The Cottars, two young brother-sister pairs from the wind-swept island of Cape Breton, deliver an ingenious, multifaceted take on the folk music of their native Nova Scotia on their U.S. debut, Forerunner. With their dynamic and riveting music, captivating vocals, assured stage presence, and joyous step-dancing, they preserve essential elements of their Celtic heritage. Simultaneously, they are expanding their tradition to include distinctly modern elements – new songs, harmonies, and arrangements – and winning a devoted, ever-growing following in the process.
Cape Breton is a land legendary for its seemingly endless supply of great musicians, and The Cottars were raised to the distinct tune of the island’s traditional music. Hailing from Albert Bridge is Fiona MacGillivray, 16, the group’s lead vocalist, who is blessed with a beguilingly beautiful voice and mature sense of phrasing well beyond her years. She also contributes whistles, harp, and bodhrán. Her brother Ciarán MacGillivray, 18, is the band’s in-house arranger, framing their sound with masterful keyboards, guitar, flute, and whistle. From nearby Baddeck comes Jimmy MacKenzie, 18, who provides texture and momentum with his driving rhythm guitar, and dry wit with his droll stage banter. Jimmy’s sister, fiddler Roseanne MacKenzie, is just 16 and already considered one of the leading young players of her generation in Cape Breton.
Relatively isolated from outside influences, Cape Breton, which had steady immigration from Scotland between 1793 and the 1840s, remains the heartland of Scottish culture in Canada. Cape Breton's raw fiddling style draws on a Highland Scotland repertoire of airs, strathspeys, marches, jigs, reels, and hornpipes from the 18th and 19th centuries, along with strong Irish inflections. “Cape Breton's fiddle music is part of our culture,” says Roseanne. “What I love most about it are the different time signatures that make the rhythm so interesting. Also the different embellishments you can add which I think are lost in contemporary music. If you are classically-trained, it's hard to transfer over to Cape Breton music. You almost have to be a Cape Bretoner to play it.”
Forerunner readily embraces the band’s Cape Breton roots, with “The Honeysuckle Medley” being a particularly strong link back to their early days of performing at local dances and ceilidhs (house parties). There are also a number of Irish-flavored selections, including the rollicking jigs “Miss Casey’s” and “The Humours Of Ballinafauna,” “Pat Works On The Railway,” with an arrangement that includes “The Dusty Windowsill,” the Irish polkas “Johnny Mickey’s,” “The Ballydesmond 1,” and “The Magic Slipper,” and the haunting Irish air “Sliabh Na mBan” inspired by Micheál Ó Súilleabháin of County Cork.
Interspersed with the traditional material are fully-realized versions of modern compositions by such tunesmiths as Tom Waits (“Georgia Lee” and “Hold On”), and Sinead Lohan (“Send Me A River”), as well as Canada's Ron Hynes (“Atlantic Blue”) and Scotland's Karine Polwart (“Waterlily”). What is astonishing about Forerunner is, despite the intermingling of a variety of styles and influences, how honest and natural the end result is. Gloriously evocative vocals and slow airs sit comfortably alongside driving reels and jigs. A listener can hear individual playing, as the rich repertoire and stylistic expressiveness of their music lets each player be truly unique, and yet the whole is always greater than the sum of its respective parts.
When The Cottars first started performing, their musical expertise was often overlooked because of their youth. “But as you grow older,” says Ciarán, “people expect more of you. We are now tighter as a group, and we demand a certain musicianship from each member. This is a coming of age record for us. We really took that next step forward with this album.”
The two families who make up The Cottars met in 2000, while playing on the same bill at a festival in Iona, Cape Breton. Six months later, while performing alongside each other at a club in Iona, a DJ suggested they jam. It was immediately obvious they had a musical and personal bond. They then worked up a Christmas presentation A Child's Celtic Christmas that successfully played in Cape Breton. A few weeks later, as The Cottars, they performed in front of an audience of 3,000 at a festival in Sydney with celebrated Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster. Their name derives from the Scots dialect term “cottar,” which is an archaic word for a peasant or laborer who lives in a cottage as a tenant. Nova Scotians called the new arrivals “cots”, and their traditions and spirit remain a strong influence in ape Breton.
In 2001, The Cottars caught the attention of Canadian singer John McDermott while he was in Cape Breton filming the PBS TV special A Time to Remember. He wanted some local children to perform with him, and the quartet was brought in. McDermott then invited them to open for him in America. “They stole the show every night,” he recalls. After ‘The Cottars’ debut Made in Cape Breton was released in Canada in 2002 on McDermott's Bunnygee Music label, The Cottars performed at the Newport Folk Festival in the U.S. They also made several promotional appearances in Japan where Made in Cape Breton was released by JVC Victor.
In 2003, The Cottars waltzed away with Best New Artist honors at the annual East Coast Music Awards (ECMAs) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They, in fact, stole the show by performing “The Briar and the Rose” and drawing a standing ovation from the audience of 10,000. In the audience was Rounder Records co-founder Ken Irwin. “Their performance was the memory I took home with me,” recalls Irwin. “I found their look striking, and I loved how rootsy they were. But above all I loved Fiona’s voice. There are many pretty voices in the roots field, but it's rare to hear such emotion and purity of voice from such a young girl. A year or so later, when I learned that they were available, I started to look at them as potential Rounder artists.”
In early 2004, The Cottars released On Fire! on their own Sea-Cape Music label in Canada; and on JVC Victor in Japan. In 2005, they won another ECMA, this time for Best Roots/Traditional Recording. Shortly afterward, they reached an agreement with Rounder and began work on Forerunner, enlisting fellow Cape Bretoner Gordie Sampson as co-producer, along with Fiona and Ciarán’s father Allister MacGillivray, an acclaimed Canadian folk music figure.
“They are unbelievable musicians and singers,” says Sampson, who has produced or performed with such artists as The Chieftains, Ashley MacIsaac, Natalie MacMaster, Jerry Holland, and The Rankins. “They play everything, and are enormously talented.”
Almost concurrently with signing with Rounder, The Cottars received an invitation from Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains to join them on their 2006 tour of the U.S. “The Cottars have the same kind of drive and energy The Chieftains had when we were first starting out,” says Chieftains’ founder Paddy Moloney. “With their combination of incredible musicianship, amazing voices and wonderful dancing, what a future they have ahead of them!”
The stunning fusion achieved on Forerunner proves that the future may have already arrived. “We haven't changed that much in style,” Fiona explains. “We are still very traditional. But we’ve grown a lot in our musicianship. We’re playing a different game now that we’re older.”
