Celtic Encounter

In 1986 Paddy Moloney and Sean Keane of the Chieftains, having heard about the Nelson Town Hall, came to play an informal concert. This was followed by an impromptu contra dance (something they had never seen before), and then we retired to a nearby house for an all night music session.

A year later Paddy called and asked if we could assemble a group to do some contra dances as part of the Chieftain’s New England tour. We quickly put together the Nelson Village Dancer’s. Mary DesRosiers choreographed some dances that we thought might work well as “performances. and after six weeks of intense rehearsal we met the band at Symphony Hall in Boston, where we discovered that the floor of the stage actually slants down towards the audience. The dancers performed one set in each half of the program. The ensuing nights saw gigs in Fall River, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine, and finally Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York. My role as organizer kept me off the stage as a dancer, but I was invited to play the piano during the dance numbers, which was certainly a thrill.

For the two next years the Chieftains included the Colonial Theater in Keene in their spring tour. The stage was not big enough (it has since been renovated) to accommodate dancers, but both local musicians were invited up for a jam to wrap up the performances.

Nelson contra dance:
David Kaynor, Hilliare Wilder, Randy Miller, Tom Hodgson, Will Miller

Rodney Miller, Gordon Peery

Grand finale with the Chieftains at the Colonial.

The band that would become Fresh Fish, at a folk festival in Belgium with the Green Mountain Volunteers, 1985. Kerry Elkin, Tom Hodgson, and someone whose accordion playing has since been banned by National Security.

Randy Miller regales the audience with a New England yarn at the Shetland Folk Festival. To his right, Rod Miller and Skip Gorman. Gordon on guitar, left.

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The father of the “traditional” Shetland guitar accompaniment style, “Peerie” Willie Johnson. Willie’s early exposure to the music of Django Reinhardt set the stage for a very unique approach to backing up the Shetland tunes.
You can read more about Willie by clicking here.