Born Andrew Joseph Patrice
Ephreme Desjarlais in 1914 in Woodridge,
Manitoba.
A renowned Metis fiddling master with over
200 compositions to his credit, Andy De
Jarlis was active in the music industry
from the mid-1930s through to the
1970s. Touring in northern Ontario,
Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, his band was
known initially as the Red River Mates and
later as the Early Settlers. De
Jarlis began his recording career for
Quality Records and later for the London
Records label.
Andy De Jarlis was awarded the City of
Winnipeg Community Service Award in 1968,
won BMI’s first Canadian annual award in
1969, received the Manitoba Centennial
Medal in 1970 and was inducted into
the Manitoba Aboriginal Music Hall
of Fame in 2006.
BANDMATE TELLS STORY OF
FIDDLING LEGEND De Jarlis fought battles with health,
stage fright
GIMLI — Part of what’s so compelling in
the life story of Métis fiddling legend
Andy De Jarlis was his health and
psychological battles.
“He’d struggle with breathing,” said
former bandmate Joe Mackintosh, who played
accordion with Andy De Jarlis and His
Early Settlers. “It was so bad that,
playing with him on stage, he’d have a
spittoon and he was constantly bringing up
phlegm.”
Then there was his stage fright. De Jarlis
is usually regarded — certainly in Western
Canada — as a fiddler and songwriter
superior to the East Coast’s Don Messer.
But De Jarlis struggled in the limelight.
In 1940, industrialist Henry Ford was such
an admirer that he invited De Jarlis to
perform for him. Ford had the status of
someone like Steve Jobs in modern times.
But De Jarlis excused himself.
Mackintosh, who lives in Gimli, has penned
a long-overdue biography of De Jarlis, who
popularized Métis heritage music that was
born from the musical influences of the
Selkirk settlers, aboriginal peoples and
French-Canadian fur traders comingling at
The Forks.
De Jarlis was born in 1914 in Woodridge,
southeast of Steinbach, the youngest of 14
children. He had one dream, and that was
to be a fiddler like his father, Pierre.
The family moved to Winnipeg in 1934 and
teenage Andy immediately won a fiddling
contest and $5 from radio station CJRC
(later CKRC), owned by James Richardson
and Sons at the time, before it was sold
to the Winnipeg Free Press in 1940.
Shyness hurt De Jarlis’s career, but it
didn’t dull his brilliance. He would go on
to pen some 200 songs. He recorded 37
long-play records, mostly with major-label
London Records, but also with Quality
Records. He hosted regular radio and TV
series in both Quebec and Manitoba. He
sold books of his songs in sheet-music
form. His songs are regularly played when
old-time music players gather today.
Mackintosh didn’t so much choose to be De
Jarlis’s biographer as De Jarlis chose
him. De Jarlis and Don Messer had a great
mutual admiration and corresponded
frequently by letter. But when a book came
out about Messer, De Jarlis wanted a book
about his own life, too. He cajoled
Mackintosh into recording his
recollections before De Jarlis died in
1975 at age 61. Three decades later,
Mackintosh, with time on his hands in
retirement, delivered with Andy De
Jarlis: The Life and Music of an
Old-Time Fiddler.
It’s an enjoyable book, published by Great
Plains Publications, but one largely
overlooked since its release last
Christmas. Mackintosh is not a
professional writer but has done a
commendable job, with help from his
journalist daughter Karen. What he is, is
a musician who understands the musician’s
life.
That’s everything from musician dates — go
to a dance where he plays and she sits and
watches — to the drinking binges that
surrounded dances. The party atmosphere
around live music didn’t start just with
rock ‘n’ roll. De Jarlis once played at a
dance from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. — for $5.
It’s fun to read the names of old dance
halls where De Jarlis performed: the
Rainbow Dance Gardens on Smith Street, the
Normandy at Portage Avenue and Sherbrook
Street, the Trianon ballroom on Kennedy
Street, the Electric Lunch, where Winnipeg
City Hall now stands, Patterson’s Ranch
House (a converted barn) at Logan and
Keewatin. Dances were held almost nightly
but stopped at midnight on Saturdays to
observe the Lord’s Day Act. The night
ended with the band playing God Save the
Queen. Everyone stood. This dates back to
the 1940s. De Jarlis continued performing
regularly well into the 1960s when rock
‘n’ roll ushered in a new era.
His songs are often named after Manitoba
geography or arcana: Assiniboine Polka,
Buckskin Reel, Bull Moose Reel, Early
Settlers Breakdown, Golden Boy Two-Step,
Interlake Waltz, Killarney Jig, Louis Riel
Reel, Lucky Trapper’s Reel, Morning Glory
Waltz, Moccasin Reel, Woodridge Breakdown
and at least five titles with Red River in
them, including Red River Gumbo.
SUBMITTED PHOTO Andy
De Jarlis plays some jigs, reels
and breakdowns with his band in
a photo
taken from the book on his life.
The Metis fiddling legend
composed many songs with
Manitoba references.
De Jarlis performed in Winnipeg
dance halls and recorded on the
London and Quality labels.
Mackintosh,
a graduate of Deeley’s Accordion Studio as
a youth, played accordion with De Jarlis
in his later years from 1968 on. He later
taught economics in Red River College’s
business administration program.
Andy’s widow, Irene, his third wife, is
still alive and remarried.
The book is available at McNally Robinson
Bookstore, and Tergeson and Sons in Gimli.
It also comes with a four-song CD sample
of De Jarlis hits, including the famous
Red River Jig.
