Jp cormier

I'm not at all certain whether to post this on the Celtic section, but I will since he was appearing at a Celtic music festival.

Cape Breton's JP Cormier is an amazing musician!

I caught him last night in the Scottish Highland town of Beauly, as part of the Blas Festival - a celebration of Celtic music in various parts of the North of Scotland.

I arrived early at the gig - a double bill with popular Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis- to make sure I got a ticket. #I met JP having a smoke outside the hall, and introduced myself as a mandolin player. He invited me to try his Stonebridge mandolin ( a Czech make he seemed very pleased with) and we ended up having a wee session on my Sobell 10 string mandolin and the Stonebridge. #He knows heaps of tunes. #Hornpipes I thought might be Canadian turned out to be by Marshall or Gow - great tunes I'd never heard before. #A really tremendous mandolin player who clearly has an enormous repertoire.

At his gig, he primarily played guitar with one fiddle feature and a mandolin one. #He has a great voice, and featured his own country-tinged songs. #He used to live in Nashville, working as a country musician and songwriter before moving back to Cape Breton about 10 years ago. He is married to the great piano player Hilda Chiasson, who accompanied him at the gig and who I know from Jerry Holland's classic recordings.

Much as I enjoyed his fiddle and mandolin playing, I have to admit his forte is the acoustic guitar. #What a player! #Jigs, strathspeys, Chet Atkins stuff, etc etc, ending with a quite extraordinary rendition of the old favourite 'The Mason's Apron'.

Phew!

Here's another fan, Dagger, though I haven't seen him live. I have his mandolin CD, JP Cormier x 8 (Patio Records 2004) and it's great.

J.P. Cormier and Julie Fowlis!!!! What a night that must have been.

I had the pleasure of sitting in on a private session of JP Cormier, his wife Hilda Chiasson, Jerry Holland, and Alberto Alfonso at Irishfest two years ago. They played in their hotel for three hours in the morning and I sat mesmerized. Since everyone else in the hotel was nursing a hangover, I was practically the only one watching. A wonderful time!

Later that day I talked with JP and played his mandolin. He is a generous and open person to any musician and literally can play anything on any stringed instrument. I think he played with Jim and Jesse for a while.

I want to agree 100% (more if I could). I have heard him play numerous time at the Celtic Colours festival in Cape Breton -- if you ever get a chance take him in.

JP is one of the great ones on any instrument he plays and he plays lots-- the guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and who knows what else?

As noted above he made his living in Nashville and got started in the USA as a mandolin player in a bluegrass band -- the story in on the X8 mandolin CD.

I also highly recommend that CD as well -- all the songs feature the mandolin but all of the other instruments tracks are JP as well.

J P is a monster, without a doubt.

Jp Cormier has been busy during lockdown. This online performance basically features his guitar playing - and indeed his guitars.
But honestly, his playing is amazing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MBp9ldr8dM

Here he is with Ray Legere on a trad tune.

I'm also a fan of JP's lockdown vids.

I first came across him when he did a gig en route to Shetland folk festival at Aberdeen's Blue Lamp. There was something about a flight or ferry delay, as I recall, and he was very jetlagged but still turned in a great show. Maybe it was also 2008.

It's been posted here before I think, but his Celtic Colours meeting with Tim Edey is one of the most inspirational "guitar fiddle tune duet" videos of all time.

It starts in D with The Mathematician and goes on ... Liverpool Hornpipe (?), Crossing the Minch ... ? ... change to A - the Contradiction, Mason's Apron

v8W59k3UPEQ

His uncle, Joe, from Cheticamp, Cape Breton, and who dwelt in Boston, is a highly regarded fiddler. I've been listening to him since the early 70's.

If the links don't work, search YouTube for "Joe Cormier/Old Time Wedding Reels."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H98tt7hhpQg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H98tt7hhpQg

And here's J.P.talking about his family background and early life - don't watch it if you're looking for something to cheer you up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lImR...jSUzV&index=16

He has a whole series of these autobiographical videos. I only listened to two.