
FM: There used to be an old hall down there, Covehead Hall. That's where I started playing first, played there for two or three years before I started going away. That disappeared: the dances and stuff, the old time dances. The dances started at 9, and by half past 10 or 11 there'd be a big fight and it would be all over.
KP: How did you learn to play? Did anybody show you anything?
FM: My Uncle played and I used to pay close attention to him. I learned to play the guitar, I used to play with him a little bit. And then after that I just picked it up on my own. Like I had all the tunes in my head; you'd heard them from the time you were that high, eh [indicates two feet]. There used to be an old feller come out, was a friend of my grandfather's, his name was Paddy Gallant. And he played the fiddle. My grandfather loved fiddle but he hated guitar with a passion. He said it was a "hum-strum." But he'd listen to the fiddle all night. And old Paddy used to come out and spend time with my grandfather, and he played the fiddle.
KP: Where was Paddy from?
FM: Paddy was from up the west end of the Island, too. [He and] my grandfather were buddies all their lives, eh.
KP: How would Paddy get here?
FM: Well, he was living in Charlottetown. My uncle had a car and he'd go in and pick him up and bring him out two or three times a year. And he'd come out and spend a week with us. He was a carpenter, old Paddy. He worked all through the country out here, too, a lot of people knew him out this way. He worked out this way. Paddy had one finger cut off here, and I used to…
KP: That was the index finger you're pointing to.
FM: The end was off it and I used to watch him (laughs)…
KP: So he would use the finger anyway even though it was cut off?
FM: He lost it in the saw or something, in the mill or something, just the end off it. There was part of the nail still there, a little wee bit, but it was just the end off it but he could get 'er around there.
KP: How did they come to you to play at the dances?
FM: My uncle was playing and he just didn't want to play any more. So he told me, he said, "I don't want to play no more," he said, "so you go and take over where I left off." I done that probably for three years before I went away.
