Couldn’t Have a Wedding without the Fiddler: The Story of Traditional Fiddling on Prince Edward Island by Ken Perlman (review)

Ken Perlman’s book initiates the Charles K. Wolfe Music Series. Honoring the contributions that Wolfe made to scholarship on regional music traditions, the books in this new series focus largely on folk and vernacular music. As Ted Olson writes in the book’s foreword, Couldn’t Have a Wedding without the Fiddlerperfectly launches the series by embodying not only the admiration that Wolfe showed for music based within distinctive regions but also for the depth and breadth of Wolfe’s scholarship as it focused on largely neglected musical expressions. In this respect, the research and writing on Prince Edward Island’s music has largely emphasized its ballad traditions; nevertheless, the islanders have also supported a rich legacy of fiddle music that has remained largely unknown outside of this province. Perlman began documenting the island’s music over two decades ago, and his book is an amazingly comprehensive study of fiddling within its historical and social contexts.

Ken Perlman gained his first taste of fiddle tunes in Prince Edward when he attended the Monticello Tea Party in 1989. When a fiddler and dancer took this local fair’s stage, Perlman was so captivated that he felt he had experienced the ideal combination of fiddle and dance. The performance must have been remarkable, as Perlman is a skilled musician who keeps his own schedule filled with musical performances. Notably, this virtuoso banjo player also is a tasteful guitarist who has written major instructional books on these instruments. Along with his own experience as a performer and teacher, he has completed important research and writing in ethnomusicology. His in-depth and intimate knowledge of old-time music is clearly evident throughout this book. It informs both Perlman’s research approach as well as his style of writing.

“Couldn’t have a wedding without the fiddler” served as a truism within the island’s musical culture. Fiddler Archie Stewart noted that during the Golden Age of the island’s old-time music, the fiddler was one of the three most important people on the island, following right behind the minister and schoolteacher. Fiddlers were integral to a range of social events beyond weddings and socials. In seventeen chapters, Perlman provides a history of fiddling on Prince Edward, blending this chronology with in-depth presentations of the social context for music making. The fieldwork integrates oral history with folklore and ethnomusicology in a method that is both extensive and intensive. He has drawn from the research completed by fieldworkers associated with the Massachusetts-based Earthwatch team as well as with fieldwork completed by teams from Quebec’s Canadian Museum of History. Perlman’s book features interviews with approximately 150 musicians, conducted by Perlman and others in these collaborative ventures. The research also yielded a 2-CD set of recordings that Rounder Records issued as “The Prince Edward Island Style of Fiddling.” Perlman also wrote an instructional book for learning the tunes and other articles based on this field research.

After giving an overview of the island’s history, the book explores how fiddling came to the island in the later years of the eighteenth century. Prince Edward Island styles were established mainly by Scottish and Irish immigrants, and the island’s two-century musical heritage continues to reflect this legacy. There have been regional styles within the island, and Perlman also shows the effects of continuity and change between Canadian music and the musical traditions of Scotland and Ireland. Notably, the Canadian fiddler Don Messer had a major effect on style and repertoire, but Perlman also shows how old-time, bluegrass, and country music from the United States have been absorbed into the music of Prince Edward Island. He devotes considerable attention to ways that...