File: princecountyfiddlers-edmathews_M.mp3
Speakers
EM – Ed Mathews
EM: You got my name: Ed Mathews. I was about 18 when I started I suppose. I picked up an old two dollar fiddle I bought from [inaudible]. It had a string on it: no case – just take it up into the barn up at the farm and hang it up on the nail. Just gradually learned and I have it half right and half wrong; that's why I can't read music. I never learned it; I was too stubborn to try and I didn't end up too good really. I'm fightin 'er out now!
KP: Did you play for dances?
EM: Yeah that's the trouble. I played all the easy tunes you see for dances: never learned anything hard
KP: Where did you play for dances?
EM: Oh, I played everywhere. The old halls in them days. John [Gauthier] would know that. The small ones, the size of this.
KP: Did you live in Summerside all your life.
EM: No, I lived out in a place called Baltic. It's north of Kensington, about five or six miles.
KP: So how far afield would you get then?
EM: Oh, we'd go to Darnley 8 or 10 mile, or to Irish town 7 or 8 mile, Spring Valley, Kensington, all that area. And ...
Female voice: And parties too, lots of them.
EM: My God!
