Death of Offenbach’s guitarist | John McGale was “a remarkable rock melodist”

If not for John McGale, who was killed in a car accident on Monday, Offenbach might have thrown in the towel before experiencing some of his greatest successes.

Dominic Late
The Press

“I’m not stopping, it’s too early”, sang Gerry Boulet in 1985 in Rock’n’roll wants my skin, a text by Marc Desjardins with music by John McGale. Never stop: this is a credo to which the guitarist born in North Bay, who had just celebrated his 66^e birthday on October 30, remained faithful to the end, he for whom it was out of the question to stop going on stage.

Around 2:45 a.m., on the night of Sunday to Monday, John McGale’s car swerved on the Odelltown climb in Lacolle, before hitting a tree and catching fire, tragic circumstances that the Sûreté du Québec is still working on. to clarify. The rocker had so far triumphed over many trials, including the separation from Offenbach, initiated by Gerry Boulet in 1985.

A baggage of melodies

Without John McGale, it is very likely that Offenbach would not have survived 1978. Because when bassist Michel Lamothe and drummer Roger Belval defected in 1977 to join their comrade Pierre Harel in Corbeau , Gerry Boulet’s morale is almost as low as the narrator of My blues could pass in the door.

Jean Miliaire and Normand Kerr will briefly replace the pair, before Gerry calls on a funny and talented gun crossed during an Ontario tour: Breen LeBœuf. McGale will be nominated by Breen LeBoeuf, also from North Bay. After trying his luck on the Sudbury music scene, the guitarist returned to North Bay and led the struggling McGale’s Navy.

” Since the first show which he gave with Offenbach, in Louiseville, he was amazed by the reaction of the public. He kept telling Breen, “Can you, man! have you seen the freaks ?” writes Mario Roy in his biography of Gerry Boulet, Before I go (1991).

The new roster quickly set about creating what would become their masterpiece, crossing (1978). Half of the music for the ten songs on the album are signed or co-signed John McGale, whose I know it well, Two more beers, sleeping waters and I have the rock’n’roll worse you. We also owe him the music of Ice Palace, Zimbabwe, The wolf and Just an adventure.

“John had arrived in Offenbach with a whole bag of melodies and that was good, because he was a remarkable rock melodist”, recalled Monday the lyricist Pierre Huet, who collaborated with McGale from crossing. For the author, there is no doubt: Offenbach’s second wind is largely attributable to the guitarist, saxophonist and flautist, who led the group towards a less rough, more FM sound.

It was often by marrying the phonetics of the English texts that McGale had first written that Pierre Huet imagined his own. “I got to ‘Your body is damning me’ [dans J’ai l’rock’n’roll pis toé] from the phrase “And it’s getting me down”. woman leaving was originally called Funky Samba “remembered the lyricist, visibly moved by the tragic news.

The former collaborators had seen each other this summer, when McGale came to present Huet with a copy of a recent reissue of crossing. “He was a real rocker, but he was also a very nice, very sweet boy. »

The returns of Offenbach

After Offenbach disbanded in 1985, John McGale collaborated with several artists, including Dan Bigras, Jano Bergeron and David Jalbert. In 1990, he launched the only album of the Buzz Band, a trio formed by Breen LeBœuf and April Wine drummer, Jerry Mercer. Recorded with Toyo in 1994, the song Angeliean adaptation of Dance with Me (1975) by the American group Orleans, was a great success on Quebec radio stations.

From 1997, John McGale took part in Offenbach’s multiple resurrections, with Martin Deschamps on vocals, including the album Nature in 2005. Holder of the corporate name Offenbach, the multi-instrumentalist had continued to present shows under this name, with other musicians, even after the departure of Breen LeBœuf and Johnny Gravel (the only member to have been of all the incarnations of Training).

In 2018, an album titled Renaissance was thus launched under the name Offenbach, which had not failed to revive tensions among the many former members of the group.

With its contradictory truths, its frequent disputes and its occasional reconciliations, the Offenbach clan has often looked like a Parti québécois du rock. With the death of John McGale, he certainly loses one of his tenors.