Cape Breton singer-songwriter Bruce Guthro dies at 62
Guthro had a successful career as a solo artist and the frontman of Scotland's Runrig
Bruce Guthro, one of Cape Breton's most well-known troubadours whose remarkable 40-year career made waveson both sides of theAtlantic,has died.
Guthropassed away on Tuesdayeveningafter a battle with cancer, hisfamily said. He had just celebrated his 62nd birthday on Aug. 31.
He leaves behind his wife, Kim Guthro, two children, Jodi and Dylan Guthro, as well as many family and friends.
Guthrowas born on Cape Breton Island and started his career leading a band at local clubs and legions what his longtime friend and colleague J.P. Cormier described as his "first career," as Guthrowould reinvent his place in the music industry manytimes over.
He would later move to the Halifax area and go on to have a successful solo career before fronting the hugely popular Scottishband Runrig for 20 years.
More recently, he brought together both established and up-and-coming artists in his mould-breaking songwriters' circles, where the musicians face each other in the centre of a room, surrounded by the audience, allowing a vulnerable and emotional atmosphere of storytelling.
Cormier described Guthro as "one of the most likable people you ever met in your life."
"He was so incredibly proactive and positive. But it was impossible to stop it.And that's what inspired all of us," said Cormier, who knew Guthro for more than 30 years.
"He saw the universality of us as writers, but also saw the thing that made us different, which made us stronger. And he was compelled, for some reason, to demonstrate that to the world over and over and over again, and that's what the circles were."
Guthro transcended genres from rock to traditional and marched to the beat of his own drum, said Cormier, forging his own path in a cutthroat industry through his ability to connect with people and brush off negativity.
In his early days, even as he was signed to a major label and rose to number 1 in the Canadian charts with Walk This Road, Guthroalways avoided the "troublemakers" of the business and floated above adversity, said Cormier.
"He was very smart. He knew people. He knew more about people than most guys I've met," said Cormier, who has himself sat in Guthro's circle more times than he can count.
"He loved people and so his success was unavoidable."
For fellow Cape Breton songwriter Gordie Sampson, Guthrowas the Yoda of performance"He just had the force."
"He could work the crowd and he knew it, and there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.That's what entertainment is," said Sampson. "He was able to read his audience....He lived and fed off the crowd, and it was so innate."
Guthro started from humble beginnings, growing up in the smallcoal mining community of Sydney Mines.He was the seventh of nine children.
Sheumas MacNeil, one part of the Cape Breton family band theBarra MacNeils, recalled playing with Guthro at the local beverage room in their teen yearsand then returning to the MacNeil homesteadto continue the revelryuntilthe wee hours.
"On the weekends, we would gather in the woods around a fire and sing songs, and actually a lot of famous singers from Sydney Mines gathered around that fire with Bruce," saidMacNeil, joking that perhaps the "Brown Street Country Club" campfire jams were theoriginof his songwriters' circles.
In the late 1990s, aCeltic band from Scotlandcalled Runrig was looking for a new lead singer. Enter Guthro, who held the band's main microphone and helped fillEuropeanstadiums until their final performance in 2018, which drew more than 50,000 people.
Former Runrig bandmatePete Wishartdescribed Guthro as "the nicest person you could ever hope to meet, and a joy to perform with."
"An exceptional singer, musician and songwriter taken far too soon. We are going to miss him," Wishart said in a social media post.
Despite his success on the world stage, Guthro's loyalty to his home province was unwavering,hosting his songswriters' circle in Halifax multiple times a year and becoming a mainstay act at the annualStan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, N.S.
His legacy will also live on through his children, who themselves haveestablished their own place in the music industry Dylan Guthrois a songwriter and producer currently based in Nashville and Jodi Guthro is a singer-songwriter in her own right.
'He'll never die'
A few weeks before his death, Guthro posted a video on his Facebook page, a stand-in for his would-be performance at the Canso folk festival.
Flanked by his children around a kitchen table with a drink in his hand, Guthroasked for prayersfrom his fansbefore launching into a newly written songthat includes the line, "Can I get an amen?"
He appears composed as he recites the Lord's Prayerwhile Jodi and Dylan harmonize the song's main passage.
"Thank you all for your support over the years in this blessed musical career I've had. You were always the inspiration behind it all," Guthro wrote in the post.
CormiersaidGuthro's death will leave a noticeable void in Nova Scotia's music scene, buthe promisedto help carry on hisrenowned songwriters' circlesin some way.
"Our little world here just got smaller. But like I said, if we remember what he did, and we continue what he did,he'll never die."
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