Lee Fleming has recently completed a book for Ragweed Press of Charlottetown called Rock, Rhythm and Reels: Canada's East Coast Musicians on Stage.
Taking its impetus from the East Coast Music Awards in Charlottetown last year, Ragweed approached Lee with a project which would recognise this growing phenomenon of so-called East Coast music. The book features forty-seven musicians from a variety of musical genres.
Lee has previously edited four other anthologies including By Word of Mouth, Tide Lines, To Sappho, My Sister and Hot Licks for gynergy books.
Rock, Rhythm and Reels will contain the results of Lee's interviews with forty-seven East Coast musicians. The list includes everyone from Anne Murray, and Ashley MacIsaac to Sloan and jale, by way of Lee Cremo, Dutch Mason and Matt Minglewood.
Says Lee, "It's the first book of its kind… the artists speak for themselves." Her method was to interview the musicians, and allow them to tell their own story. Lee says that while she has a profound love of music, she is not an insider of the East Coast music scene and was able to bring a level of editorial objectivity to the project.
The project began with a list of about two hundred names which then had to be pared down. They had to include the "big names," and to properly represent the Celtic tradition, but also be aware of other music, and be inclusive where gender, race and geography were concerned.
Lee met the contributors for face to face interviews wherever possible but about half were conducted by telephone. She says that she has tried to think of her conversations as dialogues rather than interviews. One technique which yielded some pleasurable results was to ask each contributor to relate an interesting or amusing anecdote from their musical lives. Lee says that these anecdotes give the text a human, story-telling element.
Lee tried to impress upon her subjects that, rather than being yet another "interview" for the media, she was actually researching material for a lasting, enduring record - a book, something which would go into the Library of Canada.
Lee found musicians taking a very pragmatic approach. The creation of the music is still the prime motivation, but the artists are talking a lot about the industry.
The book also benefits from the design of Janet Riopelle under managing editor Sybil Frei. Rock, Rhythm and Reels: Canada's East Coast Musicians on Stage will be officially launched in February at the ECMAs in Moncton.
In addition to book editing, Lee has also been involved in film and video. Her film Skip to the Beat is still in circulation as is an award-winning video that she produced called Time to Heal. She has also made a film about Silver Frith called Woman Spiralling.
Lee is currently preparing to embark on a new career-a musical one. She is studying music theory at UPEI, classical guitar with M. J. Mullin and voice with Teresa Doyle. Lee has recently recorded a demo of three of her songs at Windwood Sound as a first step to becoming a full-time singer/songwriter. She recently was awarded a $5,000 scholarship in the Star Trak contest run by the Atlantic Broadcasting System.
Lee hopes that Rock, Rhythm and Reels will be a good seller, but she now has her sights set on performances of her own music.