MILBURN, P.E.I. — Harry Lecky gently lifts one of his fiddles out of its case, quietly picks up the bow and effortlessly launches into a tune.
He does it almost by habit and for very good reason: he’s been doing so for about 75 of his 90 years; all self-taught and all by ear.
“I don’t know one note from another,” he said.
Lecky isn’t even sure where his first fiddle came from.
“Somebody likely brought it to me.”
He’s had several fiddles over the years and currently has four. He doesn’t know it for sure, but he’s been told one of his fiddles had once belonged to former U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt.
“Alex Morrison worked with President Roosevelt, and (the fiddle) got handed down through him and I finally got it,” Lecky said.
“The best I ever had got burned,” he said of a fiddle destroyed in a 2004 fire that threatened to put him out of the Lecky family homestead in Milburn where he was born.
A lifelong bachelor who often replies with, “Well, I’m still here,” when callers ask how he’s doing, Lecky is pleased he was able to move back in after the fire; it is where he’s most comfortable, he acknowledged.
He raised cattle on the farm there until the early 2000s. Since then he’s faced some health challenges, but his fiddles have remained his solace. He was briefly hospitalized recently, but on the very day he was released from hospital he was back out playing for area seniors.
Lecky also plays the guitar and harmonica and a few tunes on the keyboard.
His fiddle-playing style is unique, tucking the instrument between his side and his left elbow rather than at the customary spot under the chin.
“You’re more restful,” said long-time fiddle playing friend Warren Leard describing Lecky’s playing style.
Leard and Lecky played together in the Warren Leard Group for more than two decades.
“Harry was with us the whole time. He was very well liked and a nice, quiet fellow,” said Leard who said a favourite hymn of Lecky’s was "You Go to Your Church and I’ll go to Mine".
The group played for many denominations.
Lecky also performed at countless benefits and for square dances over the years.
Even more unique than his fiddle-playing style, said Leard, is Lecky’s ability to play the fiddle and sing at the same time.
“That’s very rare,” he said. “It just seemed to come natural to Harry to do that.”
The group disbanded well over a decade ago, but Lecky and Leard still get together from time-to-time to play at the Alberton Arts and Heritage Centre.
Although he lives alone, Lecky gets many visitors and they often bring along their guitars and fiddles for afternoon jam sessions. He also visits local seniors complexes to play.
“There are people there every day,” said Angie MacDonald of the steady stream of visitors her uncle Harry receives at his homestead.
“He’s always concerned about people. He likes to help out.”
Asked if he’d have 100 tunes in his repertoire, Lecky said, “I would say a lot more than that” and admits to knowing more tunes than he can list by name.
