Jim Fidler (born in the 1960s in
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
Aliquippa is the largest city in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, located on the Ohio River about northwest of Pittsburgh. The population was 9,238 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is part ...
) is a singer, producer, and musician living in
St. John's,
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
.
Biography
In the 1960s, Jim and his mother relocated to Newfoundland where he grew up in the diverse
Rabbittown section of St. John's. As a youth, Fidler spent a great deal of time along Conception Bay, where he developed an appreciation for Newfoundland's music and culture. Fidler's family found that, as a child, he frequently picked up instruments and mastered them with ease.
Blind since age 9, he continued to develop his talents. By the age of 10, he had formed his own band with friends. He attended school in
Halifax, where he continued his musical studies and eventually earned a degree in classical piano and music theory at the
Maritime Conservatory of Music
The Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts (the Conservatory) is a Canadian performing arts school in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that offers courses in higher education in music, dance, and theatre. It is the largest and the oldest (1887) of such org ...
in Halifax.
Fidler plays many of the instruments used on his albums including accordion, guitar, whistle,
bodhran, and keyboards. The styles of music that he plays range from
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
to
bluegrass,
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
to
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
n. He formed a successful reggae group called Pressure Drop in the late 1980s and was their drummer and songwriter. Between Pressure Drop and his first solo CD, Fidler arranged some songs on
Great Big Sea
Great Big Sea was a Canadian folk rock band from Newfoundland and Labrador, best known for performing energetic rock interpretations of traditional Newfoundland folk songs including sea shanties, which draw from the island's 500-year Irish, Scot ...
's debut CD.
In addition to his solo albums, his project Gypsy won awards for Roots/Traditional Album of the Year and Independent Album of the Year in 1996. In 1998 and again in 2000 Jim was featured in the Toronto production of ''The Needfire''. Fidler has collaborated with Great Big Sea,
Paddy Keenan
Paddy Keenan (born 30 January 1950) is an Irish player of the uilleann pipes who first gained fame as a founding member of The Bothy Band. Since that group's dissolution in the late 1970s, Keenan has released a number of solo and collaborati ...
, Celtic Connection, the Masterless Men, Atlantic Union and others.
Fidler continues to live in St. John's, Newfoundland with his wife, Lillian, a graphic designer, and their cat, Gypsy.
Fidler is Christina Aguilera's first cousin.
Discography
*''Gypsy'' (1995)
*''Friendly Fire'' (1999)
*''Musaik: In This World'' (2003)
*''Midnight Rover'' (2005)
*''Up That River'' (2011)
References
External links
* Jim Fidle
Official site* Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador - Jim Fidle
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fidler, Jim
Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts alumni
Musicians from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
Musicians from Pittsburgh
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Blind musicians