The below recording comes from the Karl Byarski collection (linked in the recordings section). This recording was an interview/visit by a Michigander at Durocher’s home in 1964, where a recording was made to be sent to fiddlers in Michigan, such as Eddie Kranz.
Much of Michigan could be described as a border region. Even though most of Michigan is bordered by water, the Lakes did not represent an impassible barrier but in fact an avenue of cultural exchange. But the three narrows or rivers – the St. Mary’s, the St. Clair, and the Detroit – that bring Ontario and Michigan close represent a heightened level of exchange. The Bluewater Area, centered on Sarnia and Port Huron, can serve as an example of the cultural meaning of the border. These days, festivals and sessions in Ontario draw musicians from across southeastern Michigan to cross the border. Goderich, Ontario in particular has drawn musicians from the Irish music communities. I once sat on the Canadian side of the Sarnia – Port Huron crossing and looked over to see Irish music superstars Kevin Burke and John Carty sitting in a car in the next row, all of us departing Ontario at the end of the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival. We waved before heading to our respective interrogations. Regulations and the political climate have increased the difficulties of crossing the border – a passport is now required, the pandemic has complicated everything, further dividing us from our Canadian neighbors with whom our region has strong familial, cultural, and economic ties. Throughout the history of the St. Clair River region, any attempt at drawing a hard and fast line between the peoples on either side of the river would be a mistake. Along the border, it is not unusual to see the American and Canadian flags flown together at equal height.
Though the river now represents an international border, it had a long history prior to that condition. Though passports are now required for crossing, Canadians and Americans still live less than a mile away from each other and interact continuously. Quebec-born Frenchman Louis Joliet has gone down in history in part for being the first European explorer of the St. Clair River in 16691 In 1686, three hundred years before my birth, the French built the first fort where Port Huron now lies,2 and though the French fort’s lifespan was short, French occupation or claimed ownership of the region was not. It is important to remember that Michigan was once part of France’s active holdings and that the region spent considerable time under the claim of the French and the British prior to United States claim. The influence of these other cultures did not stop with the change of titular authority. When the American side of the St. Clair River near Port Huron began to see permanent civilian settlement by Europeans and Euro-Americans at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, those living on the American side of the river bore names such as Francois Lerviere, Baptiste Levois, Duchien, Jervais, Corneais, Deschamps, and Moreau3 Well into the 19th century, the French formed the largest European people group in Michigan.4 At the beginning of the 20th century, more work-stimulated French-Canadian immigration put that ethnicity at the fourth largest in the state, and speaking of Canadians in a broader category, “about 75% of Canadian immigrants going to Michigan were lumberjacks.”5
By the end of the 1830s, the Patriot War brought conflict and bloodshed between British loyalists and radical revolutionaries from the U.S. side who planned to invade Canada and “liberate” it from British rule. A series of battles and skirmishes were fought, and the St. Clair River did not rest easy.6 Later in the century, the sister cities of Sarnia and Port Huron would serve as ports of sailing culture. When Dr. Ivan Walton collected throughout the Lakes to preserve the songs of the sailors in the early 20th century, Port Huron and St. Clair proved to be important and rich sources in the collecting process; classic ballads such as “the Bigler” and the “E.C. Roberts” were found in these river towns.7 In fact, one of the later owners of the schooner E.C. Roberts lived in the town of St. Clair, and at least a couple of its crew members throughout the years settled on the St. Clair River.8
In the 1920s, the Prohibition Era brought about a romantic golden age, of sorts, in commerce across the river. One statistic suggests 75% of the bootleg to enter the U.S. came through the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and Detroit River window.9 The bootleg legends are rich with amusement. Money and product (especially, one might assume, alcohol) are not likely to be exchanged without some culture tagging along for the ride. Incidentally, the lower drinking age in Canada continues an alcohol-based border relationship as nineteen-year-olds cross the border for their first drinks. In turn, one Canadian fiddler told me, Canadians over twenty-one cross to the United States to take advantage of cheaper beer on our side of the river.
Evelyn Johnson Roe was “born on a farm east of Jeddo, Michigan in 1920.” Besides playing the piano by ear, she wrote, “I also learned the guitar playing in the theatres in Pt. Huron and Sarnia and sang comical songs and took first place in both shows. I got $5 at each place; that was big money then.” Evelyn also wrote, “At 5 my father started me on the piano as he played the violin.” Remember, the piano or pump organ is often the most traditional accompaniment instrument for fiddling in the north, and many old-timers did not use the terms violin and fiddle with the same connotations common today. Evelyn writes that “His grandfather wrote music. I had an older brother who played the mouth organ and piano.” The mouth organ here is the harmonica. This is a quick picture of one of the old music-making families of the area. Though Evelyn was not a fiddler, herself, she indicates she accompanied dance music and her participation in competitions both in Port Huron and Sarnia reveals the connection these cities had. Evelyn later married a square dance caller.10
The second and third decades of the 20th century transformed fiddling across North America in a dramatic way. Nothing would ever be the same once the radio began influencing the way fiddlers played by introducing sounds from outside their communities. Before this point, records, traveling minstrel shows, and vaudeville helped circulate tunes between communities through in-person performances and by record purchases. But radio would allow tunes from great distances to easily find their way into homes on a scale unprecedented in history. For fiddlers from the borders of Vermont to the borders of Michigan and well beyond, CBC star-fiddler Don Messer’s (1909-1973) influence can hardly be calculated. His tunes ended up in the repertoires of fiddlers like Cyril Stinnett in Missouri and Jehile Kirkhuff in Pennsylvania. While a cowboy, hillbilly, polka, and Upper Midwestern mix blasted out of WLS in Chicago,11 the Grand Ole Opry blasted its signal from Nashville, Tennessee. Don Messer countered from “down east” in Canada, XERA mega-blasted from Mexico12 and other more local stations weighed in with different flavors of old time, polka, and popular music.13 Michigan, as well as much of the rest of North America, felt the crossfire.
It is no surprise then, that an Old Timer in Charlevoix Michigan could walk into a pub and recognize Canadian fiddle style, saying to me, “Someone’s been spending time in Canada.” Nor is it surprising to hear another old timer in Hillsdale, Michigan come up to tell me that he liked my playing and that it reminded him of hearing fiddling from a small Ontario town’s radio station many years ago.14 A native of the St. Clair River, I learned to fiddle primarily in Canada.
Some of Messer’s tunes were not just coming from his “Down East” coast Canadian broadcast, they were actually coming from the St. Clair River’s own prolific tune composer and fiddler, Johnny Durocher (1934-1989).15 Durocher wrote hundreds of fiddle tunes in his life.16 He met Don Messer at an eventful performance in Sarnia (just after a tornado). Durocher provided Messer with tunes that were broadcast and recorded and consequently distributed all over the continent and probably beyond.17 Consequently, fiddlers and audiences along the St. Clair River heard tunes broadcast from the east coast of Canada that actually had local origins. “Blind River Breakdown,” comes from Johnny Durocher, and it still has play among fiddlers in Canada, including grand master champion fiddler Pierre Schryer, a Franco-Ontarian. “The Concert Reel” and “Fiddle Fingers” are other examples of Durocher’s tunes. At the top of this article, Johnny can be heard playing his own composition, the “Concert Reel,” for a Michigander visiting at his house who was recording tunes for other Michiganders including Thumb fiddler Eddie Kranz. During the 1980s when the Port Huron Museum was hosting the House Party series, Johnny Durocher and his fiddler friend Ron St. Pierre came over from Sarnia to Port Huron to join in.
In addition to Durocher’s tunes, Eddie Kranz of Harbor Beach, Michigan (in the Thumb) wrote a tune called “Michigan Hornpipe” and sent it in to Don Messer, who played it on his program (either radio or television) and even stated they’d play it again as he anticipated requests for it.
Paul Gifford in his foundational essay on Michigan fiddling notes that the Thumb region was settled by many people from Canada – a factor which he says influenced the music. Tunes like “Little Burnt Potato” got play in this part of Michigan, Gifford writes. “Little Burnt Potato” also got play by Don Messer and was collected in Vermont where folklorist and fiddle scholar Richard Blaustein learned it from a local fiddler who boasted a significant collection of Messer records, among other artists.18 The Canadian influence in fiddling in the Thumb of Michigan (where fiddling was truly rampant) can be heard in the Byarski Collection and Pariseau Collection, both linked on the recordings section of this site.
In the early 20th century, Michigan represented a lively ethnic mix. But, according to a map depicting those claiming French ancestry in Michigan on the 1990 census, St. Clair County is one of the densest counties in the state – while many of the counties of the Thumb to the north are much more sparse, as is much of the U.P..19 But, the amount that can be determined based on what folks marked on the census is questionable, and it is not possible to determine from the map what proportion of these claims are based on original 18th century French settlement or later 19th and 20th century French Canadian immigration (or European-French ancestry), factors that could make a big difference in regards to music. Yet, the strong stylistic commonalities between Ontario Old Time and Michigan Old Time fiddling as they exist today indicate a fairly related historical experience.
1Bruce Catton, Michigan: A Bicentennial History, 13; Emelyn Jenks Crampton, History of the Saint Clair River written for the centennial of the founding of St. Clair County on May 8, 1821, (St. Clair, MI: St. Clair Republican, 1921), 5, via Open Library, id ID# OL6666874M (accessed October 13, 2011).
2Emelyn Jenks Crampton, History of the Saint Clair River, 8.
3William Lee Jenks, St. Clair County, Michigan, Its History and Its People: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress and Its Principal Interest (1912),(Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1912), 140, via Open Library, id ID# OL23454898M (accessed October 13, 2011).
4DuLong, 13.
5DuLong, 21,16.
6William Lee Jenks, St. Clair County, Michigan, Its History and Its People: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress and Its Principal Interest (1912),(Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1912), 101, via Open Library, id ID# OL23454898M (accessed October 13, 2011);
7Ivan H. Walton and Joe Grimm, Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002), 12-17, 267-268.
8Walton and Grimm, 119.
9Jenny Nolan, “How Prohibition Made Detroit a Bootleggers Dream Town,” The Detroit News, June 15, 1999, http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=181 (accessed October 13, 2011).
10OMFA, Original Michigan Fiddlers 1986, 88.
11Leary, 33-34; Martin, 93-94.
12Leary, 56-57.
13Ibid., 33-34, 118.
14Both incidents occured in the summer of 2011.
15The Fiddlers Companion, “The Television Reel,” ed. Andrew Kunst, http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/TE.htm (accessed October 14, 2011).
16Pat Hegarty, personal correspondence with author, e-mail, 2011.
17The Fiddlers Companion, “The Television Reel,” ed. Andrew Kunst, http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/TE.htm (accessed October 14, 2011).
18According to a conversation with Richard Blaustein in the winter of 2010-11.
19DuLong, 23.
