File: pitredennis06-oh-familyreaction_M.mp3
Speakers:
DP – Dennis Pitre
VD – Vincent Doucette
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
KP: Did you get encouraged in your house?
DP: No, there was no music – Well, on my mother's side side, but she didn't play anything. Dad - Not one. There was 11 in the family but there was not one musician in the whole 11. But Mom's side, no fiddling but there were the organ and accordion. But the fiddle! I guess the first time I ever heard it whatever it was I fell in love with the sound of the fiddle music.
VD: Did your mother like that when you practiced in the house?
DP: Oh my gosh, she didn't like that too well. In the heat of the summer, in those days there was no electricity, and she'd bake bread downstairs. And after I'd get the fiddle tuned up, I'd run in and I'd run upstairs but it was directly above the kitchen. I didn't even know one note, I didn't know what to do. But when I first got that two feet going – And Mom in the dead of the heat there bakin' bread, she was pretty discouraged (laughs).
KP: How did she react?
DP: She didn't tell me anything, but she'd tell the others, eh, the neighbors. "Oh my god, Dennis's upstairs all afternoon, scratchin' and screechin'." But she didn't tell me anything, you know. Anyway, when a relation came from Egmont Bay, Mom had some relations and they came to visit. I was outside playing with the kids. And Dad was all excited because I could play that tune, eh. So he come outside and he yelled to me "Come on in, come on in and play a little tune for these people (laughs)." I never forgot it, I remember goin' in, eh: so excited cause I could play a little tune; twelve years old , eh.
KP: So how old were you when you played for your first dance?
DP: The first dance I was probably 17 or something, after I started going out to parties.