ECMA Honors Music of Eastern Canada

February 28, 2006

The East Coast Music Association handed out their annual awards last night (2/27) as part of the organization's yearly conference. The evening's big winners were Matt Mays & El Torpedo (who play that crazy rock and roll music). Singer/songwriter Joel Plaskett was honored as Male Artist of the Year and SOCAN Songwriter of the Year. Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond took home prizes for Female Artist of the Year and Roots/Traditional Solo Recording of the Year.

In one of those 6 degrees of seperation (but not really that many) things, also honored during the CBC telecast was Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster. MacMaster, who recorded his first album in 1988 at age 63 after a lifetime fiddling in his spare time working for the railroad, was awarded the Dr. Helen Creighton Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the uncle of fiddlers Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac. MacIsaac, who seems to have taken a musical turn away from the traditional if the songs on his web site are any indication, performed on Lamond's first album, Bho Thir Nan Craobh.