Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald (1914 to 1987) was the most recorded and most copied Cape Breton fiddler of the twentieth century. He cut 78s for Rodeo and Celtic starting in the late 1940s, then a string of LPs with his trio, the Radio Entertainers. He played on Canadian television with Don Messer and with the Cape Breton Symphony. Fiddlers across the island learned his settings note for note, and a 1997 tune book preserves 232 of them.
Why Fitzgerald matters
Before Fitzgerald, Cape Breton fiddle lived in kitchens and dance halls. His records carried it to radio, to television, and to Boston and Detroit. He set the trio sound of fiddle, piano, and guitar that every Cape Breton band after him has used. He also brought hornpipes, clogs, and the Scottish compositions of J. Scott Skinner into the dance repertoire. If you play a Cape Breton set today, you are playing his choices.
Life and career
Fitzgerald was born on February 16, 1914, in White Point, a fishing village at the northern tip of Cape Breton Island. His father, George, played fiddle for local dances. Winston picked up the fiddle at about age eight and played his first paid picnic dance as a young teenager for $2.50. He had no radio and no records at home, so he learned from his father and from neighbors like Hector Hugh MacDonald.
In the 1930s he moved to Halifax. He played for square dances, worked eight years in the shipyards, and joined the Ramblers on radio station CHNS. Hank Snow hired him for a morning radio show and then took him on tour for about two and a half years. In the same decade Fitzgerald took a correspondence course from the U.S. School of Music, which taught him to read notation and gave him new bowing tools. He served in the Army until 1946.
After the war he settled in Sydney and formed the Radio Entertainers with Beattie Wallace on piano and Estwood Davidson on guitar. The trio played on radio and made 78s for Rodeo and Celtic in the 1950s, followed by LPs for Rodeo, Celtic, Banff, and Canadian Cavalcade through the 1960s and 1970s. Television came next: Cliff McKay’s Holiday Ranch, Don Messer’s Jubilee, and later the Cape Breton Symphony on The John Allan Cameron Show.
Fitzgerald never lived on music alone. He spent 28 years with Stott Aluminum in Sydney until he retired. On a trip to Scotland he played for the fiddler Hector MacAndrew, who told him Cape Breton had kept the old dance style that Scotland had lost. He died in Sydney on September 2, 1987, weeks after Cape Breton’s Magazine published a long interview with him and released the cassette House Parties and 78s.
Playing style
Fitzgerald was a dance fiddler first. He played strathspeys, reels, marches, and jigs, and he added hornpipes and clogs that older island players avoided because the bowing was too hard. His timing sat square on the beat for step dancers. The piano and guitar in his trio locked in under him and gave his records a drive that later bands copied.
The thing that makes him recognizable is ornament. He said he put “a lot of time in on grace notes” and called a plain melody “the frame of the tune.” He dressed each frame with grace notes, cuts, and small bow changes, and he kept changing them from night to night. He wanted to beat his own last performance, not another player. He also reached for tunes by Scottish composers such as J. Scott Skinner and Alexander Walker, and he played them in flat keys like B flat and F.
Influences and legacy
Fitzgerald learned from his father and from the picnic fiddlers of Victoria County. He named Angus Chisholm as a close friend and said the two traded tunes without either copying the other. He met Little Jack MacDonald at a party at Buddy MacMaster’s house and admired his way of reshaping tunes. He worked beside Don Messer on television and beside Buddy MacMaster at island house parties.
His legacy runs through his records. Paul Cranford transcribed his performances in Winston Fitzgerald: A Collection of Fiddle Tunes (Cranford Publications, 1997), with 232 tunes and chords by Jerry Holland. Breton Books and Music reissued 22 of his Celtic tracks as Classic Cuts. He wrote at least one tune of his own, The Green Fields of White Point.
Signature tunes and songs
The Iron Man Sleepy Maggie Miss Ann MacCormack McNabb’s Hornpipe Farmer’s Daughter Crossing the Minch Trip to Windsor The Green Fields of White Point.
Essential recordings
Winston (Scotty) Fitzgerald (Rodeo, 1960) Winston Scotty Fitzgerald and His Radio Entertainers (Celtic, 1967) The Music of Cape Breton (Canadian Cavalcade, 1973) House Parties and 78s (Cape Breton’s Magazine, 1987)
Watch and listen
An audio upload of Fitzgerald’s trio on Miss Ann MacCormack and Sleepy Maggie. Listen for the grace notes on every repeat.
Fitzgerald plays J. Scott Skinner’s The Iron Man, a hornpipe in a flat key that shows his left hand and his bow control.
What to learn from Fitzgerald
Learn Sleepy Maggie from the trio recording. It is a fast reel that most sessions know, and his setting shows how a few added notes turn a plain tune into a Cape Breton tune. The technique to steal is his grace note habit. Take one reel you already play and add a single cut before the first note of each bar for a week. Fitzgerald said no two fiddlers should play a tune the same way, so use his ornaments as a start and then change them.
Sources
With Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald, Cape Breton’s Magazine, Issue 46 Cape Breton’s Magazine, Issue 46, Page 13 Cape Breton’s Magazine, Issue 46, Page 20 Winston Fitzgerald, Wikipedia Winston Fitzgerald, Discogs Winston Scotty Fitzgerald and His Radio Entertainers, Discogs The Music of Cape Breton, Discogs Winston Fitzgerald: Classic Cuts, Cranford Publications Winston Fitzgerald’s Collection, Cranford Publications The Inimitable Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald, Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more players. Fitzgerald shared television stages with Don Messer and house parties with Buddy MacMaster. Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac carry the Cape Breton sound he recorded to stages around the world.