A highlight of my visits with Peter MacLean were sessions at his reel-to-reel machine. As we meandered thorough hours and hours of his recordings of Gaelic and English song, violin and piano, I felt like a time traveler eavesdropping on house parties, quiet visits, concerts and radio shows. Once we had fallen into that rabbit hole where long-vanished sounds came back to life, we were not likely to surface for many hours.

Peter MacLean’s collection of 48 multi-sided reel-to-reel tapes stand as a significant piece of Cape Breton musical history. They are a connoisseur’s collection of songs in Gaelic in English, fiddle music, party chatter and radio shows; an example of a personal archive; and a source of songs that sustained his own practice and along with other tape archives, which will aid in the future transmission of Gaelic song in CB.

When he moved into hospital Peter asked that we help to preserve his tapes, and so Paul MacDonald made digital copies of the precious ribbons. Coming soon on this blog: a preview of my article about this remarkable collection.