Month: October 2017

Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Fats Domino dead at 89

NEW ORLEANS — Fats Domino, the amiable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose steady, pounding piano and easy baritone helped change popular music while honouring the traditions of the Crescent City, died Tuesday. He was 89.

Mark Bone, chief investigator with the Jefferson Parish, La., coroner’s office, said Domino died of natural causes at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.

In appearance, he was no Elvis Presley. He stood 5-feet-5 and weighed more than 200 pounds, with a wide, boyish smile and a haircut as flat as an album cover. But Domino sold more than 110 million records, with hits including Blueberry Hill, Ain’t It a Shame and other standards of rock ‘n’ roll.

He was one of the first 10 honourees named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Rolling Stone Record Guide likened him to Benjamin Franklin, the beloved old man of a revolutionary movement.

His dynamic performance style and warm vocals drew crowds for five decades. One of his show-stopping stunts was playing the piano while standing, throwing his body against it with the beat of the music and bumping the grand piano across the stage.

Domino’s 1956 version of Blueberry Hill was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry of historic sound recordings worthy of preservation. The preservation board noted that Domino insisted on performing the song despite his producer’s doubts, adding that Domino’s “New Orleans roots are evident in the Creole inflected cadences that add richness and depth to the performance.”

Domino became a global star but stayed true to his hometown, where his fate was initially unknown after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. It turned out that he and his family were rescued by boat from his home, where he lost three pianos and dozens of gold and platinum records, along with other memorabilia.

Many wondered if he would ever return to the stage. Scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006, he simply tipped his hat to thousands of cheering fans.

But in May 2007, he was back, performing at Tipitina’s music club in New Orleans. Fans cheered — and some cried — as Domino played I’m Walkin’, Ain’t It a Shame, Shake, Rattle and Roll, Blueberry Hill and a host of other hits.

That performance was a highlight during several rough years. After losing their home and almost all their belongings to the floods, his wife of more than 50 years, Rosemary, died in April 2008.

Domino moved to the New Orleans suburb of Harvey after the storm but would often visit his publishing house, an extension of his old home in the Lower 9th Ward, inspiring many with his determination to stay in the city he loved.

“Fats embodies everything good about New Orleans,” his friend David Lind said in a 2008 interview. “He’s warm, fun-loving, spiritual, creative and humble. You don’t get more New Orleans than that.”

The son of a violin player, Antoine Domino Jr. was born on Feb. 26, 1928, to a family that grew to include nine children. As a youth, he taught himself popular piano styles — ragtime, blues and boogie-woogie — after his cousin left an old upright in the house. Fats Waller and Albert Ammons were early influences.

He quit school at age 14, and worked days in a factory while playing and singing in local juke joints at night. In 1949, Domino was playing at the Hideaway Club for $3 a week when he was signed by Imperial record company.

He recorded his first song, The Fat Man, in the back of a tiny French Quarter recording studio.

“They call me the Fat Man, because I weigh 200 pounds,” he sang. “All the girls, they love me, ’cause I know my way around.”

In 1955, he broke into the white pop charts with Ain’t it a Shame — but actually sang the lyrics as “ain’t that a shame.” The song was covered blandly by Pat Boone as Ain’t That a Shame and rocked out years later by Cheap Trick. Domino enjoyed a parade of successes through the early 1960s, including Be My Guest and I’m Ready. Another hit, I’m Walkin, became the debut single for Ricky Nelson.

Domino appeared in the rock ‘n’ roll film The Girl Can’t Help It and was among the first black performers to be featured in popular music shows, starring with Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. He also helped bridge rock ‘n’ roll and other styles — even country/western, recording Hank Williams’ Jambalaya and Bobby Charles’ Walkin’ to New Orleans.

Like many of his peers, Domino’s popularity tapered off in the 1960s as British and psychedelic rock held sway.

Domino told Ebony magazine that he stopped recording because companies wanted him to update his style.

“I refused to change,” he said. “I had to stick to my own style that I’ve always used or it just wouldn’t be me.”

Antoine and Rosemary Domino raised eight children in the same ramshackle neighbourhood where he grew up, but they did it in style — in a white mansion, trimmed in pink, yellow and lavender. The front double doors opened into an atrium with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and ivory dominos set in a white marble floor.

In 1988, all of New Orleans seemed to be talking about him after he reportedly paid in cash for two Cadillacs and a US$130,000 Rolls-Royce. When the salesman asked if he wanted to call his bank about financing, Domino smiled and said, “I am the bank.”

In 1998, he became the first purely rock ‘n’ roll musician to be awarded the National Medal for the Arts. But he cited his age and didn’t make the trip to the White House to get the medal from President Clinton.

That was typical. Aside from rare appearances in New Orleans, he dodged the spotlight in his later years, refusing to appear in public or even to give interviews.

Robert Guillaume, ‘Benson’ and ‘Soap’ actor, dies at 89

NEW YORK — Robert Guillaume, who rose from squalid beginnings in St. Louis slums to become a star in stage musicals and win Emmy Awards for his portrayal of the sharp-tongued butler in the TV sitcoms “Soap” and “Benson,” has died at age 89.

Guillaume died at home Tuesday in Los Angeles, according to his widow, Donna Brown Guillaume. He had been battling prostate cancer, she told The Associated Press.

Among Guillaume’s achievements was playing Nathan Detroit in the first all-black version of “Guys and Dolls,” earning a Tony nomination in 1977. He became the first African-American to sing the title role of “Phantom of the Opera,” appearing with an all-white cast in Los Angeles.

While playing in “Guys and Dolls, he was asked to test for the role of an acerbic butler of a governor’s mansion in ”Soap,“ a primetime TV sitcom that satirized soap operas.

“The minute I saw the script, I knew I had a live one,” he recalled in 2001. “Every role was written against type, especially Benson, who wasn’t subservient to anyone. To me, Benson was the revenge for all those stereotyped guys who looked like Benson in the ’40s and ’50s (movies) and had to keep their mouths shut.”

The character became so popular that ABC was persuaded to launch a spinoff, simply called “Benson,” which lasted from 1979 to 1986. The series made Guillaume wealthy and famous, but he regretted that Benson’s wit had to be toned down to make him more appealing as the lead star.

The career of Robert Guillaume (pronounced with a hard “g”: gee-yome) almost ended in January 1999 at Walt Disney Studio. He was appearing in the TV series “Sports Night” as Isaac Jaffee, executive producer of a sports highlight show. Returning to his dressing room after a meal away from the studio, he suddenly collapsed.

“I fell on the floor, and I couldn’t get up,” he told an interviewer in 2001. “I kept floundering about on the floor and I didn’t know why I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know it was it was caused by my left side being weaker than the other.”

Fortunately, St. Joseph Hospital was directly across from the studio. The 71-year-old actor was taken there and treated for a stroke — the result of a blood clot that blocked circulation of blood to the brain. They are fatal in 15 per cent of the cases.

Guillaume’s stroke was minor, causing relatively slight damage and little effect on his speech. After six weeks in the hospital, he underwent a therapy of walks and sessions in the gym. He returned to the second season of “Sports Talk,” and it was written into the script that Isaac Jaffee was recovering from a stroke. Because of slim ratings, the second season proved to be the last for the much-praised show.

Guillaume resumed his career and travelled as a new spokesman for the American Stroke Association. He also made appearance for the American Heart Association.

“I’m a bastard, a Catholic, the son of a prostitute, and a product of the poorest slums of St. Louis.”

This was the opening of “Guillaume: A Life,” his 2002 autobiography in which he laid bare his troubled life. He was born fatherless on Nov. 30, 1927, in St. Louis, one of four children. His mother named him Robert Peter Williams; when he became a performer he adopted Guillaume, a French version of Williams, believing the change would give him distinction.

His early years were spent in a back-alley apartment without plumbing or electricity; an outhouse was shared with two dozen people. His alcoholic mother hated him because of his dark skin, and his grandmother rescued him, taught him to read and enrolled him in a Catholic school.

Seeking but denied his mother’s love and scorned by nuns and students because of his dark skin, the boy became a rebel, and that carried into his adult life. He was expelled from school and then the Army, though he was granted an honourable discharge. He fathered a daughter and abandoned the child and her mother. He did the same to his first wife and two sons and to another woman and a daughter.

He worked in a department store, the post office and as St. Louis’s first black streetcar motorman. Seeking something better, he enrolled at St. Louis University, excelling in philosophy and Shakespeare, and then at Washington University (St. Louis) where a music professor trained the young man’s superb tenor singing voice.

After serving as an apprentice at theatres in Aspen, Colo., and Cleveland, the newly named Guillaume toured with Broadway shows “Finian’s Rainbow,” ”Golden Boy,“ ”Porgy and Bess“ and ”Purlie,“ and began appearing on sitcoms such as ”The Jeffersons“ and ”Sanford and Son.“ Then came ”Soap“ and ”Benson.“ His period of greatest success was marred by tragedy when his 33-year-old son Jacques died of AIDS.

Guillaume’s first stable relationship came when he married TV producer Donna Brown in the mid-1980s and fathered a daughter, Rachel. At last he was able to shrug off the bitterness he had felt throughout his life.

“To assuage bitterness requires more than human effort,” he wrote at the end of his autobiography. “Relief comes from a source we cannot see but can only feel. I am content to call that source love.”

Last night Gord quietly passed away with his beloved children and family close by.

Gord knew this day was coming – his response was to spend this precious time as he always had – making music, making memories and expressing deep gratitude to his family and friends for a life well lived, often sealing it with a kiss… on the lips.

Gord said he had lived many lives. As a musician, he lived “the life” for over 30 years, lucky to do most of it with his high school buddies. At home, he worked just as tirelessly at being a good father, son, brother, husband and friend. No one worked harder on every part of their life than Gord. No one.

We would like to thank all the kind folks at KGH and Sunnybrook, Gord’s bandmates, management team, friends and fans. Thank you for all the help and support over the past two years.

Thank you everyone for all the respect, admiration and love you have given Gord throughout the years – those tender offerings touched his heart and he takes them with him now as he walks among the stars.

Love you forever Gord.

The Downie Family

Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie dead at 53

Gord Downie, the Tragically Hip frontman who united a diverse array of music lovers with his commanding stage presence and Canadiana-laced lyrics, has died.

He was 53.

Downie had an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer called glioblastoma, which he discovered after a seizure in December 2015.

He died Tuesday night surrounded by his children and family, according to a statement on the band’s website.

“Gord knew this day was coming – his response was to spend this precious time as he always had – making music, making memories and expressing deep gratitude to his family and friends for a life well lived, often sealing it with a kiss… on the lips,” the statement said.

Canadians learned of Downie’s illness on May 24 last year — the same day the rest of the rock group, Paul Langlois, Rob Baker, Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay, announced that the Kingston, Ont.-based band would head out on a final summer tour “for Gord, and for all of us.”

The 15-show Man Machine Poem tour, especially its final concert, became a cultural event, as Downie’s dire prognosis prompted an outpouring of support from people across the country who had the rare opportunity to celebrate a much-loved Canadian before he was gone.

As the Tragically Hip’s lead singer and lyricist, Downie was the face and voice of a band whose discography sold more than eight million copies. The band’s propulsive, muscular rock, coupled with intense live performances and Downie’s cryptic, literary lyrics, allowed the band to attract a diverse fan base that included party animals and armchair philosophers alike.

Downie contained similar complexities: He was an everyman poet, seeming both aloof and down to earth, writing lyrics that rhymed “catharsis” with “my arse is.” He sang about Canada, but disavowed nationalism, his songs exploring heavy topics like David Milgaard’s wrongful conviction (Wheat Kings) or Canada’s treatment of First Nations (Now the Struggle Has a Name).

Downie spent his final months speaking out in support of Indigenous people, declaring: “Canada is not Canada. We are not the country we think we are.”

After his final appearances with the Tragically Hip, Downie released Secret Path, a multimedia project that tells the tragic tale of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack, who died of exposure and hunger in 1966 after running away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ont. Meanwhile, the Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund was started to “start a new relationship with Indigenous Peoples.”

Downie, who won two Junos for the 10-song solo album, thought of the Secret Path music, concerts and film created with artist Jeff Lemire as his legacy project. Lemire created a graphic novel inspired by Downie’s songs, and its images were used to create the film.

Over the course of his career, Downie released three other musically adventurous solo albums, a collaboration with Toronto roots-rock band the Sadies, and a book of poetry. Earlier this fall, Downie announced he had been working on another solo album, Introduce Yerself. The 23-song double album is due out Oct. 27, 2017, and is expected to be released posthumously by the Canadian label Arts & Crafts.

Though he wasn’t afraid to go it alone as a solo artist, Downie’s legacy will always be tied most closely with the Tragically Hip.

The Hip, as they’re often called, won 16 Juno awards (the most of any band) and received a raft of other honours, including the Order of Canada. The group also has a Canadian Music Hall of Fame induction, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, an honorary fellowship with the Royal Conservatory of Music and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. The band even has its own postage stamp and a street named after it, Tragically Hip Way, in Kingston, Ont.

Gordon Edgar Downie was born in Kingston on Feb. 6, 1964, and spent his formative years in nearby Amherstview.

His godfather was future Boston Bruins coach and general manager Harry Sinden, and Downie enjoyed the national pastime as both a die-hard Bruins fan and a goalie who took his B-level team to a provincial championship.

Downie said growing up on the shores of Lake Ontario had an impact on the way he viewed the environment, which led him to support the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper as a board member and to pay for renewable energy at his Toronto home.

But music was his first love. He listened to everything he could in his older sister’s 45 collection, and used his allowance to buy records. He eventually joined a band that did punk covers, and was in a group called the Filters.

The Tragically Hip formed in 1983 at Queen’s University, named after a sketch in former Monkees member Michael Nesmith’s long-form music video “Elephant Parts,” and were soon playing the Kingston bar scene.

Word of mouth about the band spread throughout Kingston and eventually to Toronto.

Musician manager Jake Gold, who along with Allan Gregg gave the Hip members their first shot, told the authors of the book Have Not Been The Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-95, about the Toronto show that won them and an ambivalent crowd over.

Downie “was a great communicator,” Gold said. “The first time we heard him open his mouth, we just went, holy shit. At the end of their set that night, the whole place stood up and clapped and it was undeniable if you were in the room that night that this was something special.”

Throughout his career, Downie was spastic and seemingly unfiltered on stage. He usually started with a “Hello,” and often ended with a variation on “Good night, music lovers,” but what would happen in between was anyone’s guess. He delivered frenetic dance moves or stream-of-consciousness rants in ways that suggested he was channelling the music.

“I think my body’s giving subtext and with my voice I’ll give you the confines of my heart, which is illegible,” he told CBC in 1999.

Working with Gold and Gregg, the Hip signed a record deal with MCA that led to an eponymous 1987 EP, but the band didn’t start to become a household name until 1989’s Up to Here, which included the hits Blow at High Dough and New Orleans is Sinking, both of which still get heavy play on Canadian radio.

The band won its first Juno (Most Promising Group) on the strength of that album and solidified its hold on the Canadian music scene with the next three albums: 1991’s Road Apples, 1992’s Fully Completely and 1994’s Day for Night, all of which went multi-platinum or diamond.

The band was big enough in the mid-’90s to organize Another Roadside Attraction, a travelling music and arts festival that included a mix of Canadian acts (Rheostatics, Eric’s Trip) and international stars (Midnight Oil, Wilco) all hand-picked by the band.

In 1995, a particularly successful year for the Hip, the band opened for both Page and Plant and the Rolling Stones, and performed on Saturday Night Live.

Yet, with the exception of certain, mostly border cities in the U.S. and pockets of support in western Europe, the Hip rarely made an impact outside Canada, continuing to play smaller venues like the House of Blues stateside while they sold out hockey arenas north of the border.

Downie dismissed questions about why the band didn’t break big in the U.S., telling CBC that he felt successful after the band’s first practice. By 2004, he’d clearly grown tired of the question. “Who are you comparing us to?” he asked an interviewer from the Toronto Sun. “The Barenaked Ladies? Our music is entirely different. Nickelback? Avril?”

The band never reached the same sales figures it did with its first four full-length albums, but continued to make music that was generally well-received by critics and selling at platinum or multi-platinum levels.

Then came Downie’s diagnosis, which created a wave of nostalgia and celebration even as people prepared for his passing.

The Hip’s final tour launched in Victoria in late July 2016, stopping in eight other Canadian cities, before wrapping up in front of an emotionally charged crowd in the band’s hometown of Kingston about a month later.

Each night, Downie took to the stage dressed in metallic leather suits and feather-adorned hats, performing hits from the Tragically Hip’s entire discography. Aided by teleprompters showing the lyrics, Downie pranced about the stage with his signature theatrical dance moves, though less kinetically than in the past. Fans would often tear up at newly poignant lyrics written decades ago: “No dress rehearsal / This is our life” in Ahead by a Century and “I’ve got to go / It’s been a pleasure doing business with you” in Scared.

He saved a special energy for Kingston, playing a near three-hour set that was at once jubilant, raucous and heart-wrenching. In front of an intimate crowd of 6,700 inside Kingston’s K-Rock Centre, including Trudeau, Downie thanked the audience “for keeping me pushing” and used the opportunity to call for action on Indigenous issues.

Another 11.7 million watched a CBC broadcast of the concert, with hundreds of viewing parties held in public parks, squares, movie theatres, bars and restaurants across Canada.

After the final cross-country tour, all 17 Hip recordings (including box sets and live concerts) were back on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart as sales and downloads skyrocketed. Their most recent album, Man Machine Poem, hit No. 1.

If anything, the Hip’s lack of success in the U.S. has only made Canadians more protective of them. CBC broadcaster and musician Tom Power called them “Canada’s local band.” He also called Downie “the greatest frontman this country has ever produced.”

Downie never sought to be iconic. He called concert touring “grunt work,” and talked about building the fan base one person at a time. He said he told Canadian stories because they were there to be told, and said he performed music because it was the ultimate medium for expressions of love.

“Rock ‘n’ roll is not unlike love,” he told music writer Michael Barclay in 2000. “You find it oddly strangely comforting that no matter how old you get, when it comes to matters of the heart, you’re always 15 inside. I know an 85-year-old with boy trouble. That’s a strange and comforting thing to me. As we move towards resolution and understanding and greater serenity in all aspects of our life, love’s pretty elemental and that’s nice to know. I think rock ‘n’ roll is the same. I don’t pretend to understand it; it feels confusing and frightening and wonderful.”