It just never occurred to me. My sister sang, and so did my dad. I was the fiddle player, but then Rounder asked me to give it a try and see how it goes. Two hours of fiddle music -- even if you're a fiddle fan -- is a lot. (The singing) could open up a lot of doors. |
It's energetic and very high off the ground. Some styles of step dancing in Canada are close to the ground. They're rhythmic, but there isn't a lot of lifting and jumping and hopping. But in the Ottawa Valley style, we don't stand straight and there's a lot of flailing around. |
The style of dance that I do is called Ottawa Valley Step Dancing. The area was settled by people who came to work in lumber camps. They were mainly French, Irish, Scottish, German and Polish. They traded fiddle tunes and used their feet to accompany themselves. The dance style developed that way, but it's certainly evolved a lot since then. |
We felt that track had a representative feel of the whole album, kind of an overall vibe to the CD. There's a dual meaning that represents my roots in the Ottawa Valley. |