Seventh Town

Local band embraces traditional Celtic music

For much of the past two years, live music shows have been few and far between. In early March of 2020, County band Seventh Town was looking forward to playing on St. Patrick’s Day that year. As the day approached, there were ever-more alarming reports of a new and potentially deadly disease sweeping across the world. Days before St. Patrick’s Day, the province went into an extended lockdown, with all public gatherings severely restricted. Now, at the two-year mark of the pandemic’s grip on the world there is cause for optimism that the worst is behind us and life can return to a semblance of normalcy. This is a welcome turn of events for many, but especially so for musicians who can now look ahead to performing live music again. Seventh Town is no exception. The band started a little over 10 years ago as a duo, with Martin Smit on guitar and Meghan Balogh on fiddle. Soon after, Trisha Elliott added tin whistle to the mix and then a few years ago Fraser Hardman was invited to join on bass. All four members are vocalists too. The band name was chosen a little bit by happenstance. “Naming a band is like naming a child, because it stays with them for life,” says Smit. “Trish and I actually live in Seventh Town, which is the Ameliasburgh area. The original towns of Upper Canada were given numbers before they were given names, so Bath was First Town, and Fifth Town is familiar from Fifth Town Cheese. So living in Seventh Town we thought that was a good name as a placeholder until we could come up with a better name, and it just stuck and we haven’t even thought about changing it since then.”

The band plays a mix of acoustic Celtic folk music of Scottish and Irish origin, but also includes traditional Canadian and American folk tunes in its repertoire. “Canadian traditional music is a mash-up of many styles and cultures bringing their music together,” says Smit. “Canadian music was always heavily influenced by Celtic fiddle music, as well as East Coast and French-Canadian sounds.” The band has played in many festivals across eastern Ontario, as well as in pubs and other concert venues. They are looking forward to having a regular playing schedule in the coming months. “When the pandemic hit, all our shows were cancelled. We were shocked that it went on for so long. We thought that slowly things might open up a bit and we would get a show or two. We were really lucky to get the Celtic Yuletide show at The Eddie [in December 2021], but we were nervous about that as well, because restrictions started to come on again. Coming into this St. Patrick’s Day we are feeling confident to see the return of live music happening more like it used to be,” says Smit.

This St. Patrick’s Day, Seventh Town will be playing at the Wellings in the afternoon, and then an evening show at Sans Souci in Belleville, where 50 per cent of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. “The crisis there right now is on everybody’s mind, and everybody has a feeling they’d like to do something to help,” says Smit. “When you think about how much freedom we have and what a great country we live in, and you think about the 1.5 million refugees leaving Ukraine, we really think this would be a great way to give something back, as a band. Knowing that the government is matching dollar for dollar the Red Cross humanitarian aid, we thought it would be a good place to donate.”

Seventh Town will be releasing a CD of their music in the spring, and will be playing a show in Wellington Park on August 9 as part of the PEC Lions Club summer concert series. For more information about Seventh Town, please visit seventhtown.ca.