Doug's Bio

Doug Lamey has been playing and performing the Celtic violin for most of his life. his introduction to the Cape Breton Fiddle was an impromptu lesson by Natalie MacMaster in his Aunt Patricia's kitchen when he was just 6 years old. Over the years he has had the opportunity and privilege to learn from some of the great Cape Breton fiddlers such as John Campbell, Buddy MacMaster and Jerry Holland. But his primary influence came from his grandparents, Bill and Sally Lamey. The legendary Scottish/Cape Breton fiddler Bill Lamey  contributed much to the Scottish and Cape Breton heritage in the Boston States for over 35 years, and recorded several Cape Breton 78-rpm records in the 1940s. Sally, too, left her Scots mark on him, being fluent in Gaelic and the daughter of a Gaelic songwriter.  Bill’s fiddle-playing was over by the time Doug was born, but Doug was very taken by his grandparents’ musicality, and over the years his appreciation has only deepened. "I have listened to him more than any other musician," Doug says. "I still get playing tips while listening to his old recordings."

Growing up in Boston, Doug studied Classical, Cape Breton, and Traditional Irish music with faculty and students in the Wheaton College Music Department in Norton, Massachusetts. For most of that time, his teacher was Wheaton's Director of World Music, Sheila Falls Keohane. Through the years, Doug also had oppourtunities to study with respected and renowned fiddlers, including Buddy MacMaster, John Campbell, Jerry Holland, Carl MacKenzie, Sandy MacIntyre, Seamus Connolly, and Alasdair Fraser. 

He was a strong figure in Boston's Celtic music scene, playing at major area venues like Club Passim, the ICONS Festival, and BCMFest, as well as innumerable ceilidhs and dances at Watertown's Canadian-American Club and in various venues and stages throughout the Greater Boston area. His deep ties to Cape Breton remained strong through yearly visits to his grandparents, who retired in Kingsville, Nova Scotia after their years in Boston. 

Doug has performed at many concerts and festivals throughout North America, including the Lowell Folk Festival, the Celtic Colours International Festival, the Washington D.C. Irish Festival, the Longs Peak Scottish Highland Festival, and the New Hampshire Highland Games. He recorded a CD in 2009 as a member of the band Tri - Among Friends/ A-measg Chàirdean”, and has been on Brian O'Donovan's Celtic Sojourn - WGBH Radio Boston, as well as NECN's CoffeeHouse and Bob MacEachern's Highland Fling on 101.5 The Hawk, Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia.
In 1966 Bill Lamey made his first trip to Scotland, where it all began. His outstanding memory of that time was performing with Fr. John Angus Rankin of Glendale, Cape Breton, before a live audience of 3,000 plus the television and radio audience of the BBC at the Gaelic Mod in Inverness, Scotland, and receiving a standing ovation from the people who were thrilled to see and hear their Highland Scottish Music and language so faithfully preserved for over 200 years in a place far away from them called Cape Breton Island.

The reception Bill got when he appeared in person at the Mod in Inverness later that year was extraordinary. "Bill went up on the stage and started playing traditional, the way he did, and the people were shell shocked. When he got through they stood up and clapped and clapped and wouldn't let him sit down." People marvelled at the way Cape Breton fiddlers had kept the tradition of 'the cutting of the bow' (rhythmic use of triplets) and syncopation in their playing, while these techniques had largely been lost in Scotland. One older woman said "we haven't got that music at all - we have never heard the like in years - we lost that, it's gone." - Full Circle notes
In March of 2011, Doug fully embraced his roots by moving to the island, and celebrated it with his first CD, “ A Step Back In Time.” "Coming up here to Cape Breton and living in a 150-year-old house, I've stepped back in time to the place where my family came from,” he said. “But there's more to it than that: there's the actual timing of the music and how the newer generation plays much faster than the old. I don't consider myself part of that category, so I'd be more ‘a step back in time’ as opposed to ‘too fast' or so I've been told. " 

Doug currently resides in Baddeck, Cape Breton, with his wife Kaitlin and four children, performing his violin at Square Dances, at ceilidhs and concerts across the island and beyond. He is available as a band musician or solo performer, and gives fiddle lessons. Doug has taught at several fiddle camps through the years, including The Gaelic College in St. Ann's Cape Breton. His most recent album True North was released in 2023, and has received some notable reviews in publications such as Fiddler Magazine, Celtic Life International & The Boston Irish Reporter.