Slainte Mhath

Cape Breton has turned up on the musical radar of the world quite noticeably over the last twenty years. It is a classic case of the rest of the world catching up to something that was no secret there. For hundreds of years, the language and music that arrived in Cape Breton in the hearts and hands of the dispossessed Scots pushed off their land at home has been a cherished heirloom handed down from generation to generation. There, it coexisted and cross-pollinated with the music of their neighbours, the Acadians. In countless kitchens and small community halls across Cape Breton many a cold night has been warmed by the sound of fiddles and pipes. Among the first from "away" to discover this musical treasure house were scholars and musicians from the old country looking for what had, in many cases, been lost at home. It started coming to broader attention with the appearance of the Rankin Family and The Barra MacNeils and now, like Quebec, Cape Breton is well into the next generation of music grounded in that tradition. Ashley MacIsaac, Natalie McMaster and Slainte Mhath are taking the music of the Cape to the world and bringing a bit of the world back home and these musical influences are melded into new melodies that are still unmistakably ancient. One has only to listen to the way the pipes and the fiddle weave together over what we would have to call "power chords" on the piano to source this music to the Cape. And, inasmuch as people have been dancing to this music for hundreds of years, when Slainte Mhath introduces percussion and electric bass it sounds as though it always belonged.

The group began when Ryan and Boyd were asked by their elder siblings in the Barra MacNeils to pull together an opening act for some shows they were doing. As they perform for us this summer, the group is Lisa Gallant (bodhran, fiddle and step dancing), Boyd MacNeil (mandolin, fiddle, banjo and percussion), Ryan MacNeil (keyboards, percussion), Brian Talbot (drums, percussion) and John MacPhee (Highland bagpipes, Scottish smallpipes and Reel pipes). They were first here in 2000, part of a group of great bands we called "The Young Celtic Edge." Unlike some other musical prophets, they are also celebrated on their home ground, appearing at the Celtic Colours Festival three years running. They have been the musical ambassadors of that festival at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, toured in England, Europe and Scandinavia and been nominated for a BBC "Rising Star" Award.

Their name, for those whose Gaelic may be a little rusty, is a toast that means "good health to you."