Tarbot: Cape Breton's Own Woodstock

The view from the stage. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)

This is a reprint of an article first published twenty years ago in the now defunct Cape Bretoner Magazine. It is as I wrote it, without external edits, as magazines often do for space considerations.

 I was fortunate to interview Leon Dubinsky and Steve Grose for this article. We’ve lost both of them in recent years.

 And an update. There is a Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute. The items mentioned in the article donated by Steve Grose are available for viewing.  There are 144 items including reel-to-reel audio recordings, posters and photographs, all of which have been digitized and can be accessed online here: https://beatoninstitute.com/2556-sqb2-2qe6. In 2017, the Beaton Institute posted a panoramic photo of the crowd on social media. It generated close to 200 shares on Facebook and hundreds of comments, stirring memories of the festival.

---

Mention the Tarbot Festival to anyone who was there, and you’ll hear memories of classic Cape Breton music, a full moon rising over the Tarbot hills and magic. Mention Tarbot to anyone who wasn’t - and there is folklore about drugs, tens of thousands of people, a full moon rising over the Tarbot hills and a missed opportunity to experience true magic.

 There isn’t any evidence left today of the throngs of people who stomped the hills, swaying and singing along to the music of such Cape Breton greats as the Minglewood Band, Sam Moon, Winnie Chafe, Kenzie MacNeil and Buddy & the Boys.  But it was here, in the rolling hills of Malcolm Dean’s farm, where thousands of people arrived during the full moon weekend in August almost 30 years ago, to listen to music and became part of the legend.

“It was our own little Woodstock,” said Bev Brett, who worked the gates at all three festivals in 1977, ’78 and ’79.  She’s a playwright and an acknowledged - come from away -who had just moved to the North Shore when Steve Grose told her about the festival he was planning.

“Steve’s a big dreamer - an amateur musician, entrepreneur and promoter.  And it just seemed that one day he said, ‘Why not have a music festival?’” she said.

And the Tarbot Festival was born.

The poster from 1977, featured Malcolm Dean, the farmer who owned the land where the festival was held in the tiny community of Tarbot, on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)

Steve Grose was a 25-year-old shaggy haired Torontonian.  He had travelled the world but settled in an old schoolhouse in North River in the 70's, when the little community of Tarbot was a destination for people looking for an alternative way to live.  What some locals have since nicknamed ‘The Rubber Booters’, these American and Upper Canadian kids came to the hills of Tarbot to get back to nature, grow their own food and raise a family.

“I was just blown away by the musical culture of Cape Breton,” said Grose, now a postal worker in downtown Toronto.  He and his wife Jane moved back to their hometown - Hogtown- 5 years ago after spending a quarter of a century in Tarbot where they raised two children and operated a small gift shop.

“There was all this emphasis on fiddle music, but it was a hotbed of music of all kinds.  I just wanted to showcase all the Cape Breton music,” Steve Grose said when contacted at his home recently.

There is no denying that the mid seventies were a dynamic time for Cape Breton music.  The very first ‘Rise and Follies’ featuring Kenzie MacNeil’s spine-tingling anthem ‘The Island’ was released in 1977.  So was the ‘Buddy and the Boys’ first album with the definitive tune ‘Working at the Woolco, Manager Trainee Blues’- each trail-blazing, instant classics that were touchstones for all who would follow.

The band 'Road' on the Tarbot stage. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)

“Yeah, things were really cooking around that time,” recalls songwriter Leon Dubinsky.   The list of artists who have recorded his songs is Cape Breton royalty - Rita, The Rankins, Natalie and the Men of the Deeps. As a producer, sound man, songwriter and performer, his influence is felt on each of those seminal recordings. As a member of Buddy and the Boys, he is part of the Tarbot folklore.

“I said to Steve - if we do this right, we could do (the song) ‘Open Your Heart’, as the moon comes over the hill. So, we timed it.  You can hear it on the album.  People started whistling.  The full moon started rising over the mountains as we sang the first verse: ‘Full moon rising over the green hills. It was magical,” said Dubinsky.

A youthful Leon Dubinsky on the Tarbot stage. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)

In subsequent years, Sam Moon took to the stage just as the moon peeked over the hills.  The symbolism was deliberate, says Grose.

“We always held the festival during the full moon - every year.  In fact, the logo is a big ‘T’ with the two hills behind it and the moon above it.  One year, we had Sam Moon on stage, under the Tarbot moon on the logo, as the full moon was rising,” said Grose, who in his liner notes thanks his wife, Malcolm and Mary Dean and ‘the MOON for being full, fine and on time’.

For many, the Tarbot album is the only physical evidence left that proves the festival actually occurred.  That and a few posters saved by wise historians.  You would think, that finding information on the festival would be as easy as a trip to the archives.  Sadly, that is not the case.  Steve Grose says that before he moved to Ontario, he packed up old newspaper clippings, posters and 20 reel-to-reel tapes recorded at the first festival and took them to the Beaton Institute at UCCB, but they may not have realized the importance of the items. Dubinsky recalled one of the last times he saw Grose, before he left Cape Breton.

“I got the feeling that it was accepted (at the Beaton Institute) rather reluctantly,” said Dubinsky.

While the librarians at the Beaton Institute were unable to find any reference to the Tarbot Festival or Steve Grose, a deeper search was instigated.  At press time, the Tarbot festival artifacts not been found.

“All this stuff was just sitting up there in my attic,” says Grose.  “I guess this is how history gets lost.  Nobody realizes they are making history; we were just living our lives.”

A few years back, a Baddeck gift shop was selling the vinyl album.  Customers unfamiliar with the festival occasionally inquired about its significance.  But for those who attended, it was obvious from their outbursts of “TARBOT!  I can’t believe I found this record!”  Often 2 copies were purchased - one to listen to and one to preserve.

The album is a snapshot of that shining moment in Cape Breton musical history.  There, standing proudly on the cover is farmer Malcolm Dean the Cape Breton Max Yasgur. Apparently, Malcolm and Steve had a deal.  Steve could use the land - clear it, build a stage, hold the festival and clean up afterword and Malcolm got all the beer bottles.  Bev Brett remembers seeing Malcolm’s barn stacked to the rafters with empties.

“Malcolm had struck gold,” remembers Brett.

Steve Grose says Malcolm was a firm supporter of the festival. His family’s old homestead became the green room, the gathering place for musicians before they went on stage. There was - as the melting pot of musicians practiced, played and partied - a reunion-like feel.  

“It saw some unlikely jams,” said Grose of the house that is no longer standing.  He remembered Lee Cremo playing the fiddle, accompanied by Matt Minglewood and Sam Moon.

“I remember one year, Malcolm came out on stage and (surveying the crowd of thousands) said: ‘This is the best crop I’ve seen on this hill,’” recalled Grose. 

While Dean encouraged the festival, many in the staunchly religious community were wary of it.  Bev Brett says the festival emphasized the ever-widening generation gap between the young and old.

“It was a real culture clash.  I think it was a shock for many members of the community.  They were fearful - the numbers of people (that came for the festival), (the outrageous) rumours of drugs and sex.  They wondered ‘What else will this bring to our community?’” said Brett.

The festival brought concerns to the normally quiet community. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)

Grose says he tried to settle things.  He met with residents to try to assuage the traffic problems created by the festival and made sure that the fields were cleared of all garbage afterwards, but many in the area were upset because it was held on a Sunday.  By the third year, almost 10,000 concertgoers descended on the tiny community for a rainy mud-filled festival.  A petition was circulated.  Some harsh words were spoken.  When Grose tried to get the necessary permits for the fourth year, he was stonewalled. The Tarbot Festival was over.

“I think it was more excitement than they (the older members of the community) wanted.  They lived in this peaceful, quiet community and we descended on them...the community of Tarbot just sagged under the pressure.  The festival overpowered it and that was part of its demise,” said Grose.

The tincture of time has softened the anger he once felt.  And because it ended before its time, it has added to the myth, he said.

“I was a stubborn kid with a dream.  I was caught up in the excitement of the thing. I ate, breathed and slept the thing.  It was an all-consuming enterprise.  I would say, it was intense - not as intense as watching my kids being born, but a close second.  Yeah, it was pretty damn cool.”

Colour balloons rise above the Tarbot Music Festival crowd. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)

Today, there aren’t any signs along the road in Tarbot, to tell those travelling the Cabot Trail about the music festival.  But if you find your way to the old Dean farm on a warm August night, some say you might hear echoes from the Tarbot stage as the full moon rises over the green hills.

A panoramic view of the Tarbot festival in the Tarbot hills. (Photo accessed from the Tarbot Music Festival fonds at the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.)