Kinnon & Betty Lou Beaton

Kinnon Beaton comes from a long line of fiddlers from the Mabou area. His playing, like that of his late father Donald Angus is rich in the Mabou Coal Mines flavour. Beaton is very much in demand at dances and concerts from Cape Breton to Boston and every place in between. Beaton is a prolific composer as his fiddle tunes can be found on numerous Cape Breton fiddle recordings including his own. Kinnon composed a tune for Broad Cove in recognition of our 50th anniversary concert.

​Betty Lou Beaton began playing the piano at the age of five. Although she has a couple of years of piano training, all her Cape Breton piano playing is done by ear. At fourteen years of age, she started playing dances with her brother, Buddy MacMaster, and has been accompanying fiddlers for dancers ever since. Betty has taught at the Ceilidh Trail School of Music in Inverside Cape Breton, at Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend in Washington, USA, and Ceolas in South Uist, Scotland. She has played on numerous recordings including the Smithsonian Folkways recording "The Beaton Family of Mabou: Cape Breton Fiddle and Piano Music". She is most often paired with her husband, fiddler Kinnon Beaton, and the duo is always in demand to play for dances.