6, 1964, in Amherstview, Ont., outside Kingston, Gordon Edgar Downie was the fourth of Edgar and Lorna Downie's five children. Mentioning the Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan here and the Canadian painter Tom Thomson there, he was a rock star who viewed his country through a distinctly poetic lens.īorn on Feb. He was an impressionistic songwriter whose songs referenced rocky sockets off the coast of France and constellations revealing themselves for the very first time. Downie will be remembered as an artist whose offbeat charisma and edgy talent appealed to the highbrow as well as to the "I love dance – trying to express myself wordlessly."įor his words and not, Mr. "I think I'm a dancer in terms of what I do onstage," he said in 2010, speaking aboutīeside Each Other, a collaboration with choreographers Andrea Nann and Brendan Wyatt that earned him a Dora award nomination. Responding to the urge of the music, he presented an in-the-moment, mime-like aesthetic. Downie was as much a performance artist as a vocalist. In 2002, he was featured in a short-film adaptation of At the Quinte Hotel, a poem by Al Purdy, an artistic hero of the singer. Men with Brooms, the Trailer Park Boys movie The Big Dirty and television's Corner Gas. He studied film at Queen's University his filmography included cameo roles in A line from his poem Michigan Gig was strong: "My songs were built to fight wars." Downie released five solo albums, including 2001'sĬoke Machine Glow, also the title of a book of poetry simultaneously released. People were more comfortable with who they were and where they came from."Ī notebook-filling lyricist, Mr. There was suddenly less striving, less grasping. "He certainly made a great contribution to songwriters in this land," said John Samson, a singer-lyricist with Winnipeg's writerly band the Weakerthans. Downie possessed a non-conformist's vital energy. If the music itself wasn't necessarily progressive, as an artist Mr. More importantly, the Hip challenged conventions. The band would rise from bar-band oddballs to an arena-filling act, capturing 16 Juno Awards along the way. Formed in 1983, the Hip was at the forefront of a movement that saw Canadian rock bands beginning to write original songs about their country. Downie recorded 14 albums with the Tragically Hip, a Kingston-born alt-rock quintet composed of guitarists Rob Baker and Paul Langlois, bassist Gord Sinclair, drummer Johnny Fay and the singer-lyricist Mr. He succumbed to glioblastoma, an aggressive, incurable form of brain cancer that was diagnosed in December of 2015. 17 surrounded by his family and children, the Tragically HipĪnnounced in a statement. Downie, an imaginative songwriter, inimitable live performer, environmentalist, advocate for First Nations people and published poet,ĭied on Oct. Over the course of a robustly artistic life he would lyrically caress a country, whether rhyming "Jacques Cartier" with "right this way," or singing about a late-breaking story on the CBC.īobcaygeon he and the Tragically Hip put a small Ontario summer town on the map, and with a song much more rugged, Fifty-Mission Cap, a buried piece of hockey lore was anthemically conveyed: It was a spur of the moment remark at the time, but the boast was verifiable and career-defining. "I can stroke you people all night long," he said, "with little things about where you live." After describing the Nova Scotian capital as the "Paris of the Maritimes," the wild-eyed frontman continued. In between songs at the Misty Moon music room in Halifax, with his dark brown bangs matted in sweat against his forehead, a loose-limbed Mr. On April 6, 1990, the Tragically Hip's Gord Downie was an intriguing singer on the upswing, not yet the Canadian-rock laureate he would later become.
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