The Dusky Meadow

By Donald MacLellan With Doug MacPhee

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Three comments

Very expressive solo Scottish fiddle playing. A nice selection of tunes.

Amazon’s got about six of them for under a dollar.

The music could, or should, also be classified as Cape Breton music. However I think to label it as merely one or the other is doing it a disservice. It is very much both.

Cape Breton fiddling is a derivative of Scottish fiddling, but Donald MacLellan was said to be “one of the Scotchiest players” in Cape Breton. He was the son of Big Ronald MacLellan, who was said to be one of the best fiddle players ever by the older generation of fiddler, most of whom are gone, such as Donald Angus Beaton, Dan D. MacDonald and Dan Hughie MacEachern. Donald’s brother was also a prodigy of a fiddler, but he died young, I believe of pneumonia. Donald’s sister Theresa MacLellan is also a fiddler, and she is still alive and well.