John Allan Cameron

John Allan Cameron was born in 1938 in Canada and came from a very musical family. He began playing the guitar as a teenager, but moved to Ottawa, Ontario, in 1957, to become a priest. He left and studied education at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, performing around campus with a group called the Cavaliers. After teaching in London, Ontario, he resumed music in 1968, playing traditional Scottish and Irish music at the Newport and Mariposa Folk Festivals. He signed with Apex soon after and recorded Here Comes John Allan Cameron (1968) and The Minstrel of Cranberry Lane (1969). A contract with Balmur Ltd. produced Get There by Dawn and Lord of the Dance in 1972 and 1973. Beginning in 1975, Cameron has frequently performed with the Cape Breton Symphony, comprised of accordionist/pianist Bobby Brown and fiddlers Winston Fitzgerald, Wilfred Gillen and John Donald Cameron. His other albums include Weddings, Wakes & Other Things (1976), Fiddle (1978), Freeborn Man (1979), Good Times (1987), Wind Willow (1991) and two volumes of Classic John Allan (1992).