Listen to Volume 2

Cape Breton Island Songs of Steel, Coal and Protest

This is part two of a program to preserve, promote and make available the steel, mining and protest songs of the region. It tells stories about the struggles to survive strikes and hard times, the courage of workers wives, the fight by trade unionists and the oppression of international company owners.

In 2012, the Centre released the CD “Cape Breton Island Protest Songs, Volume 1” along with an accompanying web site (www.protestsongs.ca).

It was also a collaboration between MacKinnon and Cape Breton musicians to record songs that were originally published in Cape Breton newspapers such as the Maritime Labour Herald, The Steelworker and the Steelworker and Miner from the 1920s through to the 1950s. MacKinnon found the words and the musicians created the arrangements and music.