20 watched live via the CBC by roughly one-third of the Canadian population.ĭuring that epochal performance Gord called out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in attendance, to finally do something about the Canadian government’s historically dismal institutional and physical treatment of the country’s Indigenous peoples. Despite having already weathered two cranial surgeries and enduring regular, debilitating radiation and chemotherapy treatments to prolong his life, he nevertheless then embarked against all good medical advice that July on a history-making cross-Canada tour with his friends and bandmates of more than 30 years – unflinchingly dancing in costume astride the Jaws of death onstage each night – in support of The Hip’s final album, Man Machine Poem, that concluded with a hometown show at Kingston’s K-Rock Arena on Aug. Everyone involved in the making of Away Is Mine refers to it as “a gift,” and rightly so if you were fortunate enough to have your imagination captured by Gordon Edgar Downie during his lifetime, rest assured these recordings will capture and captivate it again.įirst, some context: Gord Downie, longtime frontman for a rock-‘n’-roll band of some repute from Kingston, Ontario, called The Tragically Hip, allowed it known to the world on May 24, 2016, that he had been stricken the previous December with an inoperable form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Also, you hold in your hands right now another superb Gord Downie record – one as singular and unpredictable and challenging and worthy of your prolonged, scholarly appraisal and/or simple enjoyment as Coke Machine Glow or Battle of the Nudes or The Grand Bounce or Gord Downie, The Sadies, and the Conquering Sun or Secret Path or Introduce Yerself – and that, in itself, should be cause for joy. ![]() There’s joy to be found within Away Is Mine despite the grim undercurrent gnawing away at its conception and its unguarded lyric sheet: joy in friendships, joy in family, joy in collaboration, joy in writing, joy in music and joy in mystery. And yet it took a fearless reckoning with his own mortality to get us here.ĭon’t give into the “sads,” though. Like all of the music and the poetry and the memories and the mad genius with which Gord gifted us during his 53 years on our planet, it is immortal. Away Is Mine is Gord Downie’s final solo recording, a characteristically questing and idiosyncratic piece of work steered to life by “my oldest Toronto friend,” guitarist and co-writer Josh Finlayson, that holds fast to its author’s unwavering artistic spirit, deft hand with words and forever inscrutable sense of humour even as he locks eyes head-on with the Great Inevitability. This, as decreed by fate, is the last one. “Eventually” just came to Gordon Edgar Downie with inconsiderate haste. Watch the music video for the Hip’s “Bobcaygeon” above.Gordon Edgar Downie would have made this album eventually. The proud Canadian and indigenous peoples’ rights activist leaves behind four children and wife Laura Leigh Usher, with whom Downie separated from before his cancer diagnosis. Still, he toured with the band throughout the summer. Last May, Downie was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. Read the Downie Family’s full statement about the singer’s “life well lived” here:Īlso Read: Hugh Hefner, Playboy Founder, Dies at 91 “No one worked harder on every part of their life than Gord. ![]() “At home, he worked just as tirelessly at being a good father, son, brother, husband and friend,” it continued. “As a musician, he lived ‘the life’ for over 30 years, lucky to do most of it with his high school buddies.”Īlso Read: 'Project Runway' Alum Mychael Knight Dies at 39 “Gord said he had lived many lives,” the Downie Family said in a statement to the media. He was 53.ĭownie died on Tuesday night, per his family, with his children close by. The Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie has died.
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