Don Messer - souvenir booklet
The Don Messer Jubilee Show toured extensively, bring Down East music, song, and dance to audiences throughout the US and Canada. Messer was well known thanks to his weekly television show broadcast and three-times-a-week tadio broadcasts.
The short biography below came with his Messer's induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983:
===
Donald Charles Frederick Messer was born in Tweedside , NB , on May 9, 1909 , the youngest of 11 children. He began playing the fiddle when he was five and started playing for dances when he was seven.
At the age of 16, Don moved to Boston where he worked at various jobs and studied music for a time. When he returned to New Brunswick he played at dances and parties in private homes.
He played his first radio show on May 19, 1929 over the then Canadian Radio Commission. This later became the CBC station CFBO, later changed to CHSJ. The group was called The New Brunswick Lumberjacks and their fame quickly spread. In 1938, renamed the “Backwoods Breakdown”, they started broadcasting coast-to-coast from Saint John.
The following year they moved to Charlottetown, PE, where they broadcast their “down east” music three nights a week over CFCY, transmitted all across Canada . Here the name was changed to “Don Messer and his Islanders”.
In 1958 the Don Messer Jubilee Show from Halifax began on CBC-TV nationwide. It soon became Canada's most popular TV show. The show's cancellation by the CBC Network in 1969 aroused such a furor that many people protested at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa . The show was continued in syndication from Ontario until Don Messer's death in 1972.
Subjects: Northern / Maritime
Tags: Don Messer, Down East, Islanders, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island
Item Relations
| This Item | is related to | Item: Maple Sugar - Don Messer and His Islanders |
| This Item | is related to | Item: On the Road to Boston - Don Messer |
Citation
Dublin Core
Title
Subject
Description
The short biography below came with his Messer's induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983:
===
Donald Charles Frederick Messer was born in Tweedside , NB , on May 9, 1909 , the youngest of 11 children. He began playing the fiddle when he was five and started playing for dances when he was seven.
At the age of 16, Don moved to Boston where he worked at various jobs and studied music for a time. When he returned to New Brunswick he played at dances and parties in private homes.
He played his first radio show on May 19, 1929 over the then Canadian Radio Commission. This later became the CBC station CFBO, later changed to CHSJ. The group was called The New Brunswick Lumberjacks and their fame quickly spread. In 1938, renamed the “Backwoods Breakdown”, they started broadcasting coast-to-coast from Saint John.
The following year they moved to Charlottetown, PE, where they broadcast their “down east” music three nights a week over CFCY, transmitted all across Canada . Here the name was changed to “Don Messer and his Islanders”.
In 1958 the Don Messer Jubilee Show from Halifax began on CBC-TV nationwide. It soon became Canada's most popular TV show. The show's cancellation by the CBC Network in 1969 aroused such a furor that many people protested at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa . The show was continued in syndication from Ontario until Don Messer's death in 1972.