Dan R. MacDonald

Dan Rory MacDonald (February 2, 1911–1976) was a Canadian fiddler who lived in Cape Breton. Hee is notable for his composition of many fiddle tunes.

MacDonald was born in southwest Port Hood, at the home of Angus MacDonald (Angus the Carpenter). He was raised in Judique, Inverness County on Cape Breton Island. Known as "Dan R.", he was encouraged by his fiddle-playing father, to study music at an early age. His father took him to the home of Hugh A. O’Hanley in Judique South in 1921, where Angus A. MacDougall and Allan MacDougall would go to play the fiddle. Hugh O'Hanley gave him a violin which had belonged to his brother Allan O’Hanley, MacDonald's grandfather. In 1930, MacDonald went to Glendale and learned to read music from John Willie MacEachern.

MacDonald made his first radio appearance in 1935 on radio station CJCB in Sydney. The next year he composed his first tune, a reel called The Red Shoes. He made his first recording in 1939, including one of his own compositions called Lassies of Campbell Street. MacDonald enlisted in the army in 1940, and served in Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium. He regularly played on the BBC while stationed at Abergeldie Castle in Scotland. He also met and was taught by J. Murdoch Henderson, a Scottish composer and music critic. During his time in Scotland MacDonald composed Heather Hill.

After his discharge in 1946, MacDonald briefly moved to Boston, and then to Hamilton, Ontario, followed by eleven years in Windsor working in the automotive plants. He later became part of the group, The Five MacDonald Fiddlers, organized by a fiddler named Johnnie Archie MacDonald. The group recorded two LPs.

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