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June 25 2003

'O Bluegrass, Where Art Thou?' - On Fox Mountain, that's where
by Sandy MacDonald, Halifax Daily News

Bluegrass festivals used to be very conservative gatherings - it wasn’t right if it wasn’t like Bill Munroe played it. Any musician who dared stray from the vintage all acoustic line-up risked being booed off the stage. Bring an electric bass on stage and you could be tarred and feathered.

Thankfully times have changed, says J.P. Cormier, who regularly performs at bluegrass festivals with just his piano-playing wife Hilda Chiasson.

"I don’t think there should be any boundaries put on music."

The multi-talented musician lived and breathed ‘grass as a young teenager, plowing through his Osborne Brothers records at home and learning every lick note-perfect on his guitar. Then he learned them on fiddle, banjo and mandolin.

By age 13, Cormier was performing through the Maritimes and a couple of years later left for the southern U.S., where he was much in demand as a versatile sideman.

"I loved bluegrass so much, I learned everything about it. I think I loved it because I found it so challenging. Bluegrass is immensely difficult to play well. It’s like Cape Breton music - you can’t just toy with it, you have to live it everyday."

Now he plays his original songs, some fiddle sets, maybe some pieces on the banjo. Just don’t expect Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

"Usually we just do what we do. Our shows are focused on what I’m writing," says Cormier. "There’s a lot of bluegrass influence in my music to begin with. I wouldn’t know half of what I know if didn’t grow up playing ‘grass - that’s how I learned to play music." >> more