Friday marked a celebration of Sault Ste. Marie’s musical history with the presentation of The Soo Music Project book to one of the Sault Ste. Marie Museum’s permanent exhibits and the official launch of an accompanying website.
The Soo Music Project lists achievements and works of local musicians from several genres since the early 20th century, including rock, blues, jazz, bluegrass and country, doo-wop, classical, barbershop, electronic, musical theatre, comedic, punk, indie, alternative, and music from local big band orchestras and military marching bands.
The historical work was researched and compiled by the Sault’s Shaun Antler, a local historian, archivist and journalist who also served as Rotaryfest stage director for 12 consecutive festival years (2010 to 2021).
“I had a real close connection with a lot of musicians, so I wanted to archive all of the bands, all the musicians who have come through and called Sault Ste. Marie their home...that’s what this document is,” Antler said, speaking to SooToday.
Antler’s research includes the names of individual artists, names of local bands, titles of recordings they made, special events or venues they played, awards they received, dates they were active and their current status.
There are currently 1,885 entries in The Soo Music Project.
The book is now housed in the Sault Ste. Marie Museum’s ‘Naturally Gifted’ permanent music exhibit.
Antler said she was initially inspired to start her project upon visiting that exhibit when it opened four years ago.
“I started it in 2017, little bits at a time. Then COVID hit and I was at home, I pulled it off the back burner and I just started going full force. I started talking to people, I researched the internet, I messaged people on Facebook, I’ve spent countless hours, thousands of hours with all this data,” Antler said.
“There’s a variety of people of all ages (included in the document),” Antler said.
The oldest entry in The Soo Music Project is from 1901, listing the Sault’s Tagona Allied Band and its bandmaster William Robertson.
The work will be a living document, Antler said.
“It’s going to live here, in the museum exhibit. People can continue to submit (musical information) to it.”
Antler extended her thanks to many local music personalities for their help in compiling the project, including Paul Leclair, Rob Figures, Don MacDonald, Shane ‘DJ Seith’ Erickson, Adrian Vilaca, Denine Williams and many others.
Approximately 60 visitors attended Friday’s event at the Sault Ste. Marie Museum.
Admission was by donation.
“To have everybody come out and really support this effort, when it really was just a passion project that I started four years ago, thinking ‘we’ll get some stuff in writing so it never disappears from Sault Ste. Marie,’ is very fulfilling, and I’m extremely humbled by the people who took the time to talk with me and contribute this amount of information,” Antler said.
The dedication of the book to the museum was accompanied by the official unveiling of The Soo Music Project website, an online companion piece to Antler’s written work designed by Sault native Bill Cowen.
“It just seemed natural (to develop the website). We need one here. People talk about it (the Sault music scene) all the time,” Cowen said.
The website includes artists’ profiles, bios, photos, videos and articles written about them.
Musicians and others may access the website with an email address and password.
“It’s an interactive relationship between bands and the artists that play in them…(Sault drummer) Ed Young, for instance, has the most projects in the system at the moment. I like to see the cross relationships, certain drummers have played with many different guitar players and bass players,” Cowen said, stating Young has 29 projects listed on the website.
“It has been public for a little while because I’ve been talking to artists about it, but tonight, we officially unveiled it.”
“It’s great that Shaun and Bill could contribute stuff like that,” said Ric Datson, Sault Ste. Marie Museum assistant curator and well known local drummer, who established the ‘Naturally Gifted’ permanent music exhibit in 2017.
“I’m glad that we can preserve local history for musicians. I think it’s really important. When I first started here at the museum, there was nothing here for pictures, maybe three or four pictures of bands, and now we have probably close to 4,000 items, pictures and news articles for musicians. It’s really good,” Datson said.
“The Soo Music Project archive will provide greater access and awareness of Sault Ste. Marie’s local and regional music history. The addition of The Soo Music Project will further enrich the ‘Naturally Gifted' music exhibit and shed new light on bands and artists that have performed locally,” said William Hollingshead, Sault Ste. Marie Museum executive director and chief curator.
Anyone wishing to submit additional listings or amendments to existing entries in The Soo Music Project book may contact Shaun Antler by email.
Anyone wishing to donate photos, posters, records, CDs and other musical memorabilia to the Naturally Gifted - A Tribute to Local Musicians permanent exhibit may contact Ric Datson, Sault Ste. Marie Museum assistant curator, by email.