Millie Shadgett sits across from me in the back dining area of The Black Horse Pub, one of the most popular live music venues in downtown Peterborough. “I love it here,” she tells me. “People are nice. Food is great. It’s my favorite place to play. Even though I love traveling and playing Down East, it’s like a family here. I know all the people.”
On Wednesday nights, Millie, known professionally as Irish Millie, owns the Black Horse stage, where she and her father Murray entertain the dinner crowd with three hours of Cape Breton fiddle music. At fifteen years old, Millie is the youngest person in the bar. With her big personality, her witty on-stage banter and her pulse pounding and foot stomping music, she dominates the room with her fiddle, and the audience is here to see her. Having finished playing for the night, the audience has filtered out while Murray clears the stage, and only a few regulars are left at the bar watching a late-night hockey game.
Often referred to as a prodigy in the press, Millie released her first album, Thirteen, in 2021, which has earned her a Canadian Folk Music nomination for Young Performer of the Year. Through her frequent online concerts, she has developed a growing audience not only in the Kawarthas, but worldwide. Her passion for her style of music is unique for a person her age in the area, opening a space for her in Peterborough’s eclectic music scene. “I find that, especially people my age, don’t tend to listen to fiddle music or Cape Breton folk music as much as other stuff,” Millie tells. “I listen to a few other genres, but I mainly listen to fiddle music.”
Millie’s relationship started when she was three years old after seeing an impromptu performance by Canadian Celtic superstar Natalie MacMaster. “We used to go to a cottage on Stoney Lake, and on Juniper Island they would have a square dance,” Millie recalls. “When I was really little, me and my brother and our parents would go out on a little tiny boat to the Island for the square dance. I had no idea what was going on because I was three years old. But Natalie McMaster was there, and she came out and played this special song and everyone sat down and watched her play. After she was finished, I stood up, and I screamed to the back of the dance hall, “I want to do that, Mom! I want to do that!” I had never seen a fiddle before in my life, which is why I was so intrigued by it. I’d seen a guitar, a piano, and an accordion, but a fiddle was something I didn’t know of. It made me curious, and I asked to play one for the next three years. After that they decided it was time and they got me a fiddle. It’s been the biggest part of my life since then. I have other things that are important to me, but this is one of my favorite things to do.”
While watching Millie perform, I am astonished with her precision and speed, as well as the complexity of her craft, finding it incredible that she began playing this complicated instrument at such a young age. “For the first four years I used to get really frustrated when I was playing and I would be hard on myself,” Millie admits. “My Dad didn’t start playing with me until I was ten, and since I didn’t have someone to play with, it was a bit more of a struggle. Unlike some instruments, the fiddle just takes a lot more time and patience. Eventually I did get it. I sat down a little bit each night and figured something out, then before I knew it, I was playing, and then I was performing. That made it feel like I was practicing for something instead of just practicing to improve.”
“I hit this point around the time I was twelve when it became a thing that just happened,” she continues. “I didn’t even have to think about it anymore. It’s more enjoyable now because I can put in my own flare. I can play and think about what improvisation I’m going to put in to wow the audience. I can then stand up and dance a bit on stage or talk with my Dad. I used to have to look at my fingers, but now I can look at the audience. I feel good because it’s not something a lot of people play. I’m putting it out in the world in my way, and I’m giving the instrument a chance to be heard again. I mean, there are a lot of people who play fiddle, but not as many as people who play guitar or piano or sing, so I’m giving it a chance to become great again. When a bunch of fiddle players play together, in a jam circle, where are bringing it alive again.”
Millie began playing in front of audiences at age nine when she became a regular fixture at the Peterborough Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings. Attracting crowds with her music, Millie used the money she made to attend music camps on the East Coast, and also gave to various local and national charities. “I knew someone at the Peterborough Farmer’s Market down at the Morrow Building, who was the parent of someone who coached my brother’s hockey team,” Millie tells. “My father was also a coach on the team, so we were very close to them. His name is Baker Dave, and he sold amazing, baked goods at the market. So, he said to me ‘Millie, your playing is getting so good, why don’t you try to busk at the market.’ I didn’t know what was going on, because I was too young to understand, but I thought that it sounded fun, so I got a busking license and I ended up being down there for four hours every Saturday. My Dad originally didn’t play with me, so I have photos of people standing in a rainbow shape, and me playing in front of them. It’s cool to see now because I don’t play solo anymore.”
Although she can hold an audience by herself, one of the most charming aspects of her act is the warm and whimsical on-stage chemistry between Millie and her father Murray, who accompanies her on guitar. Millie is the star of the show, doing the fiddle tricks and all the talking. But her playful banter with Murray, who she refers to by his first name, is a delight. The connection between the two is evident and is the kind of special sort of musical bond that comes from being family. “It’s easier for me to work with someone I’ve known my whole life,” Millie says. “I think that at the root of my relationship is honesty. As opposed to playing with a friend, to whom I wouldn’t want to say things too harshly, my Dad and I have can say, ‘No, I really want to play this.’
“I consider him a friend too. We have fun outside of playing, talking about the music and about what we are going to say on stage. I find it very easy to work with him because I’m not afraid of any sort of frustration or backlash. Bands break up because they don’t trust each other. We trust and understand each other. It’s also great because we live with each other, so we can practice at any time. We practice every night for an hour and have become so familiar with how we play together. When I play a song, I hear his chords all the time and there is such a connection. We’ve become such great friends.”
Millie and Murray began recording the first album, Thirteen, in 2020 when they were approached at the Farmer’s Market by Gregory Pastic of Launchpad Records. “We were playing at the Farmer’s Market, and this gentleman passed by and said, ‘I’m getting back into the recording industry and this year I’d like to record different artists from Peterborough. Here’s my card. Give me a call if you’d like to do that.’” Millie says of meeting Greg. “We were so amazed because it was an idea up to that point, but then this gentleman came up and said he’d make it a reality. We went home and were so excited that we called him, and we started planning for the album. I started writing even more because I wanted my tunes on the album.”
Released in 2021, Thirteen has gained Millie widespread praise throughout the folk music industry, including her Folk Music Award nomination. “It’s anonymous so I have no idea who nominated the album for the award,” Millie says. “I found out a few months ago. I had come downstairs after school, and my parents had the nominations casted up on the TV and said ‘Millie, come and watch this.’ I said ‘No, I’m going to go to bed’ and they said, ‘You’ve got to watch this.’ So, it played through, and played a few songs and a few nominees and went through the categories and then my album popped up and I was completely amazed. I just sat there for fifteen minutes looking at the TV. Wow. Another thing was that some kids I knew, whom I met when I was down East, were also nominated. It was amazing because I didn’t think I’d know anyone who was nominated, but we are all releasing our first albums. It’s so cool. We’ll be flying to PEI in April for the award ceremony.”
While her set does contain a lot of standards and covers from contemporary East Coast musicians, a big part of her set, as well as her album, contains original compositions by Millie, who shows her maturity as a masterful composer instead of just mimicking what she hears. “I wrote a bit when I was younger, but nothing that really stuck,” she says. “I think it was three years ago that I wrote my first set, which I called A Small Success. It was a set of seven tunes. Now it’s become a weekly thing that I sit down and write a song. When I started writing songs, I had all these different categories of music. Now when I write, my music doesn’t really fit in any of these categories because it’s kind of a mix styles. It’s kind of like language in the way it has evolved.”
“It’s a really big deal to me for my original music to be pushed forward,” she continues. “It’s not that I don’t like playing other people’s stuff, because playing their music is where I get my inspiration. I love taking someone’s work and putting my own spin on it, and I hope someday somebody will take one of my songs and put their own spin on it. It feels so nice to have my own music. It feels like I’m moving forward. Whenever I feel that I need to get to another place, I usually write. Usually what happens out of it is a whole week of me working on a song and trying to name it. It’s fulfilling because you take all that time to write them, and then practice them. They are yours, and nobody can take them. My next album will be all original songs written by me.”
Now while I consider myself to be well-versed in music, I was very honest with Millie to let her know that I know very little about Cape Breton fiddle or Celtic music. Although it’s something I like to hear, it’s not something I have had a lot of exposure to. Wanting to deep dive and listen to more of it I asked Millie for some recommendations. “I love Natalie MacMaster. She’s my favorite fiddler in the whole world,” she begins. “My favorite band is the East Pointers. They are an East Coast Band, and I had the opportunity to have an online lesson with the leader of the band. His name is Tim Chaisson and he’s absolutely amazing. I also really love Shane Cook. I always learn his songs when I need something complex, because they are so intricate. There is another band I love called We Banjo 3, which is my favorite bluegrass band. I heard them for the first time at the Green Bridge Celtic Folk Festival when I was eleven. I thought they were so cool because I had never heard banjo music before, and it got me into bluegrass.”
Through recording during the pandemic, switching her performances to an online format, and performing at frequent online Sunday afternoon concerts, Millie’s whole world opened to more collaborations, as well as future opportunities that she may not have gotten if continuing as a regional performer. “In a way, COVID really helped me because I started doing online shows and it meant that people all over the world could pop in and see me, and it brought me an online following,” she says. “I have friends in the Philippines, Germany, Denmark and all over. I started opening up to other types of music, which I started incorporating into my own music through collaborations. I did a collaboration with a musician in India, which was so cool because I had never worked online prior to that. Before I felt that everything had to be in-person, but the online world is amazing. It’s opened so many doors and opportunities. It also became my way of coping with the pandemic. I was still able to perform. It wasn’t the same as performing in person, but it was different in a good way.”
Millie and her family are about to take their act international. “The Sulelænge i Magtenbølle asked me if I would come to perform in Denmark at the end of last summer, and I obviously wasn’t able to,” Millie reveals. “But we’ve been emailing back and forth, and they’ve made arrangements for me to do a tour next summer. It’s just been cleared that we are going, and I’m so excited that this is happening. I think that’s the biggest thing that has happened through the online world with my music.”
Although she is still a teenager, Millie’s career has taken off. With an album, a major music award nomination and now an upcoming trip to Europe, it looks like Irish Millie seems to be at the top of her her game. Millie she sees that this is only the beginning, that there is a lifetime of music yet to learn, and the best is yet to come. “My Nana says there was this guy who played in the symphony, and he could play a number of instruments, but not the fiddle,” she says. “He said that for most instruments, if you put in the time, you can master them in two years. But for the fiddle, it takes seven years to master. I feel that it takes more than seven years. it takes your entire life to master.”
To explore Irish Millie’s music and keep informed on news and her upcoming shows, visit her website at www.irishmillie.ca, and check out her album, Thirteen, on Spotify. Also make sure to visit Irish Millie’s YouTube channel for past and future live on-line shows at Irish Millie Fiddle Tunes.
PHOTO GALLERY BY JESSICA SCOTT
