Download Reliving the magic of Singalong Jubilee

Reliving the magic of Singalong Jubilee; Eastern Front pays tribute to a piece of musical
history
Andrea Nemetz Entertainment Reporter
SUNG EVERYWHERE from bars to political rallies, Farewell to Nova Scotia is so ubiquitous it
seems as if it has been sung around the province by generation after generation of hardy
pioneers.
But the song that has become the province's unofficial anthem vaulted into public consciousness
when it was featured on Singalong Jubilee, says Scott Burke, artistic producer of Eastern Front
Theatre.
"Catherine McKinnon and Manny Pittson pulled it out of Helen Creighton's songbook and put it
on the show," says Burke, who has conceived, and is directing, a musical tribute to the iconic
CBC TV series which aired between 1961 and 1974.
"The phones lit up. Letters poured into CBC. They had to repeat it, because there was so much
demand for the song. It's a song we take for granted. It seems as if it's always been around and
that's just one song we owe Singalong Jubilee for."
Singalong Jubilee: The East Coast Sound Celebration opens tonight at Alderney Landing
Theatre in Dartmouth and runs to March 25.
Rather than acting out the story of the show that launched careers of stars like McKinnon, Gene
MacLellan, Ken Tobias and Anne Murray, among others, it's a tribute, explains Burke, who was
inspired partly by Ernest Dick's 2004 book Remembering Singalong Jubilee.
"The first act introduces audiences to about 13 or 14 of the main performers. It's biographical,
giving a couple of songs done by each person and a bit about the development of the show,
which was a summer replacement for Don Messer's Jubilee.
"The second act is subtly different. We pretend to do a TV show with greatest hits and musical
memories. The costumes have a retro feel. There's a focus on some of the longer, most
important pieces of music like Snowbird, Farewell to Nova Scotia and Put Your Hand in the
Hand."
The show features Martin Burt, who starred in Corvette Crossing at Eastern Front last fall; Dave
Carmichael, a four-time ECMA nominee; Gilbert Downey, a Cherry Brook singer making his
theatrical debut; Julain Molnar, the mother superior in the Sound of Music at Neptune Theatre
and Margot Sampson who was most recently onstage in Oliver at Neptune Theatre.
When casting the show, Burke was looking for singers with great voices and great harmony
capability who could be true to the music.
"Gilbert does Lorne White and Davey Wells songs, Dave Carmichael does Bill Langstroth and
Fred McKenna's, because he's a country musician in his own right. Marty does most of the Gene
MacLellan and Jim Bennett songs because he's got a deeper voice. It was all about having the
talent to cover off a full range of music on the show," says Burke, noting the original cast is seen
throughout the show in slides created by Denyse Karn, projected onto giant screens behind the
current performers.
"Leigh Ann Vardy does concert-style lighting and we have video snippets, short one-minute minidocs about the impact director Manny Pittson had on TV. He took the camera outside the studio
for the first time, he went to Peggys Cove and the Public Gardens and had the singers outside.
He was extremely creative and in 2003 got the Stompin' Tom Award from the ECMAs."
Eastern Front's show touches on more than 70 songs from Singalong Jubilee.
"It's gigantic," Burke concedes. "Even though we don't do full-length versions and some are
touched on in medleys."
A live band, also seen onstage, features Paul Simons on piano, Georges Hebert, who performed
in the original Singalong Jubilee show on guitar, and Paul Tupper on banjo, mandolin, fiddle and
guitar.
Molnar, who grew up in Southern Ontario and now lives in Charlottetown, where she starred last
summer in Canada Rocks at the Confederation Centre, hadn't seen Singalong Jubilee on TV,
but knew many of the songs.
"My mom, a cabaret and musical theatre performer and church singer and amazing soloist
taught me some of the songs when I was a kid at camp. She was the counsellor with the guitar.
She taught me Lord of the Dance, Put Your Hand in the Hand, This Land is Your Land."
Downey, who has his own band called The Forgotten People, says it is an honour to be on a
show about where the East Coast music scene started.
He'd never even heard of the show before becoming involved at the invitation of Burke, whom
he met after taking part in a reality TV show on Bravo! called the Gospel Challenge. Downey did
know a lot of the singers, though, including White.
"I knew a lot of the gospel songs, though I wasn't too familiar with the folk songs. Songs like the
Springhill Mine Disaster, Spinning Wheel and the French songs were all new to me," says
Downey, who has a high tenor or low alto voice.
Some of the original cast members will attend tonight's opening night show including McKinnon,
Clary Croft, Don Burke, Marg Ashcroft, Vern Moulton, Vic Mullen, Scott MacCulloch and Herb
Doane, among others.
Source: Chronicle Herald, The (Halifax, NS), Mar 08, 2007, pF1