The Heart of Cape Breton: Fiddle Music Recorded Live Along the Ceilidh Trail. Compiled, produced and annotated by Burt Feintuch. Recorded and mixed by Pete Reiniger. (Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40491, 2002, one compact disc and pp. 34 notes booklet).

In comparison to other fiddle recordings, the concept of The Heart of Cape Breton: Fiddle Music Recorded Live Along the Ceilidh Trail is unique. In July 2000, producer, folklorist, and fiddler, Burt Feintuch, and Smithsonian Folkways sound supervisor, Pete Reiniger, loaded a van with recording equipment and spent eight days following the popular “Ceilidh Trail,” otherwise known as Route 19, through Inverness County along the west side of Cape Breton Island. Their goal was to “record the music in the heart of the robust Cape Breton tradition, at dances, local concerts, and other music events…” (4). The result is “a snapshot of a week on the Ceilidh Trail” (13). Although it includes several Acadian and First Nations communities, Inverness County has a primarily Scottish heritage. It has long been known in Cape Breton, and increasingly so outside this close-knit community, as a hotbed of traditional Cape Breton fiddle music. During my one-week stay in 1998 at the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts in St. Ann’s (http://www.gaeliccollege.edu), my Cape Breton fiddling-crazy colleagues and I spent every evening at a dance or concert somewhere in Inverness County. Although my trip was two years previous to Feintuch and Reiniger’s recording tour, and included a slightly different line-up of musicians, this recording could be a soundtrack to that week. Certainly they have managed to capture the energy and enthusiasm of both musicians and audiences that I remember so well. Quantitatively, this recording consists of 12 tracks, 11 musicians, including six fiddlers, 73 tunes, and a full 72 minutes of playing time. In his introductory essay, Feintuch provides an overview of Cape Breton fiddling and its social contexts, with a thumbnail history of the Island, its inhabitants, and music. He describes the distinctive Cape Breton piano accompaniment and dancing, and discusses the importance of fiddling in terms of social and economic capital. Feintuch’s notes for each track are extensive. First, he provides some introductory biographical information about the musicians, both fiddlers and back-up musicians, focusing on musical lineages and influences, particularly of family, and referring the reader to websites for follow-up reading. For the tunes themselves, he discusses alternate names and the significance of some of the names to the Cape Breton fiddle tradition. He identifies their composers where possible, and in what collections they may be found. Just finding names for many of these tunes is no small task; in this he was helped by Cape Breton fiddle scholar Kate Dunlay, who Feintuch acknowledges. Feintuch also provides descriptions of various tune genres (strathspey, jig, reel), for example, “Strathspeys are generally in 4/4 time. They inevitably include dotted rhythms...” (17), making this recording friendly for newcomers to Cape Breton fiddle music. Finally, the notes for each track conclude with a detailed description of the context of the event, and hence the recording. The recordings represent seven different events: the Ceilidh Trail School concert, Port Hood Arena dance, Mabou Hall dance, Broad Cove Scottish concert, Glencoe Mills dance, Mabou Hall ceilidh, and Brook Village Hall dance. A small criticism — I wish Feintuch had included a map locating the different events to help readers understand the physical relationship between the various locales. With regard to instrumental technique, the notes are uneven. Some comments provide important insights. For example, of Betty Beaton’s piano accompaniment, Feintuch writes: “Listen to the way she occasionally doubles the melody with her right hand while keeping a solid beat with the left” (18). Yet other comments are overly general: “listen to Jackie’s strong, creative piano accompaniment” (24), “no one plays dance music better than Kinnon and Betty” (27). …