Were it not for John McGale, who died in a car crash on Sunday, Offenbach might have thrown in the towel before enjoying some of his greatest successes.
Updated October 31st
Dominic Tardif The Press
“I’m not stopping, it’s too soon,” sang Gerry Boulet in 1985 in Le rock’n’roll faut ma peau, lyrics by Marc Desjardins to music by John McGale. Never stop: That’s a credo that the guitarist stayed true to to the end, for whom it was out of the question to stop going on stage. He was born in North Bay on October 30, 1956 and had just turned 66 years old.
At around 2:45 a.m. Saturday night, John McGale’s car skidded up the Odelltown rise in Lacolle before hitting a tree and catching fire, circumstances the Sûreté du Québec was still dealing with. to be resolved on Monday. His death occurred at the hospital center in the hours following the accident.
The rocker had survived many trials so far, including the separation from Offenbach initiated by Gerry Boulet in 1985.
A luggage full of melodies
Offenbach would probably not have survived 1978 without John McGale. Because when bassist Michel Lamothe and drummer Roger Belval defected to their comrade Pierre Harel in Corbeau in 1977, Gerry Boulet’s morale was almost as low as that of the narrator of Mes Blues passe dans porte.
Jean Milliaire and Normand Kerr will briefly replace the pair before Gerry calls out a fun and talented weapon crossed during an Ontario tour: Breen LeBœuf. McGale is nominated by Breen LeBoeuf, also of North Bay. After trying his luck in the Sudbury music scene, the guitarist returned to North Bay and led the struggling McGale’s Navy.
“From the first show he did with Offenbach in Louiseville, he was blown away by the audience’s response. He kept saying to Breen, “You can, man! Have you seen the freaks?” writes Mario Roy in his biography of Gerry Boulet, Avant de m’en aller (1991).
PHOTO RENÉ PICARD, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Offenbach 1986
The new line-up quickly set about creating what would become their masterpiece, Traversion (1978). Half of the music on the album’s ten songs is signed or co-signed by John McGale, including I know it well, Two other beers, Sleeping waters and I have rock’n’roll worse toé. We also owe him the music for Palais des Glaces, Zimbabwe, La Louve and Just an Adventure.
“John had arrived in Offenbach with a whole lot of melodies, and that was a good thing because he was a remarkable rock melodist,” lyricist Pierre Huet, who worked with Traversion’s McGale, recalled on Monday. There is no doubt in the author’s mind: Offenbach’s second winds owe much to the guitarist, saxophonist and flautist who guided the group towards a less harsh, more FM sound.
Pierre Huet often imagined his own by combining the phonetics of the English texts McGale had first written. “I have to say: ‘Your body damn me’ [dans J’ai l’rock’n’roll pis toé] from the sentence “And it’s killing me”. The woman who leaves was originally called Funky Samba,” the lyricist recalled, visibly touched by the tragic news.
The former collaborators had seen each other this summer when McGale came to give Huet a copy of a recent reissue of Traversion. “He was a real rocker, but he was also a very nice, very sweet boy. »
The returns from Offenbach
After Offenbach disbanded in 1985, John McGale worked with several artists including Dan Bigras, Jano Bergeron and David Jalbert. In 1990 he released the only album by the Buzz Band, a trio formed by Breen LeBœuf and April Wine’s drummer Jerry Mercer. Recorded with Toyo in 1994, Angelie, an adaptation of American group Orleans’ Dance with Me (1975), was a huge hit on Quebec radio airwaves.
Beginning in 1997, John McGale was involved in Offenbach’s many resurgences with Martin Deschamps on vocals, including the album Nature in 2005. The multi-instrumentalist, who went by the Offenbach name, continued to present shows under that name and with other musicians after the departure of Breen LeBœuf and Johnny Gravel (the only member to have been in all of the formation’s incarnations).
ROBERT MAILLEUX, PRESS ARCHIVE
Offenbach in 2005
In 2018, an album entitled Renaissance was released under the Offenbach name, reigniting tensions among the group’s many former members.
With their conflicting truths, frequent quarrels and occasional reconciliations, the Offenbach clan often seemed like a Parti Québécois du rock. With the death of John McGale he certainly loses one of his tenors.