GUITARS FOR VETERANS
Sean McCann plays his part
Military veteran Jim Lowther felt trapped in a cycle of despair brought on by his injuries, both mental and physical, when he remembered the acoustic guitar that was tucked away in a corner of his home in Halifax.
“One day, the medications weren’t working, and I had tried everything — yoga, meditation, you name it — to help break the feeling of despair,” he recalls of that dark day in 2009. “Then I picked up my guitar, dusted it off and started banging on it. It literally lifted me somewhere, took me away for 15 or 20 minutes. It shocked me. I couldn’t believe I was completely in a different zone. It broke the cycle for me, which was good.”
A few months later, when he was well enough to get out in the community, he had another shock when he spotted a friend from the military at a church dinner for the homeless. Lowther was a volunteer; he assumed his old mate was also helping out.
“Then I found out he wasn’t volunteering, he was homeless,” says Lowther, a 47-year-old father of three who suffers from PTSD.
“He was getting something to eat, and he pointed to three other vets at the dinner who were homeless, too. It was like being hit over the head with a shovel. My life changed right there.”
In 2010, Lowther and his wife, Debbie Lowther, co-founded Vets Canada, a nationwide grassroots charitable organization that helps military and RCMP veterans who are having difficulties transitioning to civilian life. With the help of volunteers across the country, they help veterans find housing, jobs, medical care and access to the services they need.
A few years later, troubled by a string of back-to-back suicides, and galvanized by his own experience playing guitar, Lowther and his wife set up the Guitars for Vets program in 2015, with the mission to get a slightly used guitar into the hands of any former soldier who wanted one. A call for donations went out. “It exploded,” Lowther said. “We had people calling from all over the country wanting to drop off a guitar.”
It didn’t take long for Long & McQuade, the music store chain, to step up and offer their retail locations as drop-off points. Their staff was also available to fix or restring the donated instruments. In less than two years, some 800 guitars have been put into the hands of veterans.
Enter Sean McCann. Although not a military vet, the former member of Great Big Sea is a veteran of the rock ’n’ roll industry who’s intimately familiar with the healing properties of an acoustic guitar.
After he quit drinking, left the chart-topping Canadian band and moved his family from St. John’s, Nfld., to the Ottawa area, he found himself alone with his demons, which included the memory of being abused by a priest at the age of 15.
“When I first sobered up, the first side effect was I lost a lot of my friends,” McCann said.
“And then I started to have nightmares, and remember what the priest did to me. I really wanted to drink, but instead of reaching for a bottle of Scotch, I grabbed Old Brown here and I poured my heart into this old guitar.
“When the time came, when I needed a friend most, it was there for me because it let me do what I needed to do, which was to face the truth. A secret can kill you as quick as a bullet, but I believe a song can save you. The songs that came out of this guitar literally saved my life.”
Lowther and McCann first connected on social media. After a meeting in Ottawa, McCann became the Guitars for Vets musical ambassador, and almost immediately started organizing a fundraising concert. He’ll be hosting the Play Your Part show on Nov. 10.
The concert is a song writers-circle performance featuring an all-star lineup of McCann’s musical friends, including Maritime rocker Joel Plaskett, Ontario songstress Sarah Harmer, and the effervescent Ottawa-based singersongwriter Jeremy Fisher.
Organizers hope to almost double the number of guitars by selling out the show. Each $100 ticket will pay for a guitar and instruction for a veteran or serving member of the military. You can also sponsor a seat for a veteran by contacting playyourpart@vetscanada.org