Jim Fidler
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Jim Fidler (born in the 1960s in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania) is a singer, producer, and musician living in St. John's, Newfoundland. In the 1960s, Jim and his mother relocated to Newfoundland where he grew up in the diverse Rabbittown section of St. John's. As a youth, Fidler spent a great deal of time along Conception Bay, where he developed an appreciation for Newfoundland's music and culture.
Fidler's family found that he frequently picked up instruments and mastered them with ease as a child. As Fidler states, "If you talk to some hockey players and ask them if they can remember when they first skated, some of them can’t because they were so little when they learned. I’m like that with music. I was born with it more or less."
Blind since age 9, he continued to develop his talents. By the age of 10, he had formed his own band with friends. He attended school in Halifax where he continued his musical studies and eventually earned a degree in classical piano and music theory at the Maritime Conservatory of Music in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Fidler plays many of the instruments used on his albums including accordion, guitar, whistle, bodhran, keyboards. The styles of music that he plays range from reggae to bluegrass, Celtic to North African. He formed a successful reggae group, called Pressure Drop in the late 1980's and was a drummer and songwriter for the group. Between Pressure Drop and his first solo CD, Fidler arranged some songs on Great Big Sea's debut CD.
In addition to his four albums - Gypsy (1995), Friendly Fire (1999), Musaik: In This World (2003) and Midnight Rover (2005), Fidler's own debut work, Gypsy, won awards for Roots/Traditional Album of the Year and Independent Album of the year in 1996. In 1998 and again in 2000 Jim was featured in the Toronto production of "The Needfire." Great Big Sea, Paddy Keenan, Celtic Connection, the Masterless Men, Atlantic Union and others have benefited from Fidler's knowledge of the music industry as musician, producer and arranger.
Fidler continues to live in St. John's, Newfoundland with his wife, Lillian, a graphic designer, and their cat, Gypsy.
