LOWER SACKVILLE, N.S. (CP) - The late Don Messer was by all accounts a shy, soft-spoken man who wouldn't say boo to anyone.
Apparently 33 years of afterlife hasn't brought him out of his shell. A psychic held a seance at Messer's grave Thursday in a bizarre attempt to get the reluctant fiddling icon to speak, or even scratch out a few tunes. "The lines are open, Don. Come on, talk to us. We'd love to hear from you," Alan Hatfield implored as he waved two hand-held tape recorders he claimed would be able to capture the former fiddler's voice.
"Don, we'd love to hear from you and the sound of your beautiful fiddle."
Messer, one of the early stars of Canadian television, hosted the popular CBC program Don Messer's Jubilee from 1958 to 1969. He died of a heart attack in 1973.
As two former colleagues from the show shivered in the spring chill, Hatfield stood over Messer's simple marker and tried for 45 minutes to conjure their long-dead boss.
Mary Wile, a former dancer on the show, described Messer as a shy, humble man who rarely had much to say.
When asked what the former fiddler might say from the other side, Wile laughed and replied: "Gosh, darn. That might be about the closest he would ever get to a swear word or curse."
Hatfield, from Truro, N.S., claims to be able to capture spirit voices on ordinary audio tapes, including the voices of 11 Titanic victims buried in a Halifax cemetery.
During a 45-minute ceremony that was part seance and sideshow, Hatfield heralded the arrival of several spirits to the forlorn, windswept hill where Messer and his wife, Naomi, are buried.
"I'm sensing a negative presence that is blocking Messer," the psychic said, dousing rods twirling in each hand.
Faye Cameron, another psychic, claimed moments later to see a dozen "misty figures" standing near the grave, including Messer and two of his former singers, Marg Osburne and Charlie Chamberlain.
"I'm feeling a lot of them now," Hatfield said at about the midway point of the seance. "They're having a party on the hill.
"Bring out your fiddle, Don, and let's hear some music."
Then later, as his two tapes were about to run out, Hatfield suddenly claimed contact.
"Who's Frank Leahy? Does anybody know this person?" the psychic asked.
"He's a fiddle player," replied a surprised Wile. "He has one of Don Messer's fiddles."
"Don Messer just said that name to me," Hatfield continued. "Â? 'He's got the music.' That's what he just said to me. I've never heard of him."
Afterwards, Hatfield played back portions of the tape, stopping at one point when a woman's garbled, faint voice could be heard in the background.
"Did anybody hear that?" Hatfield asked.
"That was me," a reporter replied.
The seance ended with Hatfield promising to run his tapes through "a forensic program" that is able to extract faint voices from electronic hash.
He promised to e-mail the cuts to anyone wanting them and to hand over the master tape for examination.
"I've got nothing to hide," he said.
Source: http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=24502
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