I'm not at all certain whether to post this on the Celtic section, but I will since he was appearing at a Celtic music festival.
Cape Breton's JP Cormier is an amazing musician!
I caught him last night in the Scottish Highland town of Beauly, as part of the Blas Festival - a celebration of Celtic music in various parts of the North of Scotland.
I arrived early at the gig - a double bill with popular Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis- to make sure I got a ticket. #I met JP having a smoke outside the hall, and introduced myself as a mandolin player. He invited me to try his Stonebridge mandolin ( a Czech make he seemed very pleased with) and we ended up having a wee session on my Sobell 10 string mandolin and the Stonebridge. #He knows heaps of tunes. #Hornpipes I thought might be Canadian turned out to be by Marshall or Gow - great tunes I'd never heard before. #A really tremendous mandolin player who clearly has an enormous repertoire.
At his gig, he primarily played guitar with one fiddle feature and a mandolin one. #He has a great voice, and featured his own country-tinged songs. #He used to live in Nashville, working as a country musician and songwriter before moving back to Cape Breton about 10 years ago. He is married to the great piano player Hilda Chiasson, who accompanied him at the gig and who I know from Jerry Holland's classic recordings.
Much as I enjoyed his fiddle and mandolin playing, I have to admit his forte is the acoustic guitar. #What a player! #Jigs, strathspeys, Chet Atkins stuff, etc etc, ending with a quite extraordinary rendition of the old favourite 'The Mason's Apron'.
Phew!
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