Scott Woods is the fiddling legend behind the Scott Woods Band set to perform at St. Andrews United Church later this year.
“Fiddling goes back many generations on both sides of my family,” said Woods. On his mother’s side, his grandfather was a well-known fiddler in Ontario, and his mother would accompany him on piano. On his father’s side, his grandfather played fiddle and his dad took classical violin lessons.
“The two families met through music, and when my mom was just a young girl my dad started a band, probably around 1944 when he was 12…,” Woods explained.
In 1956, the band needed a new piano player, and the young woman who joined would later become his mother. The result would be a marriage and four kids, with Woods being the youngest.
“I guess it was just a natural fit that we would all play music. My brother and my two sisters all play violin and piano, and I play saxophone and drums and I play base and guitar,” said Woods.
Woods said he started violin lessons at the age of four as the result of his curiosity.
“I was supposed to be asleep at night. The family was practicing for a show, and I was not in bed — I was up sitting at the top of the stairs... where they couldn’t see me. I was listening and learning all these tunes as they were practicing.
“The music stopped, and it got quiet for a second. I’m like, ‘oh no, mom’s coming!’”
Instead of being punished, he was given his own violin and enrolled in classical lessons. His dad taught him how to fiddle. “I think they finally figured out that there’s no denying it — I was going to be part of it too,” said Woods.
That became the way the family spent free time together.
“We did shows and fairs and all kinds of concerts and old-time dances. You name it, we’ve played almost every kind of venue. It was a great experience growing up,” said Woods. “It’s pretty much been music my whole life.”
Music’s powerful impact
“Sometimes we’ll play an old tune… we start to play, and I look down and see an older couple hold hands, or they look at each other and they smile. You know there’s some connection to that tune — it was their wedding dance, or it was the song on the radio when they first met.
“It’s their story… and the music brings them back. It’s like a time machine. It transforms them back to a different time and a different world… and that for me is what really keeps us going,” said Woods.
“And the story that might be in my heart when I’m playing might be completely different, but it still impacts them in a way that’s meaningful to them,” he reflected.
Woods recalled one show in the Midwest that stood out.
“This lady comes up and… she says to me, ‘you know, we bought tickets to your show a while ago. Just last week my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer… we weren’t going to come tonight, but at the last minute we decided to come anyways.
“For two hours, we sat there and held hands. We were so enthralled by the show on stage, the dance, the costumes, the happy and the sad emotions, that we didn’t once think about the prognosis or the long road ahead for him,” Woods said. About 15 minutes later her husband approached Woods and independently told the same story; they both had the same reaction to his show.
“For two hours they sat in the audience, and they didn’t once think about the worries of the world, and in this case the particular health issues he had,” Woods said.
“Music really can have that impact. That’s what inspires us to keep going.
“No matter how bad things were otherwise in the world, the music always seemed to help it,” Woods reflected.
Trick fiddling
Around the 1970s, fiddle competitions were considered a big deal and were taken seriously.
To balance the intensity of the competitions, organizers decided to have a little break and introduced a trick and fancy class, which some of them called “novelty fiddling.”
“I would do a front running somersault which is how I got the name ‘the flipping fiddler,’” said Woods.
“It’s just a tongue-in-cheek gimmick that we’ve been doing for years. Everyone knows me as the ‘flipping fiddler,’ or the guy who does the somersault.
“I’ve had some pretty ungraceful moments (too),” he said. “Sometimes… instead of (landing on my feet) I just slide. I knock over music stands, mic stands, and I’ve landed with one foot already off the edge of the stage.
“I’ve been lucky though. No fiddles or bows have been damaged in the making of the show,” he said with a laugh.
Woods is a multi-time winner of the Canadian Open Fiddle Contest, has won the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championships, and has been Canadian Fiddle Entertainer of the Year.
The Scott Woods Band is set to perform in Moose Jaw at St. Andrew’s United Church on Wednesday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online at ScottWoods.ca or by calling 1-855-726-8896.
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