Death notices and obituaries
\ PETERBOROUGH \ Peterborough’s live music community is in shock today after learning over the weekend about the sudden death of 33-year-old singer and visual artist Charlene “Charlie” Earle. A Facebook post by Ryan Weber of The Weber Brothers local band exemplifies the pain and confusion that seems to surround her unexpected passing on Friday,…
The world of authentic ol’ time Roots music is doubly poorer today after the passing of two iconic masters of the genres and songwriters who were also longtime pals and collaborators. Leon Redbone, (born Dickran Gobalian), an American who made his stage debut in Toronto in the early 1970s and Mose Scarlett of Peterborough and…
Editor’s Note: Soundman extraordinaire Bernie Sandor, who in recent years had specialized in big band shows such as with the 10-member Steely Dan tribute Pretzel Logic appearing at Orbit Room tonight, passed away on Sunday May 26. The following tribute was penned for TorontoMoon.ca by Pretzel Logic singer/saxist Peter Graham Mifsud. Expect some moments of…
\ PETERBOROUGH \ There aren’t many of his kind left —but then, they never made many of his kind to begin with. Joe Hall, who passed away on Friday March 22 at 71 years of age after battling liver cancer for some time, was an highly original titan of a songwriter and performer whose cheeky,…
By Carmen Toth Special to TorontoMoon.ca \ TO CENTRAL \ On February 24, I got the call nobody wants to get. My friend and fellow artist Derek Mok had been found dead in his condo. As the shock set in, I tried to calm down my friend on the phone —who had just discovered his…
-By Gary 17, TorontoMoon.ca The first person I ever saw play a guitar live, in 1964 or early ‘65 in a church basement in the upper-middle-class suburb of Aldershot in Burlington, was a scruffy, “greaser” (as we called them in those days) bad boy who lived with his family in the motel they owned and…
I’m so very sad to learn of the passing on Sunday Feb. 10 of one of our longtime subscribers, an icon of a host on the open stage scene and very talented Country songwriter Herb Dale. According to life partner and musical accompanist Fran McCann, Herb passed “peacefully and at home with me, my daughter…
The family of Pete Otis, who passed away on Saturday January 5 after being hospitalized following his collapse at his New Year’s Eve show at Black Swan Tavern, decided against having public visitations and held a private funeral for the 69-year-old songwriter and impresario on Thursday, January 10. A death notice (under his legal name…
I have been dreading the possibility of having to make this post since discovering early in the week that my longtime friend, supporter and all-round enabler of the Toronto live music scene, Pete Otis, had collapsed following his set during his SongTown New Year’s Eve show at Black Swan Tavern. Last night, on Sat. January…
\ ETOBICOKE/PORT CREDIT \ Just ten days shy of the 15th anniversary of The Meteors band he founded becoming the Saturday jam hosts at Timothy’s Pub in Etobicoke, singer and trumpet/flugelhorn/coronet player Joe Reynolds passed away suddenly overnight the morning of Monday January 1, 2019, bandmates and family report. No details of the cause of…
Friends and family of singer Cliff Allen Liberty, known simply as Cliff Allen to habitués of jams and karaoke shows across the GTA, are still coming to grips with his sudden death on the morning of December 11 in Niagara Falls, where he had been living. For reasons either not yet determined or not made…
After a bizarre twist of fate led to acclaimed multi-genre piano legend Scott “Professor Piano” Cushnie being buried under another man’s name while for nearly two months police and friends continued to search for him. Scott Cushine, aka “Professor Piano” will be remembered at a concert running all afternoon and evening today. The iconic keyboard…
Not for nothing did they call him “Mad Monty.” Yet, when Douglas Montgomery, owner of the bar of that name in TO’s midtown Yonge-Eglinton area from October 1994 through first couple of years of this century, passed away tragically too young at 55 years of age from a viral disease this past May, it wasn’t…
\ WHITBY \ She put up the most valiant of fights against a monster that seldom loses, as you’d expect from a singer whose claim to fame is Tamin’ Thunder, but in the end after a battle of nearly four years, Ilse Themen today succumbed to breast cancer. The announcement was made on Facebook by…
\ TO CENTRAL \ Friends of one of the GTA’s legendary musical talents, 80-year old Scott Cushnie, aka “Professor Piano” to legions of fans and fellow players, are growing increasingly concerned by his mysterious disappearance. The iconic keyboard player, who has accompanied legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll and Blues over the years and was a…
In a shockingly tragic turn of events late on Thursday, June 7, songwriter, broadcaster and an intellectual giant with an encyclopaedic knowledge of history, mathematics and science, Ted Rusk passed away in hospital at 61 years of age two weeks after suffering a massive coronary. As we reported earlier, it had appeared that Ted —who…
Longtime readers of TorontoMoon.ca and our to-nite magazine and Open Season progenitor publications stretching back to 1992 will be well familiar with the name of towering southpaw Country Rock songwriter Ted Rusk. Hopefully some of them can help top up a GoFundMe.com campaign to help his son, Max, afford to make regular trips from home…
He didn’t just play music —Michael “Keys” Dowson lived and breathed music and apparently dreamed about it too. And so not surprisingly his last words, shortly before he passed away at 69 years of age from cancer the morning of Sunday, May 13, were about music too, we’re told by family. A funeral mass will…
Giver. If you had to pick just one word to describe Jon Christopher Long, who passed away too young at 60 in his sleep last Friday, April 20 from coronary disease, that would be it. He was a multi-dimensional force in the Toronto and GTA music community and in all of the many roles he…
The funeral for much loved music booster Jon Long will take place on Friday, April 27 at 3 p.m., his family is set to announce in a death notice to be published Wed. April 25. An autopsy into his unexpected but peaceful death in his sleep the morning of Friday April 20 found that…
Shock waves are spreading through the GTA music community as news is shared of the unexpected passing of Jon Long overnight the evening of Thursday April 19 or early Friday April 20. A close friend of Jon’s told me this afternoon that he had seen Jon twice for coffees earlier this week and that the…
\ OSHAWA \ Fellow musicians, friends and family will assemble the afternoon of Sunday March 25 to celebrate the life and talent of Oshawa Blues-Rock guitarist, singer and songwriter Craig Peterkin, whose passing from cancer was announced the evening of Monday, March 19. A longtime presence on the Durham Region and Scarborough area Rock and…
