Cape Breton's Magazine

Wild Archie Plays the Bones I never did see anybody playing the bones. I just accidently picked it up myself. I was only about 10 years old, in St. Patrick's Home. That's in Halifax. I actually just picked up a couple of sticks and start making noises with them. Then I got a couple for the other hands. And ray fingers used to be bulged out and full of sores just from shaking them. So I kept at it. I never heard of anybody playing them. See I was only a kid. I went there when I was seven. St. Patrick's Home. Ihe old chap went overseas and my step-mother went to Halifax and I was picked up here. I was born in Port Malcolm. It's in the Hawkesburys, you know, the Point Tupper side. I was born in 1906. No, I wasn't interested in music. I never was. Even my dad, he was quite a singer but he was never • nothing musical about him. But I found the sticks and I made a little noise and I kept it up. I went from sticks to bones when I started making a living at it. Hardwood sticks. I used to chip them out of the back of a chair • remember the high-backed chairs with the curve • the wide back. I made a set out of that. That'd give you the curve like's in the bones there. I had them for years and I lost them one night on the train. I had to turn around then and got a couple of rulers. I went to a store and bought a couple of rulers and made four pieces of ruler • made them work. Years ago we had the phonograph, you know. I had some of the fast tunes on. Angus Chisholm or one of the MacLellan's from Margaree or somebody that had recorded out of a studio, you know. When the radio came in I started with the radio. That's all it is is rythmn. Rythmn. Well, that's all I play, you know. Just a rythmn. Body movement and rythmn. The body movement has a lot to do with it. Naturally. You can't just go like that Frank McKnight Ltd. " Everything Musical " 279 Charlotte Streetr Sydney 539*.5030 Frai*.k McKnight Ud. " Everything Musical " The World's Innkeeper Holiday Inn of Sydney, Nova Scotia 480 King's Road Telephone (902) 539-6750 CAPE BRETON'S MAGA2INB/18 li!;?,7,?J'r' / y Olacc''aij,')(3 )a5cotta jrc&l;|, ddicious sez'ood, 'crOeA. bi a. ui'ujiieUi idzrvsi axid pLcasai't