[ MAUKA-MAKAI ]
MacMaster’s a At one point in her brief and already blazing career, fiddler Natalie MacMaster was offered a featured solo spot in the big-deal Irish hoof-arama "Lord of the Dance," but she declined. Although MacMaster step-dances while she plays -- unconsciously, the girl can't help it -- her roots are in Scottish rather than Irish music.
fine lassie with
a fiddle
This brave heart has set
herself to spreading her
music around
Burl Burlingame
Star-BulletinThat's a pretty fine hair being split on this side of the world, but in the Cape Breton community where MacMaster grew up, musical tradition is taken seriously.
And one of those serious traditions is to have fun while playing. Being a cog -- even a featured cog -- in a touring company of top-dollar ankle wallopers simply can't compare to blowing into faraway towns like a Gaelic whirlwind. MacMaster has become a fixture on the East Coast and a bona fide star in Canada.
Judging by her recordings and by reviews of her performances elsewhere, it should be quite an evening.
In concert: 7 p.m. Wednesday NATALIE MACMASTER
Place: Andrews Outdoor Theatre
Admission : $18 ($15 students).
Call: 956-6878
MacMaster is clearly a real master of her instrument, drawing melancholy scrapes and fat, hanging cries from ballads; sassy, orotund jump-melodies from jigs, reels and strathspeys. She has an intuitive sense of hurtling melody and native rhythm -- one of those musicians who can make whole room dance by sheer dint of her playing. "My Roots Are Showing," her album of Cape Breton traditionals, was nominated for a Grammy.
Raise your hand if you can find Cape Breton on the globe. It's a taco-shape smudge of islands to the northeast of Nova Scotia, right in the teeth of the Atlantic. It was settled by Scots sick of English usury and, for a little while, by Acadians beating feet out of Brittany on their way to Louisiana. The strong connections between Scotland and Brittany are evident in music. Anyone who's heard a Cajun fiddle master will appreciate the roll and cadence of a Cape Breton musician like Natalie MacMaster.
We caught up with MacMaster on the road in ... well, we didn't mean to stump her with the first question. After a brief consultation off-line, MacMaster managed to figure out she was somewhere near Scranton. Pennsylvania. Fort Something, she was pretty sure, and had a throaty giggle at her own confusion.
"We're playing a hundred or so concerts a year these days; a couple of years ago, we were doing about 250 a year. Someday, when we're more established, we can make do with a hundred or so a year," said MacMaster, 28, and when informed that B.B. King is still playing several hundred gigs a year at age 76, she blurted out: "No way! How can he do that and still be alive?"
Although MacMaster has toured with the Chieftains and the Dixie Chicks and other top draws, her heart is still in Cape Breton, and she lives in Nova Scotia, only a two-hour drive from her folks on the island. "Born and raised in Cape Breton, sir," she said. "It was my upbringing. And so it was very natural that I picked up a fiddle -- that's what we call it -- real young. Bretonians have a long history of fiddling. There is no other instrument for us, not even as an option. No accordions, thank you! I just took to the sound and the vibration of the fiddle.
"I played by ear and took lessons for a few years, but I did a lot of my learning simply by listening to old recordings by myself and playing along. My mom would play recordings of traditional Cape Breton music as I went to sleep, and my dreams were musical."
MacMaster neglects to brag about herself. She picked up the fiddle at 9 years old, played her first public concert -- to hundreds -- at age 10. She made her first recording, on cassette, at age 11. She recorded another cassette as a teenager and sold piles of them, and her first big-time CD album at age 20. She's riding a crest of renewed interest in honest ethnic music, particularly Gaelic, and tourism in Cape Breton is largely music-obsessed.
She also has tight-fitting musical genes; her parents are both musicians, and uncle Buddy MacMaster is also a fiddling whiz. It doesn't hurt that she's also vivacious and attractive enough to be in demand for Canadian television commercials.
"I've played everywhere there was to play in Cape Breton," she chuckled. "Dance halls, weddings, parties, school assemblies. Once I figured out I could make a living at it, I've been playing ever since."
She's never been to Hawaii and doesn't know quite what to expect except for "lots and lots of blue-green ocean."
Majoring in education, MacMaster dropped out of college only three credits shy when she hit the road full time. She made up the missing classes while touring, by correspondence courses, doing homework in hotel rooms. She also recorded an educational video, introducing kids to the fiddle.
The constant touring doesn't leave her much time for other activities -- "My only hobby was the fiddle, and there's not much time for anything else these days" -- and volunteers no information on a long-term, long-distance boyfriend other than confirmation.
"Although I'd like to take some cooking classes someday. Desserts! I love my desserts. In Cape Breton we call desserts 'squares.' 'Cut me a square, dear.' Ah, I love Cape Breton, but it's all meat and potatoes there. What do you eat in Hawaii?"
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