File: huestislowell06-oh-huestisorchestra.mp3
Speakers:
LH – Lowell Huestis
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
LH - We had the band and when we went to play they would want old time music, see, so we had to get the fiddler to come along with us.
KP – Oh. You were playing other kinds of music.
LH: Yeah. We had the drummer, we had the guitar player, and I played the piano.
We brought the fiddler along, Russell [Warren] or Lini [Bolger] or whoever we were doing the gig with.
KP: Did the band have a name?
LH: It was the Lowell Huestis orchestra for many years back then.
KP: And you played these dance halls?
LH: Yeah, modern old-time.
KP: So what kind of music was the band created to play, the popular music of the day?
LH: Yeah, what were some of the songs of the 1940s, '48, '52? Five Minutes More, songs like that.
KP: What pieces did you have in the band?
LG: The guitar, drums, the piano, my brother on the saxophone and another friend on the trumpet. I'll show you a picture.
KP: I'd like to see one. And then you would add the fiddler to appeal…
LG: To give us that…
KP: Old-time feel
LG: Yeah.
KP: Where did the band used to play?
LH: We played at the Diner in Summerside west, and there'd be calls for us to play O'Leary – In the summertime when the tourists were here and people were wanting to dance, and we played various places B Borden, and there was many years we played in Charlottetown, the Rollaway. That was when the rock 'n roll and the Elvis era come in, [and] we didn't bring the fiddler.
