Every Saturday morning in the early 1950s, radio stations CKAB Windsor and CKEN Kentville aired some of the finest old-time fiddle music ever played in the Annapolis Valley by local musicians.

Out of Hants County came the down east fiddling of Hantsport-based Roddy Dorman from Kings County came the medleys of Kingsport’s Ron Goodwin and Kentville’s Kenny Meisner.

Aired on the stations on Saturday mornings as well, recorded live when he performed in Kentville and Canning, were the fiddling concerts of J.B. Hamm, a roaming player who along with Dorman, Goodwin and Meisner was among the best known, most influential musicians in the Annapolis Valley.

The most prominent fiddlers in the Valley and across eastern Canada came out of Hants County around the time Dorman, Goodwin and Meisner were cementing their reputations as fiddlers. A legend today and renowned in fiddling halls in Canada and the United States, Keith Ross rose to prominence playing in the dance halls of Hants County. A Maritime Fiddlers Hall of Fame inductee as a musician, composer and teacher, Ross would have a major input on the direction a fledgling fiddle club would take when it was organized here in 1987.

It can be argued that players like Ross, along with the likes of Dorman, Goodwin, Meisner and Hamm, encouraged fiddlers in Hants and Kings County to collaborate forming a fiddling club. The Kings Fiddlers club started 35 years ago when Bill Morine, Ron Corkum and the late Ken Wood decided that since they enjoyed getting together with their fiddles, they should encourage other players to join them. Morine, of White Rock, says that looking back, they were “inspired [to organize a club] by a fiddling group in Bridgetown. Wood and I met, jammed, and then invited another local fiddler, Ron Corkum, to join us to help form a club. It just went from there, Morine said, and in a short time we easily had 40 members.”

The three fiddlers, joined soon after by bass guitarist Bill Tupper of Centreville, formed the nucleus of the club and are looked upon today as the founders. In one sense, Morine says, Ron Corkum of Canning was the catalyst. “He did a lot of the leg work in bringing local fiddlers together.” Corkum himself says they became solid as a fiddling club when early on, Keith Ross became one of the first charter members. “With his background in music,” Corkum said, “Ross provided the musicianship and leadership we needed.”

From the first, the aim of the Kings Fiddlers was to encourage fiddle playing and as their website proclaims, the club aimed “to preserve old-time fiddle music and traditions in the Annapolis Valley.”

Those fiddling traditions have roots in Scotland and Ireland and are reflected in the variety of reels, jigs, and waltzes in the club’s repertoire. At their monthly jams at the Lions Club Hall in Kentville, you can hear the influence various fiddle-playing styles have on their repertoire. It might be down east, old-time, country, bluegrass, or western swing. And your ears wouldn’t be playing tricks if occasionally you hear a hint of Acadian in their music. As well as the British Isles, Nova Scotia fiddle music has roots in France. The Acadians, who settled here from France, brought an early type of fiddle with them to Nova Scotia. After the deportation to Louisianna, Acadian fiddling evolved into what is known today as Cajun-style playing – which in an odd twist, made it back to fiddle players in Nova Scotia.

As mentioned, early on the Kings Fiddlers boasted of having 40 members at their peak, most of them from Hants and Kings Counties. This number includes support musicians, keyboard accompanists, and guitars that back up the fiddlers. Due to the effect of Covid and an ageing membership, those numbers are diminished somewhat nowadays to about 25, but the club keeps fiddling on and plans to stay active in the future.

You can still find the Kings Fiddlers jamming at their twice-monthly sessions in Kentville, at seniors’ residences and at various locales in Hants and Kings County where reels and snappy jigs are the order of the day.