JOHNNY REID
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Vol. 1 - Issue 1 April 2018
Staff Dan Savoie Publisher / Acting Editor
SHADOWBOX THEATRE
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April Savoie Director of Sales Kim Cushington Art Director Contributing Writers and Photographers Kim Cushington Jose Ed Ramirez Jen Gurniak Dan Savoie April Savoie 341 Parent Ave. Winsdor, ON N9A 2B7 519magazine.com / YQGrocks.com Office: 226-674-4451 Award of Excellence 2018 Canadian Web Awards
BRETT KISSEL CAPTURED LIVE IN THE 519
KORDA’S COMPANY CAPTURED LIVE IN THE 519
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519 Magazine is the official publication of YQG Rocks and is published mothly with print issues available in June, August, October, December, February and April. 25,000 copies of the print version are available at various locations in Windsor-Essex, Detroit, London, Sarnia and Chatham.
AL CONNELLY GLASS TIGER
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By Dan & April Savoie
Canadian singer Johnny Reid is going through a bit of a musical revival and is working at rebranding his image a little. On his latest CD ‘Revival’, the Scottish-born-Canadian hitmaker is diving back into the soul and rhythm and blues sounds that he grew up on. It’s a strong departure from the mainstream country image of his first couple albums. “Through the years I’ve been
called a folk singer, I’ve been called country singer and I’ve been called a rock and roll singer, but at the end of the day, I’m just trying my best to be me,” he told 519 Magazine in an interview during rehearsals for the current tour that brings him to The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor on April 6. “My biggest goal on the new album was to be myself. I just want to be Johnny Reid and for me that means writing and recording music the way that I want to. On this album we have a folk song like Soul Train on it - of course it’s going to be a folk song that’s how I wrote it. Then there’s a song call Whiskey Kisses, which is an country tune, that’s actually an old school country tune. I think you have to be truthful and honest to yourself first, before you can listen to anyone else.” With an illustrious career spanning more than two decades, the Juno Award winning singer has captured the hearts of fans and audiences around the world. A critically acclaimed vocalist, the blue-collared, soulful singer-songwriter Reid is widely known for his lyrical honesty and musical ability, as demonstrated by his extensive catalogue of hit songs, album sales totaling over 1.5 million units, countless awards and multiple sold out arena tours. With the release of “Revival”, co-produced by Reid and the legendary Bob Ezrin (KISS, Alice Cooper), the highly praised and top-ranked Canadian star will add to his remarkable catalogue. “Bob Ezrin and I have worked together before and I got the biggest compliment when we were recording the album,” Reid says. “Bob and I are in the studio and this guy walks up to him and says ‘Hey, Bob what are you up to?’ and Bob goes ‘I’m working on a record man.’ The guy then asks him what kind of record ‘is it a
country record, soul or an R&B type of thing?’ and Bob just looks right at the guy and goes ‘No man, it’s a Johnny Reid record.” (laughs). Of all these years, that had to be the best answer that anyone could give – It’s a Johnny Reid record. I think I’m a reflection of the people that buy my record; I think that if you ask anybody what they are listening to, the general answer is a little bit of everything. And that’s what I listen to at the house - a wee bit of this and a wee bit of that, and that’s what my album reflects.” Along with his cleverly crafted original songs, Reid also chose to record a couple of carefully chosen cover songs for Revival. “There are some covers on the album,” Reid adds. “’Everytime I Roll The Dice’ is one of those songs I’ve always loved. The first time I heard that song it was performed by Delbert McClinton, who also wrote it. When I heard it, I said to myself, one of these days I’m going to record that song and there it is. ‘Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You’ was an old Wilson Pickett tune and the last cover on the record is actually a Keb Mo song called ‘She Just Wants to Dance’. Obviously when Keb wrote it and recorded it, it was more like the swampy blues. I just wanted to add a bit of tempo and sorta’ take a more aggressive approach to the song. I’m really happy with how the songs translates.” As expected for a Johnny Reid album, some of the songs can get very emotional. ‘Cry No More’ for example was a song he was a little too afraid to record earlier in his career: “Cry No More was a song that I’ve had for years and to be honest, I wasn’t brave enough to record it. It never seemed to fit on any album, but I felt Revival was a great album to put it on. It’s a deep and personal song. It’s about a secret relationship between a woman and a bottle. Nobody knew she was broken and nobody knew until it was almost too late.”
Another song that didn’t seem to work on previous albums is I Don’t Want To Cry No More. Reid says the heavy content of the song was almost too much. “Some of the songs on this album are true,” Reid explains. “They tell a story and the lyrics really mean something. ‘I don’t want to cry no more. I don’t want to be the only one who knows you’re killing me. I don’t want to cry no more.’ It’s a very, very heavyhearted song and I never thought I’d ever record it. Somehow it just seemed to fit on this record.” To reproduce the sound of Revival in concert, Reid is touring with an entourage of singers and musicians, including Juno Award winning pop group Glass Tiger, who will join the singer on stage during part of the show. “I wanted to be able to recreate what you hear on the record, so I’ll have three backup singers, three horns, two guitars, keyboards, drums and percussion,” Reid reveals. “The idea is to keep Revival on stage, but when it
comes to the older songs like Women Like You, Dance with Me and Change the World, I’ve rearranged them so they kinda’ fit the vibe of the record. It’s going to come as a surprise to some, because they’re going to hear these song in a way they’ve never heard them before.” Reid met Glass Tiger in the recording studio and the two of them hit it off. He produced the band’s current album 31, a revisiting of the band’s biggest hits: “I just finished producing the new Glass Tigers album and it just sorta’ made sense for me. It was as easy as ‘Hey guys do you want to come on tour with me and sing a few of these songs’. So, they’re going to tour across
the country with me from Vancouver Island to St. Johns and they’re going to sing a few songs that we recorded together in the studio.” Whether it’s folk, rock, country or R&B, he’s clearly becoming a singer with only one definition – it’s 100% Johnny Reid. Unless of course, you’re joking around: “I always make the joke that as long as they don’t call me what they used to call my grandfather, I’ll be fine. He was a folk singer anc every time he started singing, they would say “Uhoh, we’re folked.” Reid performs at The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor on April 6 with special guests Glass Tiger. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster or the Box Office.
SHADOWBOXING WITH
William Shakespeare once wrote “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. But what would happen should those players decide to create their own stage? In the case of the three actors behind Windsor’s new Shadowbox Theatre, it’s a whole new world of business, art and creativity cranked all the way up to 10. Fay Lynn, Michael O”Reilly and Michael K. Potter, the team behind Windsor’s newest theatre company Post Productions, recently opened The Shadowbox Theatre with a brilliant staging of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt in February. The production gave audiences a taste of a Post Productions offering in an entirely selfcontained environment. The trio says the new theatre is filling a void, not only for their own Post Productions plays, but also for the community. “We wanted to contribute toward the theatre community by creating a venue for smaller, intimate performance art that would be affordable
Story by Dan Savoie Photos by Jose Ed Ramirez
and useful for as many people as possible,” Potter reveals in an interview with 519 Magazine. “Over time, we hope that The Shadowbox Theatre becomes a hub of activity, hosting a wide array of theatrical experiences by all sorts of companies. We want to build long-term, joyous, productive relationships with artists and audiences.” The trio decided to create The Shadowbox Theatre out of a need to be creative and professional, while keeping it affordable and comfortable. “We’re organizers who like to plan ahead and that was getting difficult because we didn’t really know whether we could find space to rent when we needed it, which meant we couldn’t promote our shows and sell tickets as far in advance as we would have liked,” Potter
continues. “Having our own theatre made it easier for us to schedule rehearsals, get sets built on a schedule that wouldn’t drive our poor set designer (Matt Burgess) to the brink of madness, and arrange collaborations with other local artists.” The Shadowbox Theatre’s location on Howard Avenue was carefully chosen from a list of potential sites and renovated into a performance space over the winter. With a little care and attention to design, the Post gang crafted a theatre built not only for performers and producers, but also for audiences who can still retain a close and intimate view of the action. “We were looking for an afford-
able space that could provide a comfortable home for our casts and crews and audiences, which could also be welcoming to other companies and performers,” Potter says. “A place that could feel like home to a lot of people, that could be used to create a lot of great memories through live storytelling. So, it had to be centrally located - and we got lucky there. We’re located between Ottawa Street Village, Downtown, Via Italia and Tecumseh Street, but also close to Walkerville. It couldn’t be any better.” The attention to those details really shines for audiences giving clear lines of sight, an intimate proximity to the stage, adequate parking, multiple washrooms and even comfortable seating at every show. The cast and crew also get a few benefits, like a solid stage that doesn’t squeak and can quickly be adapted to suit for diverse productions, a dressing room, adequate backstage space, storage and a box office.
“We honestly didn’t expect Post to take off so quickly,” Potter notes. “I can tell you, when Michael O’Reilly and I started production on our first play, Oleanna, we knew it was something we would want to see; a play that we loved, that was totally in line with our vision for the company. But we were a little nervous about whether other people wanted to see it. It was nerveracking, yet we persevered and people actually bought tickets. And they liked it!” The Post vision grew by one-third when they added Creative Director Fay Lynn to the company in September last year. Once Lynn became more involved with the company, they wrote their own production for the Windsor-Walkerville Fringe Festival (The Worst Thing I Ever Did), and things started taking on a whole new level. “When we wrote The Worst Thing I Ever Did together - our first time writing together, and Post’s first comedy - all three of us were shocked by how much people enjoyed it. Then True West ended the season on a high note in terms of audience response, critical response, and sales. We’re pinching ourselves. But so far we’ve managed to avoid complacency because we’re all anxious risk-takers at Post. We worry endlessly about what we’re doing - and we do it anyway.” Lynn says Post Productions has found its own unique niche in the Windsor theatre community and gives an already rich and vibrant community another voice, a different voice.
Michael O”Reilly
“Every theatre company has its own individuality,” she says. “Korda has this bohemian kinda’ vibe; Ghost Light, is doing all Canadian plays now; Windsor Light Music Theatre has big name musicals; and Cardinal Music Productions contributes a lot to the community with their productions - I just watched Heathers the other day, which was amazing by the way. What makes us different is the same thing that makes everyone different. I hope that something about us stands out and people are excited to see and support us, in the same way that I feel excited to be in support of other people and their different things.” Post Productions was started to provide intense, intimately-staged entertaining theatrical experiences that arise the heart and fuel the mind,
Michael K. Potter
Fay Lynn
drawing patrons into lives quite unlike their own to help them understand the world, other people, and themselves with fresh insight. As a unique brand of theatre, Post Productions complements the WindsorEssex scene by staging uniquely provocative productions for audiences that want more. The 2018 season began in February with Doubt and continues until December with four additional programs scheduled. They will be presenting Stop Kiss in May, Shelter In Place in July, Equus in October and close with the all-original show Another Fucking Christmas Play in December. For more information on Post Productions or the Shadowbox Theatre, visit postproductionswindsor.ca.
Celebrating 31 Years of
LASS TIGER with Al Connelly
By Dan Savoie
519: This is your 31st year and you have a new album 31. AC: Ya, it’s an odd number to pick but we were sort of forced to take 31 because our singer threw a curve ball at us. Going into our 30th, he had a mild stroke and the band obviously decided to let him recover. When he started to feel better, we said to Hell with it, let’s call it 31 and get back out there. 519: That would have been a really big traumatic event. I remember when I saw it on Facebook , I was like Oh wow – it defies words.
AC: It’s definitely a wake-up call, especially for Alan, but for all of us, you know as we get a little bit older and with 30plus years in the business together, it hit us hard. We are very close friends and we’re really tied into everything that’s going on in our lives, so it currently put us all on alert - we’re thankful that he’s feeling better and singing great. He basically dodged a little bullet on that, and
now that’s he’s feeling more like himself, the band is back on the road. 519: With 31 you re-recorded all the greats, with some new stuff. What was the idea behind re-recording them? AC: Well, I can’t take credit for that, it’s actually Johnny Reid the producer. During Alan’s recovery, he was doing a
charity event somewhere and Johnny and him were together and Johnny said to Alan, “you know you need to celebrate these 30 years. You know, 30 years of friendship and brotherhood and family and things like that. We were in the works and are still in the works with new original material and it was Johnny that said ‘Thin Red Line was such a big record. When I came over from Scotland and moved to Canada I wore out my copy of it. I really think what you should do - and I would love to do this with you - is to re-imagine the songs that are already familiar and invite them back into your home. People will know these songs. You can do your new stuff and release that, but I would like to be involved in remaking these classic songs and release them in a fresh way.’
So that’s where the idea came from. It was more out of Johnny’s influence and it certainly needed to have someone on the outside involved. We’ve played these songs for years one way, so it’s just wonderful to have a fresh approach that came from another point of view. 519: Is there more to the story on how you guys met Johnny? AC: As a band we met him a few years back at an industry function. There was a tribute to a guy named Dean Cameron who was the president of Capital/ EMI Records and there was a bit of a party for him in Toronto, and Johnny was there. We got to meet him there and do a live performance of My Town at the party. Alan and him have been pals for a while - I think it that Scottish
connection - so that just kinda stayed on the sidelines and we have always been in-touch with him. After Johnny and Alan had talked about making this record, we went down to Nashville to see how we would feel about working together and we hit it off right away, so it was perfect. 519: And now you’re going to be on the road with him too. AC: This project is one of those projects that just has a natural evolution that we didn’t plan. We didn’t even know what we were going to do. We just decided that we wanted to just start doing songs, so we did that. Then it became a full album. It was Johnny’s suggestion to come out as his guests and at the show we’ll do a little sampling of the
Photo by Nick Hirshmann
new album.
there’s still that goal.
519: I was really surprised when I saw the bill, because Johnny was originally typecast as a country singer and he’s beyond that definitionm but when you first see the name, you kinda’ think country.
AC: Well it’s a big deal, I was nervous because there’s so many people trying to get in and perform at Massey leading up to when it gets shutdown. At the time we asked, the booking agent said there were five different acts trying to secure the same night and we’re just thankful that they picked us and gave us the ability to make this happen. It’s terrific and we have a lot of friends, family, and fans coming to that show. It’s going to be such a great night.
AC: That’s a normal reaction at first too. Glass Tiger with a Country artist - how does that work? But honestly, I think it’s a testament to the songs and when we sat around Johnny’s kitchen table with acoustic guitars and a piano. We did these songs with more of an acoustic side and added some Celtic instruments to them. The whole mashing of sounds is just amazing - the genre of music doesn’t seem to matter anymore. It’s just good melodies, great lyrics and a great feel, that’s how we built the record. I’ve learned from working with Johnny that he’s a man with many, many talents and our record and his new record have a little old style R&B feel, with the horns. For Johnny Reid fans, that’s going to be an interesting turn of events. So yeah, he’s a very talented guy and it didn’t seem strange as you many think it might be - it felt like a perfect fit. 519: I was really surprised at looking at your website this morning and there was a piece on there that said you’re doing your first ever show at Massey Hall. It’s an iconic place not only for Toronto, but for Canada and around the world. AC: If you mention Canada and venues, Massey Hall stands out as a leader - it’s just a classic venue. It’s iconic, but back in the day, in the mid 80’s, when we were playing in Toronto it was places like Ontario Place or Kingswood Music Theatre - large venues where it would be like a festival atmosphere. We didn’t play any soft seat theateres, so we missed the chance when we were younger. We never got a chance in our entire 31 years as a band to play Massey Hall. We can’t wait to play it and of course it’s closing next July for some major renovations, which I’m sure will be terrific, but we really wanted to say that we played it in its current classic state. We will finally get our wish, on June 23, when we host a full Glass Tiger show at Massey Hall. 519: That’s really cool after 31 years,
519: If look back, I always considered you guys Canadian Rock Stars when you came out. Everything was so big at the beginning, so Massey would have been a smaller venue. AC: That’s the 80’s right? The songs were big, the hair was big and everything in general was big. We had some great times touring Canada and we had three nights at Ontario Place that holds 10,000 people a night sitting on the lawn, so it was terrific. We would never trade that experience, but there’s something special about doing these venues like Massy Hall - theatres that hold about 3,000 people. We’re about to go into these smaller theatres with Johnny on this tour and then in November we’re going to circle back and headline. Some of these venues hold 300-400 people it’s very up close and personal and we love that just as much as a big venue. It’s a different vibe, but it’s a lot of fun to play the more intimate places as well. 519: You guys were lucky enough to be able to sing some duets with some pretty famous people, and here you are doing it again on 31. AC: Yeah you know it’s funny we never started out thinking that every album should have a duet, but over the course of our history we have been really fortunate to have people like Rod Stewart, The Chieftains and Bryan Adams come out. It was such a compliment to have Alan Doyle do Our Song and turn it into a Newfoundland kitchen party. Julian Lennon, who you don’t hear a lot of musically anymore, but he’s been such a friend over the years, we toured with him in the mid-80’s and we played some stuff for him and he said ‘Guys I love Thin Red Line, let’s do this’. We did a First Nations version of Diamond Sun with
Susan Aglukark where we translated some of the lyrics into First Nations language (Inuktitut I think it’s called) and it was like wow, this is really, really cool. 519: Since we’re celebrating your 31st anniversary, let’s briefly step back all the way to the early days - the Tokyo days and how the band morphed from Tokyo to Glass Tiger. AC: You have to understand Tokyo was only just a name in the early days. Tokyo became Glass Tiger and it wasn’t that people joined or left or whatever, it’s the same group of guys, but we went from a bar band that was playing clubs to a signed act on Capitol Records. Tokyo was a name we grabbed really quickly when we first started out because we had our own concert coming up on a Friday night and we needed something to put on a ticket. We weren’t really overly attached to the name; we just said that we have to put something on this ticket. It was literally done that casually, but then when we got signed, we started thinking about it a bit more. Do we want to be under the name Tokyo, because once you go with it, it sticks. I remember when I first heard about The Police. A friend of mine kept telling me about this great band called The Police
and I thought it was hilarious. What’s next, The Firemen? Band names can be really silly, but now when you hear the name The Police, it’s synonymous with the music. It doesn’t sound odd at all. So you grow into your name. Glass Tiger was something that came from a couple of different names: We tried Paper Tiger, but paper didn’t have a great quality to it, so we toyed with the word glass because Alan liked the word and it quickly became Glass Tiger. We never had an attachment to Tokyo, so it wasn’t like we put records out as Tokyo. I think we had some fans, but at the time we were only playing local clubs so it would be a small group of fans that would know us as Tokyo, so the rest of the world doesn’t actually have a reference point as Tokyo. As soon as we became Glass Tiger we knew that was it. 519: Classic and iconic logos are what make bands cool. You kept your logo since the beginning, so it’s become synonymous with the name Glass Tiger.
AC: It was a company in England that designed the logo. I remember their name because it stood out to me Shoot that Tiger! They did the David Bowie Let’s Dance album cover. They were graphic designers in the music business and did all of the really cool stuff. I don’t even know how we got connected with them, but our manager was English and he knew about them. They’re the ones that did the logo for us all those years ago - we struck gold with the logo right from the start.
in a restaurant or something like that. We took it over preparing for one of our bigger tours, so it was pretty exciting at the time. Caesars is a great venue. We’ve never played there before, so we’re looking forward to it and getting a chance to share the stage with Johnny on that giant stage will be pretty special. Glass Tiger performs at The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor on April 6. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.
519: You’re going to be here in Windsor on April 6 with Johnny Reid and that’s actually why we’re talking. Do you have any memories of performing in Windsor? AC: Yeah certainly, it’s been a long time since we’ve done a concert in Windsor and I’m trying to think. It has to go more than a decade, so I know that we’re way overdue. We’re excited about getting back to Windsor. I remember doing rehearsals out there
Photo by Nick Hirshmann
Brett Kissel
Chrysler Theatre February 11, 2018
Photo by Jose Ed Ramirez
Live in the 519
Heather Hausmann in Company Kordazone Theatre March 23, 2018
Live in the 519
Photo by Jen Gurniak
