Tag Archives: John Brownlow
The Best of The Best To Start the Meaford Summer Concert Series
Joey DiMarco has been the go-to drummer for decades for gigs and recordings, working from his home base in Burlington. He teamed up with Gabor Szepesi, who’s been providing keyboards for recordings and TV shows as well as live gigs since the 70’s. The pair decided to draw on talented friends from their many years in music to create a gigging band they called The Collective. The quality of their friends means The Collective is always on the money with a world class groove.
The Collective will be kicking off the Meaford Summer Concert Series on Friday, July 13th. The band is made up of the best players you’ll hear anywhere. When Chris Scerri says they have played with the Who’s Who of rock and R & B, movies and pop music, he means names like Iron Butterfly, Better Midler, Jack Dekeyser, Greg Godovitz, Grant Smith & the Power, Long John Baldry, Daniel Lanois, Etta James, Sharon, Lois and Bram as a small random sampling.
Guitarist Danny Weis co-founded Iron Butterfly but quit after their first album to co-found Rhinoceros. After an album and a tour with Lou Reed, he was tapped to provide the sound track music (and hit song) for Bette Midler’s movie The Rose.
Danny had been born into music, the son of Johnny Weis, the famous Western Swing guitarist who once played with the Spade Cooley band.
“I fondly remember the years I would go see my dad, Johnny Weis, play guitar, backing people from the Grand Ole Opry at Bostonia Ballroom in El Cajon,” says Danny on his website, “I was age 9 to 12, and I used to stand right in front of the stage and lean on it with my elbows. I wasn’t too tall then, I guess. I remember Johnny Cash playing right in front of me with my dad backing him on guitar with the band. [Cash] always remembered me and would stoop right in front of me, saying, ‘Folsom Prison?’ I said yes with joy.”
In 2005 Danny Weis released a beautiful jazz album called “Sweet Spot”, about as far from Iron Butterfly as you can get. Like the other players in The Collective, his wide ranging musical taste and pedigree can take you in any direction.
A common thread among the players in The Collective is that most of them played at one time or another in a legendary blues band called Sweet Blindness. Lead singer of The Collective, Donnie Meeker rotated as lead singer in Sweet Blindness with the late Bobbi Dupont.
“The Toronto sound was the original Bluenote,” Michael Williams told Cashbox magazine, “we always had a soul thing going on because we were so close to Buffalo and Detroit…The big time for Sweet Blindness was opening for Kool and the Gang.”
In addition to touring with Sweet Blindness, Donnie Meeker becomes “Downtown Donnie” when he does a Blues Brothers thing with his own blues brother “Dirty Bertie”.
Max Breadner opens the show
Bring a camp chair and something for the food bank in time for the show to start at 7 pm with Max Breadner. Max is a notable young local talent who has progressed from performing to song writing. He’s played the Meaford Summer Concert Series before, and last year he opened for John Brownlow at The Red Door.
This Year’s Maplepalooza Benefits Beaver Valley Outreach
By Bill Monahan
The fifth annual Maplepalooza is coming up this weekend (Sat., Mar. 24, doors open at 6:30) at Kimberley Hall and for the second time Chris Scerri has been involved in planning and promotion.
The annual event, a true community celebration, was founded by Jonathan Robinson. Originally a gathering of his friends to enjoy gathering maple syrup from the sugar bush on his property during the day, and live music in the evening, it has grown in significance each year and last year for the first time, he coupled it with a benefit for Meaford’s family of Syrian refugees.
Fittingly, since Kimberley is located at the bottom of the Beaver Valley, where the Beaver River runs through, the beneficiary of this year’s party is Beaver Valley Outreach, a community based organization of volunteers whose mandate it is to enrich the community by offering programs to meet the needs of the residents of the Beaver Valley. Most of their programs are designed to assist young families, with both winter and summer day camps, a kid’s club, a breakfast club and pre-school. They raise funds through donations and sales at their Treasure Shop, a second-hand store currently located on Bruce Steet in Thornbury.
“They’re moving out of a small office in Thornbury to where Piper’s used to be in Thornbury on Highway 26,” says Chris, “They’ve taken on some additional expenses and they do a great job and we’re trying to raise some money for them.”
Three Songwriters Back For More In Meaford
Three local songwriters who have been putting on concerts together are enjoying it so much and getting such positive feedback that they are back for more. Dave Hawkins, Bill Dickson and Bill Monahan will be playing a special evening concert at The Barn Coop in Meaford on Thursday, Nov. 16th at 7:30.
Drew McIvor To Celebrate CD Release at Heartwood
This Thursday, Drew McIvor will be launching his second CD, “Through The Tangle of Trees” with a release party at Heartwood Concert Hall in Owen Sound that will feature a full band performing songs from the CD, plus an opening set from Luke Martin.
Drew’s first CD, “Porchlight”, released in 2014, made an impact in CBC’s Searchlight Contest which led to a lot of spins on CBC radio as well as local and campus stations. He wants to build on that initial radio exposure with this release, but he’s approached it with a different focus.
“The first one was more of a smattering of everything up to that point,” he says, “This one is more about my songwriting.”
While his repertoire has always included a lot of original material, he felt that his first album was more like a sampling of genres (he likes to call it “international folk”) and he approached this second album with the clear intention of taking these wide ranging influences and making something more personal with them, “instead of mimicking those styles, embrace them.”
“This album represents the next three years of my life after the first one,” he says, “It’s important for me to consolidate what I’ve done, to document the journey.” He has also taken a different route in terms of the sound of the new CD. “We tried to make it sound more like a session with a band rather than everything set perfectly in place, tried to give it more of an organic feel. We wanted to bring out the songwriting.”
