JD Gordon’s long and winding road

once asked his wife Linda. “You’d be dead,” she replied.

Between 2000-2006, Gordon released three albums of music. Just as momentum was beginning to build, however, he suffered a heart attack, which brought everything to a full stop.

Just before the health scare, Gordon had a real hit on his hands.

He had written a song called ‘They Cut My Kid’, about a boy being cut from a hockey team. For obvious reasons, it resonated with Canadian listeners.

“Guess what we did, we cut your kid, he ain’t gonna make the team. He was pretty good with the wood, but couldn’t skate that good...” an excerpt from the chorus.

“For whatever reason it took off like wildfire,” Gordon said. “Truckers heard it out west and started calling in to radio stations.”

Of course, the curse of many musicians is to be famous everywhere except where they live. “They played it out west, but wouldn’t play it in Ottawa,” Gordon commented.

At one point, Gordon got a curious spike of sales on his website coming from the U.S.

“I went hunting in Saskatchewan,” Gordon said. At a truck stop on the way out to the hunting camp, he left a stack of CDS to sell.

“They didn’t know me from Adam,” he said, but agreed to carry his music.

Shortly after, a hockey team from Minneapolis, Minnesota had stopped at the truck stop on their way to a tournament. When they saw the song ‘They Cut My Kid’, the team bought the CD and its popularity spread.

“I started getting all these sales from Minnesota,” Gordon laughed.

“In 2012, I decided to get back on the horse,” Gordon said, booking a show at the Haskell Opera House in Stanstead. “We filled the house,” he said. Gordon isn’t gigging seven days a week anymore.

“I’m no longer a drinker. I won’t play bars anymore,” Gordon said. “I prefer theatres where people sit and listen to the music,” he said.

“If I can’t do that, I won’t work. I’ll do something else. If I had to name a strength other than song writing, it would be versatility,” Gordon said.

Gordon has assembled what he considers a dream team of musicians for his upcoming concert at Centennial Theatre.

Joining him on stage will be Charlie Mccoy, who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009. According to Gordon, Mccoy is a multi-instrumentalist beyond compare who has worked with artists like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Roy Orbison.

Joining Gordon and Mccoy on stage will be a six-piece band featuring Danny Reid on fiddle, John Steele on steel guitar, Ed Bim on keyboard, Bradley Scott on guitar, Kenny Kanwisher on upright bass, and Peter Beaudoin on drums.

While Gordon’s first name is Dave, he is known as JD Gordon. He explained that his nephew John is his songwriting partner, so JD is a reference to John and Dave.

“All the memories are flooding back,” Gordon said, as he sat in the Centennial lobby to discuss his upcoming show.

Even though his performance on the BU campus will be a full circle moment for Gordon, he is not nervous in the least to hit the stage.

“I’m a lot more relaxed and calm,” Gordon said, compared to how he felt when he first resurfaced to play at the Haskell.

“I’m more nervous playing an old folks home, I really want them to like me,” he joked.

Gordon is currently working on a new album, which he hopes will be ready and up for sale at the June 15 show.

He is also working on producing a video for his hit ‘They Cut My Kid’, hoping to try the song out a second time with a new generation of fans.