File: woodrichard06-oh-olderfiddlers_M.mp3
Speakers:
RW – Richard Wood
RW: Those experiences, they were great for me because it was a bonding time with my Dad [Terry Wood]. It would be nothin' for us to be up at a ceilidh, or be in Monticello. Or say, "We just had dinner, what do you want to do. We got a couple of hours. Well let's go for a drive, we'll go up to see George Mel [MacPhee]." We'd pop into his house, have some tea, the next thing you know the fiddle would be out, naturally! That's just the way it would happen. Play a tune, put it down. Maybe talk for another 15 or 20 minutes. Pick it up again, put it down. So it was those kind of things. It would be like havin' a pack of cigarettes on the table, and you know you didn't have enough. That's what it was like a lot of the times. You'd take one out, you lit it up, you'd pass it around, passin' the fiddle around, you'd play a few tunes, and you'd put it out, you'd put it down. And that was it. And then you'd just carry on. And then you'd do the same thing again, you just pass – Play a few tunes: "Do you know this tune, tou ever hear this one before?" And so it was a lot of fun, we did that too at a lot of different places. And of course you'd meet these same people too at a lot of the concerts, or at the ceilidhs. You'd meet them again later that night, or you'd meet them next week. "Did you hear about so and so?" "No" "Oh, he's got cancer, they're havin' a benefit for him in Georgetown next week. Are you gonna be there?" "Oh yeah, I'll probably be there." And then you see them there, you're playin' with them again there. So I miss a bit of that, I do miss that now, because it's not the same. I do go whatever I can. But it's just not quite the same, it's different. It's different now; it's a different time.
RW: It's the way the music is going. It's a different time then. The music was really strong within B Winston Scotty, Angus Chisholm, the Chaissons, all those people, all up around that area (northeast Kings), it felt really, really strong, and it felt like there was a real break to come through there, between myself, Ashley, Natalie, the Chaissons, Timothy, JJ. There was somethin' really bubblin' there, and that did burst and come through. But it was at that point then that things seemed to be at a super strength. A lot of people are gettin' older too, you see a lot of different faces at the concerts. A lot of people can't get out of the house anymore. So old father time he carries on in that sense for a lot of people. And a lot of the fiddle players are of that time frame that we were talkin' about B that whole generation, that whole time frame is takin' another step. So now, are the young players doin' that now [visiting the older players]? I don't know. Some maybe are, not to the strength it was when we were young.
