Gord loved to work and that was a big part of his routine, healthy or not.
Gord was a very capable, focused and driven guy and very ambitious creatively. He was always looking for something to do.
Josh Finlayson, who collaborated with the late Tragically Hip lead singer Gord Downie on an album that will be released this week, three years after Downie’s death.
Saturday will mark three years since beloved singer and songwriter Gord Downie died from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
On the day before that anniversary, local record label Arts & Crafts will release “Away Is Mine,” the Tragically Hip singer’s final album, recorded three and a half months before he died.
But Downie album collaborator Josh Finlayson, co-founder of the Skydiggers, who helped set the project in motion, says “Away Is Mine” is anything but a “downer.”
“There’s a lot of humour and a lot of joy musically and lyrically,” Finlayson said over the phone. “It’s not morose in any way.“
In fact, the 10-song, 28-minute effort, packaged as a double-disc, electrica-coustic set, cements the prolific output that Downie demonstrated throughout his life, which includes 13 Tragically Hip studio albums, an EP, a live disc, a greatest hits package and now six solo efforts — with apparently one or two more on the way that were recorded before “Away Is Mine.”
“I can’t undervalue his work ethic,” said Finlayson. “Gord loved to work and that was a big part of his routine, healthy or not. Gord was a very capable, focused and driven guy, and very ambitious creatively. He was always looking for something to do and the output, when you really look at it, including this and a few other things that will come out, is quite remarkable in terms of how much he did in his lifetime.”
Finlayson, who performed often with Downie during his solo shows, including the “Secret Path” concerts that helped raise awareness of injustice against Indigenous Canadians, said that the album happened spontaneously.
“Following the ‘Secret Path’ shows, Gord was writing what he was describing as a book,” recalled Finlayson, of his friend of 25 years.
“But through January and February, I thought he found it a bit isolating. So I’d see him every week or two and we’d hang out and listen to records.
“Then we started to talk about writing songs. He was truly a collaborator at heart. And in these circumstances, it was a good distraction.”
Finlayson said that he’d write and record a couple of songs on his cellphone and then send them to Downie.
“Anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours later, he’d send something back with a finished lyric,” Finlayson said. “He also had some finished lyrics he really liked and wanted to use, so that was part of the premise.”
After the duo completed10 songs within 10 days, Downie suggested that they go to the Tragically Hip’s Bathouse Studio near Kingston and record an album, with studio manager and engineer Nyles Spencer producing.
In July 2017, they spent four days doing multiple takes of each song, with Spencer adding drums loops and other effects as the music was captured. Travis Good of the Sadies was brought on board to help with some of the instruments, and Downie’s son Louis and Tragically Hip stage manager Dave “Billy Ray” Koster both chimed in on drums.
Finlayson said there weren’t too many hiccups during the sessions.
“We worked together enough where there was kind of a shorthand between us,” Finlayson said.
“The one unknown was Gord’s memory and his health but, really, it didn’t really prove to be an obstacle at all, any more than me forgetting a guitar part or him forgetting a lyric.
“That creative muscle of Gord’s was quite remarkable through all of this: the Hip tour and the ‘Secret Path.’ The recordings I heard and saw him do, it’s quite incredible actually.”
Finlayson said Downie was able to hear the final album before he died. He explained that the acoustic version of “Away Is Mine” offers “a pulling back of the curtain a little and seeing the creative process, a valuable thing to see.”
He views his involvement with Downie on the album as “a gift.”
“I’m very grateful to have had all of those experiences. I felt this record was very much a gift from him. I had a good understanding of what my purpose was in that dynamic. I just needed to be myself and that’s what he needed from me. Our musical relationship was pretty uncomplicated.”
Even before he became ill, Downie had sealed his legacy as a member of the Tragically Hip, one of Canada’s most popular rock bands, and one that regularly filled the country’s arenas and stadiums with ease.
But after it was announced that he had contracted terminal cancer and that the Kingston-based band, which included guitarists Rob Baker and Paul Langlois, bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay, were going to embark on a final tour in 2016, Downie’s and the band’s following grew even more fervent.
When the Tragically Hip played its farewell show on Aug. 20, 2016, an estimated 11.7 million Canadians tuned into the commercial-free broadcast and streaming of the show by the CBC.
The “Secret Path” album and series of concerts told the story of Chanie Wenjack, an Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 after escaping a residential school and trying to return to his home in the Marten Falls First Nation.
Downie’s call for reconciliation resonated throughout the country and, as Finlayson notes, Canadians were inspired and engaged by the singer’s numerous endeavours as he fought his illness.
“Every day wasn’t a great day by any stretch, of course, but Gord found some sort of greater purpose, some higher power,” Finlayson said.
“He leveraged his illness and the attention that was directed toward him in a way that I think he felt really positive about. So it was very hard not to be impacted by that.
“Throughout his career, Gord captured the imagination and touched the hearts of a lot of people.”
What does Finlayson miss most about his friend?
“Without question it was his sense of humour,” he responded. “He was a very funny guy. He had a great way of humanizing people and himself though humour.
“It’s what I miss and what I think about, mostly. He makes me laugh still to this day.”