Biography
Buddy MacMaster earned the nickname “the dean of Cape Breton fiddlers.” Until he stepped away from his role as an agent operator with the Canadian National Railway in 1988, recognition for his playing stayed largely confined to Cape Breton, the island lying off Nova Scotia. Once retired, he began touring the United States and the United Kingdom; those journeys, together with the two recordings Judique on the Floor in 1988 and Glencoe Hall in 1991, finally carried his waltzes, jigs, and reels to listeners abroad.
Although Ontario was his birthplace, MacMaster’s musical outlook was shaped after his family relocated to Cape Breton in 1929. As a baby he absorbed countless hours of his father’s Cape Breton fiddle tunes; by ages three and four he was mimicking the bowing motions using scraps of wood. At eleven he discovered the family instrument inside a trunk and performed his first melody that same day. The next year he felt ready to enter an amateur contest in Port Hood, and at fourteen he made his debut at a local dance. For the following four decades his music appeared regularly at house parties, weddings, and concerts across the island, yet it remained an avocation once he accepted a post as telegrapher and station agent for the C.N.R. in May 1943.
Visits to Scotland alongside the Cape Breton Symphony in 1982, 1984, and 1988 allowed him to trace the origins of his style. He returned in 1991 for a tour that paired him with Alistair Fraser and Barbara Magone; a BBC broadcast of one concert became his first recorded appearance.
Judique on the Floor, issued in 1989, featured piano support from John Morris Rankin of the Rankin Family. On the follow-up album Glencoe Hall, released in 1991, he was again joined by Rankin and by guitarist David MacIsaac.
MacMaster was the uncle of Cape Breton fiddlers Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac.
Although Ontario was his birthplace, MacMaster’s musical outlook was shaped after his family relocated to Cape Breton in 1929. As a baby he absorbed countless hours of his father’s Cape Breton fiddle tunes; by ages three and four he was mimicking the bowing motions using scraps of wood. At eleven he discovered the family instrument inside a trunk and performed his first melody that same day. The next year he felt ready to enter an amateur contest in Port Hood, and at fourteen he made his debut at a local dance. For the following four decades his music appeared regularly at house parties, weddings, and concerts across the island, yet it remained an avocation once he accepted a post as telegrapher and station agent for the C.N.R. in May 1943.
Visits to Scotland alongside the Cape Breton Symphony in 1982, 1984, and 1988 allowed him to trace the origins of his style. He returned in 1991 for a tour that paired him with Alistair Fraser and Barbara Magone; a BBC broadcast of one concert became his first recorded appearance.
Judique on the Floor, issued in 1989, featured piano support from John Morris Rankin of the Rankin Family. On the follow-up album Glencoe Hall, released in 1991, he was again joined by Rankin and by guitarist David MacIsaac.
MacMaster was the uncle of Cape Breton fiddlers Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac.
Albums
