(swooshing sound) (mellow tone) - I am Carolyn Currie, singer, songwriter, mother, and lover of music.

Join me as I listen to and speak with some of Maine's premier musical artists on, "Sound Waves."

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(mellow tone) - [Don] Ready?

- [Cindy] Mm-hm.

(upbeat music) - All right, so we were beginning our conversations while we're waiting for things to get ready, and you guys were telling me so much about your backgrounds.

So Cindy, you started telling me where you came from, how you got started in this.

- Well, when I was, from the time that I was one until I was five, we lived with my grandparents right here in Westbrook, Maine.

My grandfather was a fiddle player and piano player, and we had many, many musical friends and a lot of musical family as well.

And so, every weekend to my pee brain from age one to five, I can remember there being a gathering, a party.

It seemed like every weekend there was something going on.

So I grew up with this, with my Pepe, kind of at his knee, if you will, and dancing.

They would have to, my mother would drag me off the floor at nine o'clock at the parties saying, "It's time to go to bed."

And I would say, "But I don't wanna go to bed."

And she would say, "But you're five, so you're going to bed."

When I was in my forties, I decided I wanted to learn, and I was happy and fortunate to hook up with Benoit Bork.

He's a dance master from Quebec.

And he kind of started me with some kabakwa steps.

- Nice.

- And a little bit prior to that, I garnered, it was a pirated copy of Mary Janet MacDonald's, step dancing instruction from Cape Breton Island.

And we learned Erica Brown Shipman and I, we, Erica was about eight, we learned some of those steps together and I was really intrigued with the Cape Breton steps.

So it was in my forties anyway, that I just decided that I really wanted to learn to dance a little bit more.

- [Carolyn] Okay.

- And playing with the main French fiddlers, I played piano, the tapping of the feet.

Some of the older gentlemen used to do it.

And as they got older, their timing was getting off.

So I decided that somebody- - Got tired.

- And they would get tired, yeah.

I guess maybe that's what it was.

But I decided to teach myself how to do that and hopefully to step into that, what I wanna say?

That... - Percussive, it's percussive thing, yeah.

- The shoes, if you will.

Step into their shoes, that's pretty good.

- And when you're doing your percussive foot thing under the piano, do you have special shoes that you wear?

Tap shoes?

- I wear tap shoes, and I have a special, it's a board that I tap my feet on.

It's actually a box, it's a hollow box.

- [Carolyn] Interesting.

- And tap the feet.

It's, because it's a box, it makes it so I don't have to tap so hard and I don't have to work so hard.

- Yeah.

- It also has a pickup on it.

So if we play at Carnegie Hall, let's say.

And I wasn't doing it at Carnegie Hall, but if I was, I could just plug in.

You know, if everybody else was plugged in it makes it a lot easier on me, less tiring.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's quite physical.

- It looks like it would be.

And especially keeping it all together with your feet and your hands.

- Always trying to fool the Fitbit.

- I try to fool my Fitbit.

My Fitbit thinks I'm on outdoor bike when I'm doing that, so I love fooling my Fitbit.

(upbeat music) - [Carolyn] Where did you come from, Don?

- Well, my grandfather was recruited by the paper industry back in the early 1900s to come down from Postville, Quebec and work in the paper mills.

And he brought his fiddle with him He played the fiddle, and he taught his son, my Uncle Lucian, to play the fiddle.

And Uncle Lucian taught me how to play the fiddle.

And Uncle Lucian lived here in Westbrook.

So I was brought up in Rockland.

So my mother during school vacation, would put me on the Greyhound bus and ship me to Portland.

And Uncle Lucian would pick me up and we'd go fishing during the day and play fiddle at night, you know?

But I first wanted to play guitar for my uncle Norman, Lucian's brother.

We'd, same thing, every weekend we'd go to Winslow and there'd be a party and music would break out.

And it was just late in life before I realized it wasn't happening in everybody's house, you know?

That's how common it was.

- But don't you think, so this must have been like '60s and '70s, yeah?

- [Don] Yeah.

- That happened.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I remember bonfires, everywhere we went, there were guitars.

Somebody would grab a guitar and bring it out.

And, way more than we do now.

- When I was six, my Uncle Norman put a guitar in my lap and said, "Put your finger here and start strumming."

So that's where it began me.

- Was it open tuning?

- No, no.

- Okay.

- So then I'd be fishing and playing guitar for uncle Lucian.

And when I was 15, he gave me a fiddle and I took it home and went by a ear and I just enjoyed it, took off with it, so... - And his uncle and my grandfather were very good friends, both living in Westbrook.

My grandfather was from Prince Edward Island.

- Okay.

- As was my grandmother.

And they moved here and raised their family here.

But Uncle Lucian and my Pepe, Alfie Martin, they were great friends.

And my grandfather had a stroke in 1970 and could not play anymore.

And he used to be so frustrated 'cause he really wanted to, but he just couldn't.

- Right.

- And he'd sit at the piano and try to get his fingers, and it affected his, I believe, the right hand.

But anyway, he just couldn't move the fingers, right?

And he would just sit there and cry.

- Oh God.

- And I remember that as a teenager.

And about the same time, Don was learning how to, and we didn't know each other at the time.

- Yeah.

- But he was learning how to play fiddle.

So Lucian, uncle Lucian would bring Don over to play fiddle for my Pepe.

And at some point, my grandfather looked at Uncle Lucian and said, "What a nice match he would be for my Cindy."

and Uncle Lucian said, "Oh, Alfie, they're 15 years old.

They live 90 miles apart.

There's no way that's ever gonna happen."

And so, that was the end of that.

My grandfather passed away in 1977, 1980, I meet this guy on a blind date to play music, set up by family.

My uncle and uncle Lucian's son worked together at Estee Warren at the time in Westbrook.

And they set up a blind date for us.

And I guess the rest is history.

(mellow music) - So you're performing now, and you said that you formed groups, I mean, you've had groups over the years.

And are these primarily performance based groups or were people dancing to your music or... - Both.

- [Carolyn] Both?

- Both, yeah.

We, you know, a lot of times the groups came out of presenters.

We did a group called, "House Island Band" one time through Paul and Performing Arts, again, when they were highlighting different ethnic communities.

And they combined French and Irish.

And we teamed up with Kevin McElroy, and Miguel Kerry, and Elaine- - O' Kelly.

- O' Kelly, who were Irish musicians.

And they put us together with them.

And we came up with something, you know?

And so those groups came together that way.

And sometimes it was just us inviting friends to play with us, you know?

You know, someone wanted a bigger sound, we'd make a few calls and say, "Let's get together."

And sometimes we'd practice, sometimes we wouldn't, you know?

Just set out and go.

- But, so this became your life work, and... - [Don] Not really.

- Not really, we both had regular jobs.

- [Carolyn] Really?

- We did this all on the side.

- [Don] Yeah, yeah.

- Really?

- I'm really glad we did too, yeah.

- It's hard, it's hard work.

- It is hard work.

- Touring is very hard.

It's just rigorous.

- My hat's off to anybody making a living doing music.

Because there's four professions.

You gotta be the performing artist, you gotta be the booking agent, you gotta be a- - Marketer.

- Bookkeeper.

And you gotta be the marketing person.

And you gotta teach, you know?

- And also tune your guitars.

No, you're guitar, I'm talking about me.

Tune your fiddles.

- I don't know how many times parents have asked me, what's my kid gotta do to become a professional musician?

I said, "Learn how to teach.

Cause that's what's gonna pay the bills.

The rest of it's gonna come."

That taught me right there that I didn't want to do music for a living, you know?

'Cause what happens is, you land in some city and there's always a school or there's some- - Which is great.

- Community outreach that's nice to do.

And then there's usually- - Sound checks.

- Sound checks right at the time you're supposed to be eating dinner, you know?

And then you do the gig and then there's some lawyer, a doctor wants you at their house after the gig for a little while, so you go do that.

And you jump on the bus and get up in the morning and do same thing over again.

And it becomes a job then, you know?

It becomes not so much fun as doing what we do and screwing up all the time.

(upbeat music) (cheerful music) (swooshing sound)