MUSICAL MEMOIR
Myles Goodwyn on April Wine
Myles Goodwyn wasn’t necessarily thinking of garnering literary glory when he began writing his autobiography, Just Between You and Me.
In a recent interview at Chenoys on the West Island, the founder of legendary Canadian rock band April Wine said he did it first and foremost for his three grown-up children.
“I wrote the book for my children because I was either in the recording studio or on the road (when they were growing up),” said Goodwyn. “So I wasn’t the kind of dad who left in the morning and came back at the end of the day. I missed all that normal stuff by being so involved in my livelihood. I wanted them to know their dad. I wanted them to know what happened, what I’d been through, where I’d been. So this book gives them the opportunity to know all those things.
“The other reason I wrote it is because I wanted the fans to know what went on with April Wine, because I never said anything. I kept it to myself. … I liked the high road. And I heard so many things about why (drummer Jerry) Mercer left or why (Jimmy, David and Ritchie) Henman left. Or, ‘Why did you guys not break sooner?’ I heard all kinds of stories, so I said it’s time for the truth. It’s time to set the record straight.”
That’s exactly what the April Wine singer, guitarist and chief songwriter does in Just Between You and Me. He also spends a big chunk of the book discussing his tough early years in rural Nova Scotia, in a family reeling from the death of his mother at a too-early age and without much money to live on.
“When my mom died, our whole family became dysfunctional,” said Goodwyn.
“Four males living under the same roof, but there were never any hugs, never any communication. We were four lost souls roaming around that household.
So I took to music. It was music that saved me.”
April Wine was formed out east but moved to Montreal in the spring of 1970, the band members figuring they had a better chance of making it if their base was one of the country’s major cities.
Goodwyn doesn’t go into detail, but suggests that maybe promoter Donald K. Donald and Aquarius Records had too much control over the group’s career in the early days, and he doesn’t gloss over the many conflicts with band members.
He’s also not shy about letting us know who the main man was in April Wine.
He writes: “At the risk of sounding vainglorious and self-serving, no one in AW ever wrote a hit song but me. And I’ve written more than one, thank heavens. I know that and they know that.”
Fair enough. Goodwyn’s driving force clearly helped propel April Wine to the top of the Canadian rock scene in the 1970s, and helped them become one of the few Canadian bands to have big hits around the world. To quote the title of one of those hits, rock ’n’ roll is a vicious game, and Goodwyn was tough enough to play it.
The book includes extensive quotes from many of the key members of April Wine’s different lineups. Goodwyn underlines the fact that while he wrote the book himself, veteran Canadian music journalist Martin Melhuish helped the rocker with the research, including interviewing Goodwyn’s former bandmates.
Goodwyn details the kind of overindulging that was a requisite part of the rock-star lifestyle in the ’70s and ’80s. In fact, the book begins with the chronicling of a morning in 2008 when he ended up in a Montreal-area emergency room suffering from internal bleeding due to alcohol abuse.
“When I talked about me, I had to be truthful,” said Goodwyn, who has lived in Rigaud for years. “I was in the business in the ’60s and ’70s, and alcohol and drugs was a big part of the performing arts. You go to the ‘office,’ quoteunquote, and someone offers you a drink as soon as you walk into work. Everyone was partying. We all went through that. Some of us made it, some of us didn’t. I was lucky, but I was also smart. That’s why I’m still here, and that’s why I can remember what happened and write it down. Because I survived it all.”
Goodwyn says maybe what struck him most in the whole process was discovering the details of his family history, as he dug into where his dad and mom came from. And he ended up feeling a slew of emotions as he relived everything, from those early days in Nova Scotia to his years as a rock star.
“There’s a sense of pride,” said Goodwyn. “The book covers all those emotions. There’s a bit of shame, there’s regret, there’s remorse. There’s sadness, there’s heartbreak. And there’s joyous moments and funny moments. All of those emotions are in the book, because no one’s perfect. We’re all human. My heart’s on my sleeve, and that’s why the book is special: because it’s real.”