Transcript

File: macdougalljim06-oh-playsfirstdance_M.mp3

Speakers:

JM – Jim MacDougall

KP – Curator Ken Perlman

JM: I was 16 years old when I played for my first dance in Grand River Hall.

KP: How did it happen that they asked you to play?

JM: That's quite a story, too! (laughter) I came from parents that was very strict. I was 16 years old and I wasn't allowed to go to dances at 16. So I was in bed and there was two guys B This was in the horse and sleigh days, there were no cars then. There was a dance in the hall in Grand River and there was no fiddler. So somebody knew that I could play three or four tunes, so they thought if my father would let me go, they could get me. So they came up with the horse and sleigh, that's about two and a half miles, and I remember my father comin' up the stairs to my bedroom and askin’ me if I wanted to go down and play for a dance at the Grand River Hall. Well boy, boy I was just all aglow (laughter), “Sure!” So I get up and get dressed, grabbed the fiddle and away I went down. Of course it's just an old gas lantern hangin' in the center and an old wood stove in the center, and no electricity so you had no amplifiers B Just one fellow with a guitar that night playin': just the two of us, we sat back in the corner. We played there till one, one-thirty, somethin' like that.