We drive back to the mining museum in Glace Bay – Dick goes down into the mine on a tour, and I go through the museum, waiting for the group to arrive for their rehearsal. I have so much respect for these guys before they even start singing. For those of you who don’t know (and I didn’t- before I arrived in this area) Men of the Deeps is a choral group made up entirely of miners and retired miners from the Cape Breton area. When they perform ( they’ve toured China, Yugoslavia, Appalachian coal mining communities and Las Vegas, to name just a few “foreign” venues) they wear their miner’s uniforms, and come on stage lit only by the helmet lamps in their hard hats. They sing about life in the Cape Breton mines and in mining communities, and they sing from the heart, with the voice of experience. We just missed a concert they gave the night before we got to this area. I console myself by thinking it was already sold out.
So now, in this magical turn of events, I get to sit off to the side in the small auditorium, named for them, while they practice for their upcoming tour through Canada. It’s like a private concert – but I’m only a few feet away. They’re getting ready to do a Christmas show with Rita MacNeil so they’re working on some background parts, but they also run through some of their own numbers, and it’s breath-taking. I didn’t take pictures because I felt it would be an intrusion, but I’ll never forget their faces and their voices. Some of them come over and talk with me during their break. One of them, Nipper MacLeod, is one of the original members – I recognize him from videos in the mining museum. They are all so friendly, funny, down-to-earth – talent without the pretense. I hope I get the chance to hear them in a real concert someday. Until then, I’m going to treasure forever the song they sang at the end of the rehearsal – “for sitting through the whole practice”. And I was already pretty choked up – just being in their presence… wow.