DOUG BOYD
Piper
Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame
Inducted: July 11, 2019
Doug (right) practicing a few tunes with Jamie Ross.
Doug grew up on St. Mary’s Street and started his piping career at the age of 11 in a piping and drumming school operated by the Royal Canadian Legion. When he could play the bagpipes, he joined the Grade 3 Antigonish Legion Pipe Band as their youngest piper. He continued with the band as they won major awards in the Maritimes, North America and Scotland from 1971-1976, culminating with a third-place finish in Grade 2 at the World Pipe Band Championships in Hawick, Scotland in 1976.
Doug was blessed with a keen ear for bagpipe tone. As a teenager, he challenged himself to develop this gift by taking on the role of piping instructor with the Sprigs of Heather Pipe Band from North Sydney. It was rare to see such a young person in that role. Working with the young band, Doug began to develop the abilities to set up pipe band chanters with precision. Within a year he had led the Sprigs of Heather to a Nova Scotia Champion Supreme title in Grade 3.
During this time, Doug also competed as a solo piper. In 1977, he was named Champion Supreme in Grade 2 and in 1978 Champion Supreme in Grade 1. He then moved to the open professional class and competed for three years, but his passion and focus was playing with pipe bands. After the Antigonish Legion band folded, several pipers and drummers from that band joined Pipe Major Barry Ewen to create a band. This band which became known as the Scotia Legion Pipe Band soon became the top band in the Maritimes, winning regularly at our Highland Games.
Doug was invited to teach piping at the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s, Cape Breton and was named Pipe Major of the Gaelic College Pipe Band. He led this band to victories in Antigonish in 1981 and 1982 and in both years the band was named Champion Supreme for Grade 3.
In 1982, when Barry Ewen left for Ontario, Doug took over as pipe major of the top band in the province, the Grade 2 Scotia Legion Pipe Band. Though he was just 23 years old, he led the band to victory at the North American Pipe Band Championships in Maxville, Ontario. As pipe major it was Doug’s job to set up the pipe band chanters and to have all his pipers play in unison. As he continued to master these skills, he was acknowledged by his peers and was named pipe major of the year by the Nova Scotia Pipe Band Association. He was also named honorary Pipe Major of the Massed Pipe Band which performed during the September 1984 visit of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Nova Scotia.
In 1987, Doug was asked to join the Halifax Police Pipe Band as Pipe Major. Under Doug’s leadership, the band moved from Grade 4 to Grade 1 in just six years. They placed third at the World Pipe Band Championships in Grade 3 and then won a North American Championship in Grade 2. Two of the pipers in this band, Paul K. MacNeil and Jamie MacInnis, were adept at reading Cape Breton fiddle music and translating it to the scale used by bagpipers. Doug’s band began to incorporate tunes by the likes of John Morris Rankin and Dan R. MacDonald into their performances and use them in their competition medleys. Judges were blown away by the hard-driving reels and beautiful slow airs the band was playing and soon other bands around the world were playing Cape Breton tunes.
When Paul and Jamie recorded their first piping album, the two Cape Bretoners asked Doug to set up and tune their pipes in the production studio. Doug’s abilities for setting a pipe band sound worked just as well there. The great musician Dave MacIsaac, who accompanied Paul and Jamie with his guitar, was heard to say, “Doug Boyd has such a keen ear that he can hear a fly walking on the ceiling”.
The pressures of a busy career pushed Doug away from piping for a few years but when his sons, Colin (a piper) and Connor (a drummer), joined the Dartmouth and District Pipe Band, Doug was pulled out of retirement to take over as Pipe Major of this young band. Again, Doug led the Dartmouth and District Pipe Band to a North American Grade 3 Championship and guided the band from Grade 4 to Grade 2. Like all his bands, the Dartmouth and District band competed successfully at our Highland Games, regularly winning top scores from piping judges.
Doug finished his competitive piping career with the Grade 1 Halifax Citadel 78th Highlanders Pipe Band, competing with the band at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland in 2012.
For a piping career in which he has encouraged musical innovation and excellence while teaching top bands in the Maritimes and leading them to victory at our Games, Doug Boyd is inducted into the Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame.