The Celtic Shredder of Prince Edward Island
For more than three decades, 5x ECMA and PEI Award-winning Richard Wood has blown away sold-out audiences around the globe with his traditional-born, fiery brand of Celtic music. Along with winning countless championships as both a step dancer and fiddler, Richard has also earned the Don Messer Memorial Trophy, twice. Richard has toured extensively—from Epcot Center to Lincoln Center, and as such we’re thrilled to have him join us this Wednesday night, March 22, 2023. In advance, we caught up with Richard on the road.
atac: You there, in the car driving down from Canada. Who are you?
Richard Wood: I’m Richard Wood, a Celtic fiddle player.
atac: What part of Canada are you coming to us from? What’s your background?
RW: I’m from Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province. I started step dancing to fiddle music when I was 8 and competed across North America. I then wanted to learn to play the fiddle myself. I started lessons at 11 and began competing across North America shortly after. By 1996, I was on my first tour to the UK.
atac: What are this fiddle player’s top three records?
Taste of Cape Breton by Howie MacDonald
Thriller by Michael Jackson
Livewire by Mec Lir
atac: You’ve toured extensively and know what goes into a great performance; what’s one of the best you’ve seen by another artist?
RW: The Blind Boys of Alabama, October in Portsmouth, NH at the Music Hall. Those guys are legends! Five-time Grammy winners and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners; Jimmy Carter was 90 and had the audience eating out of his hand!
atac: What's something you try to remember at every gig?
RW: Don’t forget to enjoy every minute and always make time for the people who come to see you perform!
atac: The roughest gig?
RW: I have played for our Canadian Armed Forces in the North Pole, Bosnia, and twice in Afghanistan. On my second show tour to Afghanistan, just before we were to take the stage, we received word that our first female captain, Nicola Goddard had been killed in combat.
atac: When you'd learned about her passing, how did that change the performance; your energy? How do you get on stage?
RW: Besides playing at both of my parents’ funerals, it was definitely the hardest performance of my entire career. The word of her death came in just as I was heading to the stage. Nicola was an avid runner and during one race, a competitor fell. Although Nicola was set to win, she stopped and helped her mate up and they finished the race together. That day we had her spirit of compassion; we all came together as a family and grieved together. Everyone in the unit was very tight knit and incredibly close; they welcomed me in as one of their own. I also played for Nicola’s ramp ceremony. I felt both incredibly honoured and heartbroken at the weight of such a huge loss, but since then have since become very close with Nicola’s family; I cherish those relationships!
atac: Nicola sounds like a great person, a hero to her group. Do you have any personal heroes?
RW: Definitely my dad!
atac: What about great tour discoveries, besides humans. Record shops, roadside diners?
RW: After playing an amazing sold out show in Kaslo, British Columbia, I found an awesome red, electric fiddle at a small music store called Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre.
atac: Is music your main creative output, or are you up to other things, too?
RW: I’m also an avid golfer! Next month, we are driving 4 days to play Payne’s Valley in the Ozarks and then 4 days back home! It’s the course that Tiger Woods designed.
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Come by atac this Wednesday night, March 22, 2023 and catch Richard Wood, live. Tickets here. Or, if you ever see someone playing a red electric fiddle on a golf course, maybe pop over and say hello.
