In late October, traditional-innovative Celtic blues musicians Roy Johnstone and Steve Sharratt will take their “Fiddler in the House” tour to New England. They come from the red-cliff shores of Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province. Their toe-tapping kitchen-party music will be heard across New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine.

Johnstone says the fiddler-in-the-house theme suits since one venue will be an old opera house. “It's historically relevant too. At the turn of the 20th century, at least one house in every P.E.I. community had a fiddler. Often there were more, but one fiddle might be shared by a father and sons.... Some people associated fiddles with the devil's work, not an instrument to be taken up by the fair sex, although some did.” 

Sharratt adds, “You couldn't have a dance, wedding or funeral without a fiddler. Dancing and house parties were the main entertainment after hard days working in the fields or forests.”

They will perform music from a recent CD, Live at Loon, plus new material from Johnstone's travels in Cuba.