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Lee (Harvey) Cremo, fiddler, composer (born on 30 December 1938 in Barra Head (now Potlotek Mi’kmaw Nation) NS; died 10 October 1999 in Eskasoni, NS). Lee Cremo was a renowned Mi’kmaw fiddler who was recognized for his fiddling prowess. Throughout his career, he competed in and won over 80 fiddling competitions, including being named Best Bow Arm in the World at the Grand Master Fiddling Championships in Nashville, Tennessee.
Early Life
Lee Cremo was born in the Mi’kmaw community of Barra Head (now Potlotek Mi’kmaw Nation) in 1938 (see First Nations in Nova Scotia). At the age of four, Cremo and his family moved to Eskasoni, on the East Bay of Bras d'Or Lake, Cape Breton. As a youth, he played guitar for his father, Simon Peter Cremo, an itinerant fiddler. Unbeknownst to the senior Cremo, Lee began fiddling at seven; the secret was not revealed until he was 18, at which time his father taught him bowing techniques. Other local fiddlers offered guidance, as did Jean Carignan later at the Mariposa Folk Festival.
Career and Fiddling Competitions
Lee Cremo made his living in turn as a lumberman in Maine and a bus driver in Eskasoni, but he appeared at fiddling and folk music events across Canada and the USA. He won the Maritime Old Time Fiddling Contest in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia six times; a trip to the Grand Master Fiddling Championships in Nashville, which netted an award for 'Best Bow Arm in the World,' was documented in the film Arm of Gold (1986). Cremo also performed at events as varied as Expo 67 for Queen Elizabeth II and the 1999 launch of the Aboriginal People's Television Network. By 1995, he had won over 80 fiddle competitions. He suffered a broken left arm in an automobile accident that year that interrupted his career. He eventually returned to fiddling, and he performed in events like Showcase Halifax.
Recordings
Lee Cremo made his first LP in 1968, titled Champion Fiddler, for Liberty and appeared on six others released during the 1970s by Audat. In 1995, he released The Champion Returns, which was voted best First Nations recording at the 1996 East Coast Music Awards.
Although Cremo drew largely on the traditional repertoire, personalizing the Cape Breton fiddling style with his humour, enthusiasm and flair for 'frills,' he also recorded his own fiddle pieces, including Shubenacadie Reserve Reel, Cactus Polka, Irish Fiddler and Constitution Breakdown. Cremo's recordings and compositions also appear in two ethnological compilations by the Smithsonian Institute of music of Indigenous peoples in North America, Creation's Journey and Wood That Sings: Indian Fiddle Music of the Americas.
Legacy
Lee Cremo was remembered as an ambassador for Cape Breton Mi'kmaq.
