April Wine rocker shares his tale of highs and heartaches
TORONTO — April Wine frontman Myles Goodwyn has experienced his share of highs and heartaches in and out of the spotlight, but a near brush with death motivated the musician to steer towards a smoother path.
In the opening pages of his new memoir, Just Between You and Me, an unsettling scene plays out far from the concert stage.
In 2008, Goodwyn was heading to a Montreal airport to catch a flight to Halifax, where April Wine was headlining an event. The Woodstock, N.B.-born singer-songwriter passed out as a result of severe intoxication. The alcohol abuse led to internal bleeding and blood loss so severe he would have died within 24 hours without hospitalization.
“There was one moment that changed the course of things, and for me, that was it: realizing my mortality, realizing I was dying and I didn’t know it,” said Goodwyn.
Just Between You and Me takes its name from April Wine’s first single to break into the Billboard top 20. The track off the 1981 album The Nature of the Beast became the group’s biggest success, selling more than a million copies in the U.S. that year and earning international platinum status.
The memoir chronicles Goodwyn’s steady climb to stardom as the lead guitarist and vocalist of the rock group, which was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2010. The book also delves into Goodwyn’s tough upbringing in rural Nova Scotia and how he coped with his mother’s death from brain cancer before he turned 11.
“It messed up the whole family,” he said. “Luckily, I had music to turn to.”
Goodwyn joined forces with brothers David and Ritchie Henman and their cousin Jim Henman to form April Wine in Nova Scotia in 1969. Over more than a decade, the group developed a catalogue stacked with hits including Tonight is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love, You Won’t Dance With Me and the Hot Chocolate cover, You Could Have Been A Lady.