Cedric Landers has a hit on his hands.
After playing music for almost his entire life, the soon-to-be-90-year-old man from Lutes Mountain, N.B., has become an overnight sensation.
“I can’t register it yet, that it’s really happened,” said Landers.
He plays piano for his wife Marina every day; they’ve been married 70 years. With some help from their daughter Loralee Druart, Marina posted videos of Landers playing hymns on Facebook. Druart said the response from family, friends and their church group was overwhelmingly positive so she thought her father’s music should be heard by more people.
“I started an account for dad on December 30th and it’s taken off,” she said.
As of Sunday, Landers’ Instagram account has more than 10,000 followers and his videos have been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
“I knew she was doing something with it, but I didn’t know what,” said Landers.
The views come from all over the world. People from South Korea, Ireland, Italy, France, Ukraine, Brazil, Argentina and the United States have been listening to Landers’ inspirational hymns.
Landers said it’s a great surprise because he’s always thought of himself as an organist, not a piano player.
“I can’t believe it,” Landers said. “That many people were listening to the radio. Well, not a radio, but that’s what I call it.”
Druart tells her father that the music is being shared on social media but he learned to play when he was just seven years old – when the radio brought music into his home.
“I was crazy about music,” he said. “As soon as I got home from school, I turned the radio on. We didn’t have televisions back then. I knew every musical program. I knew all the famous guys. Bing Crosby, all those fellows that had musical programs. I listened to them until my mother chased me up to bed.”
In high school, Landers sang in a quartet that toured the Maritimes. When he finished his studies, he bought a pickup truck and a Hammond organ and travelled everywhere from Pittsburgh to Newfoundland to play music.
“It was a pretty good life,” he said, one that’s framed in the pictures of his family atop his piano while he plays for his wife and daughter.
Druart said she thinks her father is popular because the old hymns bring joy to people.
“The hymns bring back childhood memories for them, growing up in a church,” she said. “Their grandfather sang that or played that, or their grandmother, or they sang it with their mom.”
Landers said it’s hard to believe his music is being heard all over the world.
“They’re listening for something and apparently it sounds good to them, I guess. If they’re church people, they would know all the hymns. If you’re into that kind of music, you stop and listen. I guess that’s the story.”
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