Annotation:Memories of Emer Briand

Back to Memories of Emer Briand

MEMORIES OF ELMER BRIAND. Canadian, Strathspey. Canada, Cape Breton. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB'. Composed by fiddlers Dave MacIsaac and Jerry Holland (Inverness, Cape Breton) in honor of the late Cape Breton fiddler Elmer Briand (1922-1992).

Briand was born into a French-Acadian home at L'Ardoise, Richmond County, Cape Breton, and was influenced by the piping of his father and Gaelic-speaking of his mother. When he was seventeen he and his family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he came under the influence of Inverness County fiddlers. When World War II broke out, the fiddler joined the Merchant Marine, surviving the torpedoing of his ship off the Russian coast. After six days adrift he was rescued, although many of his shipmates perished. Briand played with Hank Snow, and was a friend of radio and TV fiddler Don Messer, and toured with his band “Elmer Briand and his Cabot Trail Boys.” See his more popular compositions "Beautiful Lake Ainslie", "Johnny Wilmot's Fiddles", "Cheticamp Jig" and "Margaree Valley Waltz (The)."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cranford (Jerry Holland's Collection), 1995; No. 173, p. 49.

Recorded sources: Jerry Holland - "Fiddlesticks Collection."