CAMMIE HOWARD & THE WESTERN FIVE “Country Music…What Is It?” By MIKE O’REILLY The term “Country Music” originally 16 BOUNDER MAGAZINE


meant “music from the country”, sometimes with a disparaging attitude by a more sophisticated strata of society. It was the musical heritage of the farmer, the labourer, the fisherman, in fact most people who perhaps weren’t well educated or socially prominent. The immigrants from the British Isles were primarily in this category and brought with them their heritage, including their music. This includes Canada and the United States. The ancient ballads that had been sung traditionally for hundreds of years found fertile ground in the new world. With the American Revolution the close ties with the old country faded away in the States but remained strong in Canada. The influx of the Irish in the second half of the nineteenth century can be viewed as the second surge of the old traditional music that invaded our


shores. The Maritimes and eastern Ontario were, and are, a great repository of the old music. In eastern Ontario the vast tracts of timber in the Ottawa Valley attracted many an enterprising fellow to start up businesses based on lumbering. Initially, Britain was still fighting Napoleon and the British navy needed masts for their fleet....the tall pines of the valley filled the bill. The lumber camps of the valley were


made up of English (usually the bosses), Scots, Irish and French. These were hard- working, tough, resilient men who cut the pine and sent them down the creeks and rivers to the waiting log booms and on to Britain. At night, for their own entertainment, they would sing and dance and play the fiddle! Most lumber companies knew that the two most important people in a camp were “the cook and the fiddler”. As


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