Myles Goodwyn of April Wine collaborated with the Mi’kmaw community to raise awareness

Oscar Baker III · CBC News · Posted: May 28, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: May 28

Eskasoni First Nation members will be featured in the latest music video for Myles Goodwyn of the Canadian hard rock band April Wine.

April Wine formed in Halifax and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

Goodwyn said he wanted a way to amplify Indigenous voices around the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls issue. The song, Darling Where Are You, centres around the pain of missing a loved one.

For the project, he collaborated with Kalolin Johnson to sing and translate lyrics into Mi’kmaw. 

“It was brilliant and it was so much fun,” said Goodwyn, 73, who is based in Halifax. 

“I don’t know the Mi’kmaw language … but it was a very special experience working with Kalo Johnson.”

Johnson said it was a joy to work with Goodwyn. Now 22, she has been singing since she was nine and is fluent in the Mi’kmaw language. She said singing is part of her identity and is honoured each time she sings in her language.

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When she was approached to collaborate on this project and heard it dealt with raising awareness about violence against Indigenous women, she knew she wanted to be a part of it. 

“The start for awareness and change it begins with in us so we can help the health and safety of our nations,” said Johnson. 

She said she thinks the video is special because it features her community. 

The music video was filmed over two days in Sydney, N.S., and Eskasoni First Nation.

Eskasoni is nestled between mountains and Bras d’Or Lake, and the video was filmed on Goat Island on the edge of the reserve. Community members were adorned in regalia and traditional items to take part in the music video.

Johnson said that’s all special for her community. 

“You get to see a piece of yourself in those videos,” said Johnson. 

Goodwyn said his experience in Eskasoni was beautiful and the people were kind.

The four and a half minute song will be released as part of Goodwyn’s next album Long Pants, which drops June 23. The music video is set to come out June 21 on YouTube during National Indigenous Peoples Day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Oscar Baker III

Oscar Baker III is a Black and Mi’kmaw reporter from Elsipogtog First Nation. He is the Atlantic region reporter for CBC Indigenous. He is a proud father and you can follow his work @oggycane4lyfe

Kim and I had a wonderful experience yesterday at a Ukraine benefit organized by Chris and Lauralee Lewis. Pictured is the Zhurakhova family that arrived from Ukraine last Saturday. Shown here at the airport in Halifax are from left to right: mother, Ruslana, cousin Olena, son Roman, greeting the family is Lauralee and in the front, five-year-old Kateryna.

There is also a picture of Andrii Mereshchuk,, president of the Ukraine Canadian Congress, Nova Scotia division, and family.

Brother, JD Fortune, hosted the event and did a great job.

Stay safe. PEACE.

 Apr 27, 2022 by David Farrell

Myles Goodwyn’s evolution from fair-haired cock fronting April Wine to the affable 74-year-old appearing at the upscale Trailside Music Hall in downtown Charlottetown earlier this month is a study in contrasts.

His earlier persona fronting one of Canada’s most successful arena-rock bands helped sell more than 2-million albums in North America, teased with a seemingly endless parade of hit singles that became CHR and Rock FM format staples that helped him to earn him every Canadian songwriting award there is.

Today’s version of that once driven high-roller is noticeably mellower and vastly more spiritual, and his craft as a guitarist and songwriter more evident than ever performing as a trio with longtime friend and former bandmate Jim Henman,  and bassist Bruce Dixon who has been there and done that with many of the best out there.

The Myles Goodwyn Trio offers a voice to one of Canada’s finest songwriters to share stories about his once turbulent life, and the background to a few of the many songs he has written that would become time stamps for audiences, and enduring classics in his own prolific songbook.

The minutiae about his evolution from a teenager, listing to Wilf Carter and Hank Snow on a crystal radio, to today is detailed in Just Between You and Me, a best-selling memoir, co-written with accomplished author and friend Martin Melhuish, that earned him kudos from fellow trailblazers such as Burton Cummings, Alex Lifeson, Tom Cochrane–and American superstar Garth Brooks.

The trio is one part of Myles Goodwyn’s ongoing career in music. This summer he will be playing a small number of shows with a refurbished April Wine, and then there is his more recent and successful Friends of the Blues persona that has won him accolades on tour, and enthusiastic reviews for his two albums: Myles Goodwyn and Friends of the Blues, volumes 1 & 2.

All of this aside, what Goodwyn offers is that which is so sought after today in music and that is simply musicians playing in intimate settings and offering pure craftsmanship and a close kinship with an audience. It is becoming rarer these days to find that intimacy and simplicity and crafts rolled into one. I’ve found it often at the Cameron House in Toronto when Corin Raymond irregularly performs in the room and draws some of the finest musicians one can hope to hear anywhere, none of whom has found either fame or fortune but mesmerize me collectively and individually in every performance.

It’s old-school style, not jumped up and over-sold as something extraordinary. It just is extraordinary and at Trailside, on the second of two show nights, the air was pure, the music precious and beautiful and the audience’s appreciation real. It was the sort of show where people were watching and listening, not tweeting and capturing the performance on their cameras. In short, it was a night of magic.

Meantime, he’s opened up the cottage and started work on a new collection of songs for a new album, entitled Long Pants which contains a song he performed at the Trailside, entitled Will the Last Voice I Hear be an Angel, that captures the essence of his journey to tranquility, and unequivocally underscores the fact that Goodwyn’s talents as a songwriter and melodist stand him with the best of the best anywhere today.

APRIL WINE PERFORMANCE

It was a treat performing again tonight with APRIL WINE after many months off. This show was sold out 2 years ago.