‘Musical miracle’

Figgy Duff’s bi-coastal reunion shows one of this summer’s hottest tickets

When Noel and Phil Dinn played what would be their very first Figgy Duff gig at an exhibition opening for Gerry Squires at Memorial University’s gallery, they were so green they had yet to choose an official band name. Phil Dinn can’t recall exactly who it was, but a faceless member of the audience that mid-1970s night can claim rights to the now legendary title.

“That was our first concert, it was myself and Noel and this keyboard player, Wayne Smith, and the three of us did this little thing in the corner — it was very low budget,” he laughs over the phone from Halifax.

“Somebody named us Figgy Duff, because of the pudding, because we looked so peculiar in this big gallery and Gerry’s paintings are like mountains, some of them, and some are little tiny things, and here we were against his colours, his ferns, his lighthouses, and somebody named us Figgy Duff. So there you go, it stuck.”

Today Figgy Duff is synonymous with Newfoundland folk-rock royalty. At that time, the young, trailblazing members of the band — along with other local cultural icons like Sandy Morris and Neil Murray — were on a mission to unearth the hidden cache of traditional tunes belonging to the inhabitants of the province’s outports and inject them with the energy of electric guitars.

The band combed the island with tape recorders and Ontario folklorist Kenneth Peacock’s Songs of the Newfoundland Outports in hand. They knocked on the doors of the people listed in the National Museum of Canada’s compilation of traditional Newfoundland folk music.

Approaching the older generation of Newfoundland musicians — people like Emile Benoit, Rufus Guinchard and Minnie White, who performed publicly for the first time in their 60s — with instruments rather than academic notepads yielded different results.

“You could see as you go through (Peacock’s) translations, he just didn’t get what the people were saying … we’d go in and play and break the tension that way, by creating the joyful situation, where the university student was much more reserved, not so much a musician, but somebody looking for a degree in folklore. We’d come in and make the party and all the goodies would flow from that.”

The newest “goodie” comes in the form of Figgy Duff Live: Silver Reunion, the eagerly anticipated recording of the band’s 25th anniversary concert at the Delta Hotel in St. John’s in 1999.

The album will be officially launched at the Bella Vista nightclub Aug. 7 (The Ducats will open), followed by a performance at the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival in Bannerman Park Aug. 10. The band will then travel to the province’s west coast, where artists such as Ron Hynes, Mark Bragg, Anita Best and Des Walsh will perform a tribute show at the Writers at Woody Point festival Aug. 12 and 13. A late night gig and jam will close out the festivities at the Woody Point Legion.

When asked about coming back with a bang, singer Pamela Morgan says play dates began to develop as soon as the final master recording was completed in Oxfordshire, England. Bookings “snowballed” from there, she says, particularly with the unanimous agreement from all band members to get back together to mark the occasion.

Morgan says she never thought the album would make it to record store shelves — that it would remain a labour of love she would pick away at over the years. But the purity of sound and crescendo of energy captured that night almost 10 years ago demanded to be shared.

That on- and off-stage exhilaration cultivated by Figgy Duff’s mandolins, bodhrans and whistles is still there, Morgan says, and has been ever since they started out as young, ambitious musicians. Touring Canada, the U.S. and parts of Europe wasn’t for “the faint of heart,” she says, but it provided memories too numerous to count. One or two, however, come to mind when prodded.

“I remember in Germany, we were playing on the Canadian base there and all of a sudden a big fight broke out during a ballad, Thomas and Nancy was the song, a beautiful ballad,” recalls Morgan. “The boys were in fisticuffs on the dance floor.”

One of her favourite memories, though, was when the band made it to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Although they were up against a “bit of heavy competition” from the likes of B.B. King, sharing the fiddling talent of Emile Benoit with some of the world’s most appreciative music lovers was a thrill she’ll never forget.

“Emile was with us and he is of course of French descent, and he was speaking French with the people there. We went to Lafayette and a lot of the music there is related, the Cajun music especially, the music from where Emile came from on the west coast was very closely related.”

But there is one memory — or, more appropriately, one person — Morgan and Phil Dinn will have on their minds when Figgy Duff graces the province’s summer stages this August. Dinn’s brother and founding member of the band, Noel Dinn, who passed away in 1993 at the age of 45, is immortalized as Figgy Duff’s “fearless leader” on the inside cover of the album. Like the candelabra blazing on stage in his memory the night the band marked 25 years of a “musical miracle,” as Phil puts it, Morgan states with fiery conviction: “He’ll be there in spirit. He always is.”

mandy.cook@theindependent.ca



Tickets for the Bella Vista show are available at Fred’s Records, O’Brien’s Music Store and the Bella Vista or by calling 722-5237.

 

1	Public Notice (7/21/2008)
2	Oil versus electric (7/2/2008)
3	‘Musical miracle’ (7/19/2008)
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	view the complete news list »

1	Public Notice (7/21/2008)
2	‘Musical miracle’ (7/19/2008)
3	‘When the Rondo’s rockin’, don’t bother knockin’ (7/19/2008)
4	What are Newfoundlanders smoking? (7/19/2008)
5	Pogey paranoia (7/19/2008)
6	Greek surgeon says seals may be harvested for organs (7/19/2008)
7	Signing off … again (7/19/2008)
8	Jonesing for ... (7/19/2008)
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	view the complete news list »