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MIA students share Jack Richardson’s legacy

The biggest difference between college and university is the amount of practical, hands-on experience students receive in their field of study. At Fanshawe College, the second-year music industry arts students have been working on one of their most practical assignments yet—producing a charity concert to honour their late professor and Canadian music producer, Jack Richardson.

Mike Roth, one of the MIA professors at Fanshawe, says the concert was a really spur of the moment idea.

“It came about during a lecture I was doing. I was talking about how new artists could get the attention they deserve and I was saying that one of the best ways is to do a charity show,” Roth explains. “When I asked the class for ideas, Adam Barnes, one of my students, mentioned that we could do a Jack Richardson tribute. It was a really spur of the moment idea that got the whole ball rolling.”

Jack Richardson, best known for his work with The Guess Who, was a Juno Award-nominated record producer and Order of Canada recipient. The Juno Award for “Producer of the Year” has also been named in the MIA professor’s honour.

Richardson passed away in May of last year, and even though they don’t know how much money they’ll raise, the students want the proceeds of this show to go toward The Heart and Stroke Foundation.

“[We’re going to raise] a million dollars,” Barnes, a second-year student in the MIA program, laughs. “I really don’t know to be honest—I’ve been focusing more on branding this show because the goal is to carry this idea on in subsequent years as part of the MIA program. I kind of just want to reach out to the community and get the name of it out this year and they can really build on making money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation in years to come.”

The concert on Wednesday night is going to feature a variety of student artists, video tributes and an appearance by Emm Gryner, a Canadian singer-songwriter and MIA graduate.

“It’s going to be pretty diverse musically, as we’ve let the artists take creative liberties to the songs,” Barnes says. “It’s going to be a lot of Guess Who covers, but everything from folk-rock to piano ballads to ska. It’s not going to be a solemn affair—it’s going to be a celebration of the man. We’ve been working hard for four months so it’s going to be an awesome evening of great music.”

Roth, a close friend of Richardson, thinks his response to this special evening would be positive.

“I think he would be thrilled,” he says. “I’m sure he’d be saying, ‘you have to do this again, fix this, this drum part needs to be done again,’ but that’s because he’s never stopped producing and he never will.”

Share the Man: The Music of Jack Richardson tribute concert is taking place at The Aeolian Hall on Wednesday, February 8. Tickets are $15 for students and $20 for non-students, and the doors open at 7:00 p.m.

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