Vince Collins - lifting out the stove

Tuffy P. brought me back some button box newfie cds from St. John's...wahoooo! I think my favourite of them is Lifting out the Stove by Vince Collins - as near as I can tell, this is Mr. Collins only recorded work, made in 2002. Lifting out the stove - Mr. Collins says they used to play a lot of dances in kitchens, because they usually had good hardwood floors for dancing....however, some people didn't have kitchens that were quite big enough, so some of the guys would take the stovepipe off and haul the kitchen woodstove out into the yard to make more room. They would dance all night, and in the morning, the boys would put the stove back so that coffee and breakfast could be made. From the liner notes: "You'd always take time out to play a tune in the evening when everything was all straightened away, you'd have a go at the accordion. There were no guitars then, a good many people had accordions. We didn't know what note they were in then, if it was a G or C or D, all we knew was that it was a nice sound, a beautiful sound."......"Especially in the wintertime to parties around different harbours...we didn't have to take our own 'cause everyone had accordions around the bay. You'd go to someone's house or a party and there were always an accordion provided - you know, weddings, everything, we'd play. And if we heard a strange tune that we didn't have, we'd get that and we'd come home and teach it to the other guy. You couuld play it the way you wished and everybody was the same, everybody did the same thing. That was the lifestyle around the bay." This CD is a delight to listen to. Too bad more people around the bay didn't have accordions these days. Mr. Collins has been playing the same one since 1956!