Fiddling meets frenzied footwork as PEI's Gordie "Crazy Legs" Mackeeman & His Rhythm Boys hit Mission Folk Music Festival
The Maritime musician can’t imagine standing still for a performance
The Mission Folk Music Festival streams Gordie Mackeeman & His Rhythm Boys as part of the program on July 25
WHEN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND musician Gordie Mackeeman plays his violin, his feet start to move almost as much as his bow—his loose-limbed steps earning him the nickname “Crazy Legs”.
“I think it would be harder for me to be still and play,” he tells Stir over the phone from the Maritimes before his band, Gordie Mackeeman and His Rhythm Boys, brings a blast of old-time roots-country-bluegrass to the Mission Folk Music Festival Sunday evening. As he puts it: “Fiddling and dancing sort of go hand-in-hand in PEI.”
They certainly always have for Mackeeman, whose frenetic footwork, paired with the top-flight musicianship of his multi-instrumentalist Boys, have made their live shows near-legendary on the fest circuit, from Adelaide to Edinburgh. (For only a small taste of the insanely turbocharged energy these guys bring, we’ve posted a video from the National Arts Centre’s 2019 Big Bang Festival of the Rhythm Boys and their frontman killing it below.)
The Nova-Scotia-raised Mackeeman actually got his start dancing, beginning with clogging as a child. He remembers tagging along with his older brother to a class one day (“He was probably trying to pick up girls at the time”) and before he knew it the teacher had him up and trying it out. Step-dancing classes came next, and then, partly due to an early affinity for old country sounds, came the fiddle.
As a kid, he was already taking his shows on the road, playing nursing homes, and that’s how, at about age 13, he picked up the antique violin he still plays today. After watching Mackeeman play (and cut a rug) at a facility in Pictou County, a man visiting a great-aunt invited the young musician down the road to look over seven violins at his mother’s old cottage.
“I basically picked the one that needed the least amount of work,” Mackeeman says with a laugh. “I was just a kid, and I think about it now and I didn’t even know the person’s name—he wasn’t from the area. But I wish I did now—it’s a really, really good fiddle!” (More recent expert appraisals have dated the instrument back to 1800s France.)
After Mackeeman made the move to PEI in 2001, he formed immediate connections in the tightknit bluegrass community—and found the smashing trio of pickers and singers he plays with today. Peter Cann shifts between guitars, banjo, vocals; Thomas Webb brings guitar, bass, banjo, steel guitar, and vocals; and Jason Burbine blends bass, percussion, guitar, and vocals.
That’s allowed Mackeeman and crew to switch it up considerably in their playing, their roster spanning reckless rockabilly, down-home bluegrass, and old country classics that the frontman enjoys sourcing from the Canadian songbook.
“I really love finding old Canadian material,” he explains. “In the genre we’re in, it's so influenced by the southern U.S., and it’s sort of fun going down these rabbit holes of these Canadian bands.”
On the band’s latest, fourth album, Dreamland, each of the musicians writes and sings his own work, bringing a full palette of colours to the mix—with flourishes of everything from the Cajun to the Celtic.
“All the boys pretty much play everything—and that makes it fun for us,” says Mackeeman, who’s even working on a self-released children’s album, Folk for Little Folk, at the moment. “We almost look at it as, ‘How would a song sound the fullest?’ And if it would sound fuller with me on the drums, then I’ll play the drums.”
In each song, Mackeeman’s feet often set the pace on a piece of playwood—and are a focal point, even if the concert is streamed, as it will be for this folk fest appearance. So, not surprisingly, Mackeeman puts a lot of thought into his footwear, too.
“Every few years my shoes wear out and I have to get new ones,” Mackeeman says, “and I do really like the ones I have now: black and white Leo tap shoes.” Keep your eye on them during the frenzy. And like Mackeeman himself, expect to find it hard to stand, let alone sit, still.
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