Myles Goodwyn 1948-2023

A few words about the passing of Myles Goodwyn the founder, singer, and songwriter of the rock band April Wine. To a Canadian kid in high school in the 1970s with rock n' roll dreams and playing in his first bands, there was no more important Canadian band than April Wine. Unlike Rush of that era, April Wine had hit after hit after hit thanks to constant radio airplay due to CanCon regulations. In Montreal, April Wine was the darling of CHOM-FM. For me, it was their song Oowatanite, unusually for the band, written and sung by the late bassist Jim Clench, that first caught my attention. I can remember how, when the firebell that opens the song came on the radio, my ears jumped up, and then those power chords and growling guitars. There wasn't another Canadian band that sounded so heavy. One summer 7-UP had a promotion where they would print the name of rock band members on the inside bottom of their aluminum soda cans. It was a 'collect them all' sort of thing. I remember being so disappointed every time I'd get a member of the Guess Who because I wanted the guys from April Wine. Oowatanite notwithstanding, in the early 70s they were a four-piece and known for catchy mid-tempo pop songs like Bad Side of the Moon (an Elton John re-make) and You Could Have Been A Lady (unbelievably a song written by British funksters Hot Chocolate). But as the decade went along the band got heavier and heavier until their ultimate shredding three-guitar line-up. After almost a decade of selling oodles of records in Canada, the group finally broke big in the USA (the song that did it was the rock-boogie Roller). It was this line-up (Goodwyn, Lang, Moffatt, Greenway and Mercer) that I saw for the first time in concert at the Montreal Forum. They were riding high on the release of the album Harder Faster that featured ubiquitous top ten radio hits Say Hello and I Like To Rock. I was in grade 10 and in those days going to a concert almost every month. I'd seen all the biggest touring arena acts of the day, and plenty of up and comers too, from Queen and Jethro Tull to The Cars, from Rush to The Police, and not one of them could hold a candle to April Wine in concert. Sure they had the lights, the smoke machine and pyrotecnics, but it was the musicianship, the interplay of guitars trading speedy hot licks, and Jerry Mercer's legendary drum solo that made them the most exciting rock show on the planet. Not enough is said about Myles Goodwyn's singing, and the bands great live harmonies too. Originally formed in Halifax, but based in Montreal, the band was so beloved that every time they played here it was a homecoming, and the love was returned, they came back often. No Canadian band was more popular (except maybe BTO), and for a band that sold some 10 million albums, April Wine never fully got the respect they deserved. They never appealed to art-rock snobs because they had too many radio-hits and many of them were rock ballads. Their songs were generally simple in structure, three or four chords, and the lyrics basic, even as the musicality and musicianship were undeniable. But most of all, they were rock heroes who themselves paid homage to their rock heroes. Which is why the penultimate moment of every April Wine concert was I Like To Rock, probably their most popular song, in the last section leading to the outro, when one guitar plays the riff of the Beatles' Day Tripper, the second guitar plays the riff to the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, and the third guitar weaves in seamlessly the main riff to I Like To Rock. It's a bit of rock cheekiness to be sure, as well as a nod to their inspirations. To my mind it also demonstrates that their music (the hooks of Myles Goodwyn) fit in with some of the greats of rock and roll.