COUNTRY FROM THE HEART

‘Thanks to its deep roots in our family, country music has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.’

- Doreen Brown

I was born on a farm in Madills, Ont., close to Creemore, and am the eldest of six children. At the age of one, we moved to the Sudbury area, which included the communities of Levack, Markstay and Minnow Lake. Dad worked in both the Levack and Copper Cliff nickel mines. I went to school in Minnow Lake and Markstay.

My father always bought country records, and country music has deep roots in our family. I am told that my paternal grandfather played the fiddle and could almost make it talk, and I have two cousins, the late Cecil and Albert Hayes, who also played the fiddle. When I was about five, my Uncle Percy would often come to visit us from the West. He was always so cheerful and sang country songs for us all the time; “The Prisoner’s Song” and “Nobody’s Darling But Mine” (which I recorded much later on my very first album) were my favourites.

At about age l4, a friend and I would take the bus to the Crystal Palace in Sudbury, where there was always a country band playing, and I learned to square dance and round dance, too. Back then, I enjoyed listening to the CKSO Sudbury radio station when they played country music.