Annotation:Emile Arsenault's
EMILE ARSENAULT'S. Canadian, Reel (cut time). Canada, New Brunswick. G Major/Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. An older mixed mode (major and mixolydian) tune from the repertory of Rogersville, New Brunswick, Acadian fiddler Emile Arsenault, via St-Paul fiddler Gerry Robichaud. The tune is quite possibly a distanced version of "Reel du cordonnier (Le)," as played, for example, by Jean Carignan [1]. According to fiddler Frank Ferrel and Mark Wilson, who produced Robichaud's 1996 recording, the tunes in Gerry's repertory attributed to Emile Arsenault were remembered by a neighbor and fiddler named Oscar Melanson. Oscar was a skilled musician, however, by the time Gerry knew him he was suffering from progressive infantile paralysis and was bedridden and no longer able to play. Oscar well-remembered the one winter week around 1930 when Emile Arsenault came to St-Paul to visit, and his visit was remembered in the community:
Gerry wasn’t yet born, but his older brother Fred recalls Emile’s visit vividly. They had no piano in the house, but a portable organ was borrowed from the village for a cousin, Heni Robichaud, and they had the most wonderful all night soirees. Oscar retained a perfect memory for Emile’s tunes and was able to pass these along to Gerry years later. These wonderful melodies, it seems to us, rank among the Robichauds’ most priceless heirlooms.[1]
- ↑ Frank Ferrel & Mark Wilson, liner notes to Rounder CD 7016, The Robichaud Brothers, "The Slippery Stick: Traditional Fiddling from New Brunswick" (1996).