Deeps in thought
Men of the Deeps recreating first concert and tour of 50 years ago, including stop in Truro
From humble beginnings, Men of The Deeps have been performing their inspiring music for 50 years.
Fifty years ago word started to spread around New Waterford and Glace Bay about a coal miners’ choir forming.
Townsfolk were a little divided.
“There were those who were skeptical and those who thought it was a great idea,” said Jim MacLellan, 82, a former field engineer who worked in the No. 12 colliery in New Waterford at the time.
It was the summer of 1966 and Miles MacDonald, supervisor of the No. 12, put notices of auditions for a coal miners’ choir in washhouses in New Waterford and Glace Bay.
A Miners’ Folk Society wanted to build a miners’ museum for the nation’s 1967 centennial year, and the late Nina Cohen, chairperson, came up with the idea to form a choir to sing hymns at the opening.
MacLellan auditioned and became the 16th member of what would be a 35-member Men of the Deeps choir.
“We didn’t know how long it would last,” he said.
“We were hoping it would but we had no base, no background, we were starting from scratch.”
The idea of the concert tour in Glace Bay, Sydney and New Waterford was to show the townsfolk how good the choir was.
MacLellan remembers while preparing for their first time onstage – the first day of the tour on Nov. 1, 1966 – looking out the window of the choir’s green room in the old Glace Bay Hotel, amazed by the lineup at the Savoy Theatre.
“Some mentioned maybe they were also showing a movie besides us singing.”
The group sang songs including “I Believe” and “Finlandia,” which they learned from the United Church hymn book.
“We sold out that night, then in Sydney and in New Waterford. It was beautiful.”
Fifty years later this world-renowned choir is showing pride in its roots as the group prepares for its 50th anniversary by recreating that first concert tour. It will be stopping in Truro on Nov. 4.
Stephen Muise, assistant director and business manager, said the decision of how to celebrate was easy after opening one of the member’s old scrapbooks and seeing a newspaper ad for the first show and concert Nov. 1, 1966, at the miners’ museum in Glace Bay, Nov. 2 at the Vogue Theatre in Sydney, and Nov. 3 at the Paramount Theatre in New Waterford.
He said although the Vogue and Paramount don’t exist anymore, the communities do.
“It wasn’t the buildings that were important, it was the communities we were going into.
“Even though mining is dead we have these guys who have been travelling the world for 50 years, spreading the word and the history of what our towns were made up with – whether be the coal mines or the steel mills, it is working-class citizens,” Muise said.
“Their work may be retired but their story isn’t.”
He said the pride is still onstage today, whether the group is performing for four people at a nursing home or 4,000 in a field in British Columbia.
“They don’t tell you a story they’ve heard or read in a book, they tell you a story they’ve lived underground.”
After the three-day tour, the Men of the Deeps will then take off across the Maritimes and do a fundraising tour for band programs.