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Nashville North: Nova Scotia's Singer/Songwriter's Rival Music City at the Celtic Colours Bards & Ballads Concert
By Ginger Warder

Nova Scotia means “new Scotland” so it’s no surprise that the Celtic music those early settlers brought from their homeland is a prominent part of today’s cultural landscape in this breathtaking province. What did surprise me on my first trip to the Celtic Colours Music Festival on Cape Breton was the world-class talent of three local songwriters who are virtually unknown outside of Canada, and are about as Celtic as a night at the Bluebird Café in Nashville.

The fall festival, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary next year, takes place over 9 days in October with over 40 concerts at venues dotted all around the island. Guitarists, fiddlers, step dancers, singer/songwriters, and traditional Scottish music are as diverse and colorful as the fall foliage, making this week-plus road trip a spectacular sampling of the beauty and culture of North America’s Gaelic outpost.

I was absolutely blown away at the Bards & Ballads Concert at the Wagmatcook Culture and Heritage Centre, located to the west of Alexander Graham Bell’s treasured retreat in Baddeck. Three stars of the Nova Scotia music scene, performing in the song-swap style popularized at the Bluebird, shared their stories and original music with a sold-out crowd of over 600.

Cape Breton’s hometown son, Bruce Guthro, was the stage leader for the evening, primarily because it was Guthro who brought this performing concept to life in his CBC Television series called The Songwriter’s Circle. Guthro’s mainstream style and mellow voice, along with his captivating storytelling, are the modern-day equivalent of Gordon Lightfoot. While his lyrics are about traditional Celtic subjects, his style is pure pop folk, in the vein of James Taylor or Dan Fogelberg, strikingly different from the material he performs as the lead singer of Scotland’s popular Celtic rock band, Runrig. Guthro, whose first EMI Canada album Of Your Son went gold, played a few songs from his eagerly awaited new release which sold out before this night’s concert began. “Marching on Jerusalem” was a somber social and political commentary which didn’t excite the crowd nearly as much as some of his older tunes.

Young Dave Gunning, an ECMA( East Coast Music Association) award-winner who is the newest member of the elite top tier of songwriters in the local scene, had an incredible voice and a warm, boyish stage presence that charmed every person in the hall. Similarly, his simple and romantic ballads like “Saltwater Hurts” were poignant and sincere, a quality that may soon take him away from his house gig at the upscale Keltic Lodge and catapult him into the national spotlight. Gunning self-deprecatingly calls his style “country and eastern”, a nod to his roots in Eastern Canada’s music community and a small poke at Nashville’s country and western moniker.

Transplanted New Zealander, Andrew White, was, quite simply, the knockout punch of the night. This Russell Crowe look-alike with his trademark black hat, whiskey-soaked voice, and incredible guitar chops took no prisoners, blazing through decidedly un-Celtic tunes like “Ragtime Blues” and “When Johnny Played Guitar” , inspiring leader Guthro to comment “I hear you play that and I wonder how well this (gesturing to his guitar) would burn.” White’s edgey vocals on songs like “Sandragon” and “Holy Island” are unplugged rock with equal measures of angst and irony that would translate easily to a full-blown band in an arena setting. Moving from jazz to rock to blues with extraordinary and seemingly effortless finger picking, White was the catalyst that set this concert ablaze.

Even more fun than the actual concerts are the after-parties held nightly in the Great Hall of Clans at the Gaelic College. With huge fireplaces blazing and beer flowing from the portable bars, this is a real ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) with performers from all of the concerts taking the stage in impromptu jams until the wee hours. You can’t turn around without running into a MacNeil, a MacDonald, or a Rankin, some of the most beloved traditional performing families on the island, and the spontaneous pairing of these Celtic favorites with their contemporary peers is musical magic.

Last year, over 19,000 tickets were sold to the Celtic Colours Festival with over 4500 visitors from Western Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The 10th Anniversary festival promises to top them all, with performers from throughout the history of the event returning for an encore. Whether you’re a music lover , a travel lover, or a cetified leaf-peeper, nine days in October on Cape Breton, following the music around the Cabot Trail, is a road-trip that will be the memory of a lifetime, and as close to the Scottish Highlands as you can get on this continent.

Celtic Colours Music Festival: Tickets for 2006 go on sale July 11th online at www.celtic-colours.com or toll-free by phone at 888-355-7744

Ginger Warder is a freelance travel writer and regular contributor to The Traveler.

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Editors Note: The Traveler was provided a review copy of Andrew White's live CD. Great stuff! Andrew is a talented singer/songwriter, and guitarist. And we should know, we've traveled with a few! Check out his music and bio at AndrewWhiteMusic.com