Gord Downie

Early Life and Family

Gord Downie was born in Kingston, Ontario, and grew up in nearby Amherstview. He was the fourth of Edgar and Lorna Downie’s five children. His father was a travelling salesman turned real estate developer. Downie’s siblings are Charlyn, Paula, Patrick and Mike.

Growing up, Downie was an avid hockey fan. He played minor hockey and cheered for the Boston Bruins, who have a long association with the City of Kingston. Downie’s godfather, Harry Sinden, became the Bruins’ coach and general manager and also coached Team Canada during the 1972 Summit Series. Though Downie initially playing defence, after a disappointing end to a season when he was seven or eight years old, he decided to become a goaltender. The following year, he recorded 15 shutouts and led his team to the local championship.

From an early age, Downie expressed an interest in music. He often listened to his sister’s collection of 45 rpm records and used his allowance to buy records. He later joined a band and performed covers of punk songs.

Along with his future bandmates, Gord Downie attended Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute, where he was described as shy, quiet, thoughtful and athletic. His extracurricular activities included the dance club and student council. While in high school, he performed in a band called the Slinks. He was also a member of a group called the Filters. His part-time jobs included working at a pizza restaurant and a convenience store.

The Tragically Hip: Formation and Early Years

The Tragically Hip formed in 1983. Bassist Gord Sinclair and guitarist Rob Baker grew up across the street from one another in Kingston and have been friends since they were infants. They met Gord Downie and drummer Johnny Fay while in high school. Downie, Sinclair and Baker all attended Queen’s University at the same time in the mid-1980s and formed the band with Fay and saxophonist Davis Manning. This early version of the band first performed together in a room at the Kingston Artists’ Association in November 1984. Guitarist Paul Langlois replaced Manning in 1986, the same year that Downie, Sinclair and Baker graduated from Queen’s. Downie earned a BA in film studies.

During this time, the band played extensively across southwestern Ontario and developed a loyal fan base in Kingston. The band often covered obscure tracks from groups such as the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Doors, Van Morrison and early Rolling Stones.

The Hip first attracted the attention of MCA Records executive Bruce Dickinson when he heard them on a demo tape in 1988. He was further impressed a few weeks later when he saw them perform two songs at the Toronto Music Awards at Massey Hall on 11 November 1988. He saw them at the Horseshoe Tavern the following night and signed the band to MCA in January 1989.

The Tragically Hip: Career Overview

As the band’s lead singer and lyricist, Gord Downie was responsible for crafting unique elements of the Tragically Hip’s identity. He gained renown for his compelling and engaging live shows and for his literary, often cryptic lyrics. The combination of blues-focused hard rock, poetic lyrics and themes drawn from the Canadian experience proved to be a unique cultural phenomenon.

In addition to his singing and songwriting abilities, Downie was noted for his energetic, if enigmatic, stage presence. He was described as a performance artist as much as a vocalist. Downie became beloved for his live stream-of-consciousness soliloquies, often introduced in the middle of songs or between them, tying them together. Some of these irreverent improvisations, recorded by fans during live performances, became well-known bootlegs passed among die-hard fans.

The Tragically Hip came to national prominence at a time when many Canadian bands (e.g., Blue Rodeo, Cowboy Junkies, 54-40, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Sloan, Alanis Morissette, etc.) were establishing new, distinct sounds and voices in Canadian rock music. ( See also Canadian Rock Music Explodes.) But it was Downie, far more than other English Canadian rock stars, who wove elements of Canadiana into broader considerations of life, society and culture. Incorporating Canadiana into songs was somewhat novel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Tragically Hip struck a chord with young Canadians trying to make sense of an evolving nation.

Gord Downie recorded 14 albums with the Tragically Hip from 1987 to 2016. They won 16 Juno Awards — including three each for Entertainer of the Year and Group of the Year, as well as three for Rock Album of the Year and one for Album of the Year — and sold more than 6 million albums, almost entirely in Canada. The band’s second album, Road Apples (1991), was certified platinum in Canada a little more than a month after its release. Fully Completely (1992), their third album, went platinum in three weeks and later achieved a rare diamond certification for selling 1 million copies in Canada. The band was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2002 and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

Cancer and Final Tour

In December 2015, Gord Downie was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an incurable and aggressive form of brain cancer. He and the band waited until after the first long weekend in May 2016 to make the announcement. The band also announced that they would embark on a final, national tour with 15 shows in 10 cities in support of their final studio album, Man Machine Poem, which had already been written and recorded. The tour began with a concert in Victoria, British Columbia, on 22 July 2016.

People across Canada reacted with an outpouring of shocked sympathy for Downie and his bandmates. The Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research was established by the Sunnybrook Foundation. Tickets to every concert sold out within minutes. Every city along the route hosted pre-concert parties to raise money for the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research. The tour was documented in Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier’s film Long Time Running. It premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

Despite Downie’s illness, the tour and his performances were extremely well-received. Downie’s unique, wry sense of humour was on full display, as he wore a T-shirt of the poster for the 1975 film Jaws, which features an innocent swimmer unaware of the unavoidable death that awaits her. Downie relied on teleprompters to recall song lyrics, as the cancer had affected his memory.

The final performance, on 20 August at the K-Rock Centre in Kingston, was broadcast live without commercial breaks on CBC TV, CBC Radio One, CBC Radio 2 and CBC Music, as well as on those outlets’ YouTube and Facebook pages. Many venues also hosted screenings of the concert to raise money for the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research. The concert became a national event and was attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (During the concert, Downie challenged Trudeau to affect real and positive change for Indigenous communities.) The final concert was viewed by 11.7 million people. Four million alone tuned into the TV broadcast.

News of Downie’s death on 17 October 2017 prompted tributes and mourning nationwide. Justin Trudeau made a tearful statement shortly after the news broke. A candlelight vigil was held in Kingston’s Springer Market Square the night after Downie died.

Solo and Written Work

Over the course of his career, Gord Downie wrote and published a book of poetry, Coke Machine Glow (2001), and released five solo albums. Three additional solo albums have since been issued posthumously. His first solo album, Coke Machine Glow (2001), was based on the book of poetry. Subsequent solo albums included one collaboration with the Sadies and another with veteran Canadian producer Bob Rock, who also produced the Hip’s World Container (2006). Downie also had a cameo in the Joshua Jackson cross-Canada road trip movie One Week (2008), in which he plays a cancer survivor who advocates marijuana use as a remedy.

Activism and Charity Work

Gord Downie was a well-known advocate for environmental and Indigenous concerns. He spent the last few months of his life speaking out in support of Indigenous people. His last major project was Secret Path, a multimedia project about the life of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who ran away from residential school and subsequently died from exposure. The project involved a film, a graphic novel (illustrated by Jeff Lemire) and a multiple- Juno Award-winning album. Downie said Chanie Wenjack’s story was Canada’s story.

Growing up on the shores of Lake Ontario instilled in Downie a deep appreciation for the environment and the importance of the Great Lakes in particular. He served as a board member of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

The Tragically Hip launched its “Another Roadside Attraction” tour in 1993 with a lineup that included Midnight Oil, Daniel Lanois, Crash Vegas and Hothouse Flowers. Together these five acts released the charity single “Land” (1993) to protest clear-cutting in British Columbia. The tour was reprised in 1995 and 1997. All three editions raised money for various charities and included international acts as well as Canadians, such as Ron Sexsmith, Rheostatics, Spirit of the West, Eric’s Trip and the Inbreds.

Downie and the Hip also staged numerous fundraising concerts for Camp Trillium, an Ontario recreation and support centre for children with cancer, as well as for the Canadian Cancer Society and the Special Olympics, among many others. In 2000, the Hip produced and headlined a benefit concert for WAR Child Canada. Held in Winnipeg, it was the largest ever outdoor performance in the country at the time. In 2004, the band created The Tragically Hip Community Fund to support local charities in their hometown. The Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research was established by the Sunnybrook Foundation in 2016.

Personal Life

Gord Downie was married to Kaya (née Laura Leigh) Usher, a Toronto singer and musician and a breast cancer survivor. They met in 1987, when she was a 20-year-old student at the University of Western Ontario and Downie was 23 and touring with the Hip. They had four children together and lived on a farm in Prince Edward County, about a two-hour drive east of Toronto. They also had a house in the Riverdale neighbourhood of Toronto. Downie and Usher separated in 2015, before Downie’s cancer diagnosis. They never divorced and remained close until his death. “Near the end of his life, we got closer than we’d ever been,” Usher told the Canadian Press in November 2021.

In 2021, Usher released her debut album, All This Is. Co-produced by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew, the album features two of Downie and Usher’s children: 21-year-old son Lou on keyboards and drums, and 26-year-old daughter Willo on backing vocals. In her press tour for the album, Usher revealed that she and Downie had once dreamed of starting a family band with their children.

Honours

In 2008, the Tragically Hip received the National Arts Centre Award at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. In conjunction with the event, the National Film Board (NFB) produced the short documentary Family Band. Also in 2008, when the K-Rock Centre opened in Kingston, the street it is on was named The Tragically Hip Way in the band’s honour. They were also the inaugural act at the venue.

Canada Post recognized the group’s influence when it issued a Tragically Hip postage stamp in 2013, along with stamps portraying fellow bands Rush, the Guess Who and Beau Dommage. In 2016, Downie was recognized by his alma mater, Queen’s University, with an honorary degree.

Along with the other members of the Tragically Hip, Downie was made a Member of the Order of Canada in the summer of 2017, shortly before his death. Collectively, they were recognized for their music as much as for their support for various social and environmental causes. Individually, Downie was honoured as one of Canada’s most beloved artists. He was noted for his performances, his songwriting, and how, in his role as the band’s chief lyricist, he vividly illustrated what it means to live in, and love, Canada.

Gord Downie was named the Canadian Press Newsmaker of the Year in 2016 and again in 2017. He was the first entertainer to receive the honour. In 2018, he posthumously received the Juno Award for Artist of the Year. His brothers, Mike and Patrick, accepted the award on his behalf. In December 2019, the Government of Ontario passed the Poet Laureate of Ontario Act (In Memory of Gord Downie). It established the position of Poet Laureate of Ontario in Downie’s honour. In 2021, the Juno Awards recognized Downie and the Hip’s decades-long charitable efforts with the Juno Humanitarian Award.

Awards

Juno Awards as Solo Artist

• Music DVD of the Year (Hipeponymous) (2006)
• Adult Alternative Album of the Year (Secret Path) (2017)
• Songwriter of the Year (“The Stranger,” “The Only Place to Be” and “Son”) (2017)
• Adult Alternative Album of the Year (Introduce Yerself) (2018)
• Artist of the Year (2018)
• Songwriter of the Year (“A Natural,” “Introduce Yerself” and “The North, ” shared with Kevin Drew) (2018)

Juno Awards with the Tragically Hip

• Most Promising Group of the Year (1990)
• Canadian Entertainer of the Year (1991)
• Canadian Entertainer of the Year (1993)
• Entertainer of the Year (1995)
• Group of the Year (1995)
• Group of the Year (1997)
• Rock Album of the Year (Trouble at the Henhouse) (1997)
• Album of the Year (Trouble at the Henhouse) (1997)
• Best Rock Album (Phantom Power) (1999)
• Best Single (“Bobcaygeon”) (2000)
• Best Rock Album (Music @ Work) (2001)
• Music DVD of the Year (Hipeponymous) (2006)
• Music DVD of the Year (Bobcaygeon) (2013)
• Group of the Year (2017)
• Rock Album of the Year (Man Machine Poem) (2017)
• Humanitarian Award (2021)

Others

• National Achievement Award, SOCAN (1997)
• Inductee (with The Tragically Hip), Canada’s Walk of Fame (2002)
• Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (2002)
• Inductee (with The Tragically Hip), Canadian Music Hall of Fame (2005)
• Honorary Fellowship (with The Tragically Hip), Royal Conservatory of Music (2006)
• National Arts Centre Award, Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards (2008)
• Member, Order of Canada (2017)