Pillar of Quebec rock of the 1970s, singer-songwriter and flamboyant guitarist Walter Rossi died on April 29 at the age of 74, confirmed the musician’s relatives through social networks. One of the big guitar heroes locals of his time, he became a member of the orchestras of Buddy Miles and Wilson Pickett before founding two rock groups, all from a single album, which became cults, Influence and Charlee, before establishing his notoriety by collaborating on the recordings of Nanette Workman, Michel Pagliaro and… Patof.
What fun did we have to have in the studio for the recording of the album Patof Rock ! See the orchestra that accompanied the character of Jacques Desrosiers: Angelo Finaldi (Les Sinners) on bass, Pag (Michel Pagliaro) and Walter Rossi on guitars. The beautiful band of rockers who revolutionized the Quebec sound from the 1960s to the 1980s, leaving in their wake albums even more significant than that of the beloved clown.
Fruitful meetings
Born, like his friend Finaldi, in Naples, Italy, Walter Rossi grew up with his family in Montreal, learning the guitar by copying the patterns of BB King and Albert King. Rossi joined a few orchestras in the early 1960s, performing regularly at the Esquire Show Bar, one of Montreal’s few rhythm & blues music clubs. It was there that he met American drummer Buddy Miles, who invited him to join his band and introduced him to the great Wilson Pickett (In the Midnight Hour, Funky Broadway). Rossi accompanied the latter on tour for two years in the late 1960s. It is also said that he then jammed with another guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix.
Upon his return to Montreal, he drew rock towards experimentation with the album Affecting of the eponymous band (1968, with Dave Wynne on drums, of the legendary garage band The Haunted) and towards hard rock with the trio’s explosive album Charlie (1972), before accompanying Michel Pagliaro on stage, from 1973 to 1976. In 1975, he collaborated on the recording of Nanette Workman’s classic, the album Lady Marmelade, which he co-produces with Finaldi and the famous musician. His contribution is vital to the success of the album: this furious solo in Let go of me, at the end of side A? He’s the brilliant Rossi.
Walter Rossi’s solo career will be quite brief, but fertile: he released four albums in eight years. The CHOM-FM DJs then adored his successes as well as those of his colleague Frank Marino, leader of Mahogany Rush, also a Montreal composer-guitarist with Italian roots. Listeners of yesteryear will recall, among other things, Woman, Sweet Woman (1977), theatrical Soldiers in the Night (1978) and the epic guitar solo of Ride the Wind (1978), the latter two taken from the album Six Strings Nine Lives, with his famous Gibson Les Paul illustrating the cover. At the Juno Awards in 1980, he won Most Promising Evil Vocalist of the Year..
During the following years, Walter Rossi disappeared, working in the studio as an accompanist and director, notably with his spouse at the time, the actress and musician Louise Portal. He will release a final album of unpublished compositions, Secret Sins – The Intimate Session Series Vol. 1in 2004.