Remembering Ron Hynes: Friends perform special ECMA tribute show

Artists and fellow musicians are remembering singer-songwriter Ron Hynesin a tributeat the 2016EastlinkEast Coast Music Awardsin Sydney Nova Scotia.

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BruceGuthro,AmeliaCurran, TheEnnisSistersandLennieGallantare among the artists whowill pay tribute to the late "man of a thousand songs" Thursday night.

The tribute also featuresmusicians likePaul "Boomer" Stamp, Sandy Morris, Paul Kinsman, Glenn Simmons, and KenTizzard,who worked with Hynes over the years.

"Ron and I were good friends and I had a great respect for him and loved sharing music with him, sharing stages with him and I'm very honoured that I was asked to be a part of this," said Gallant, a Prince Edward Islandsinger-songwriter.

Musical inspiration

Hynes, a seven-time East Coast Music Award winner, and a familiar face on the East Coast music scene for decades,documented hope and heartbreak in his native Newfoundland with songslikeSonny'sDreamandAtlantic Blue.

Hedied in November at the age of 64, after battlingcancer.

Gallant said he was inspired by Hynes's heartfelt music and the pride he portrayed in his songs.

He remembersthe first time he saw Hynes performhis songBack Home on the Island,onCBC'sWonderful Grand Band (WGB),andand how that song hit home.

"It hit me so hard because it was such an amazing song,and I thought how in many ways it could have been written about the fishing community I grew up in.I had to go out and get a copy and learn that song right immediately," said Gallant.

"It just hit me so hard because here he was writing about the state of things in Newfoundland with the fishery and so forth, but he was writing in a way that was so original and it had so many different elements in it it had sadness and anger, and beauty and humour, and a great deal of pride all wrapped up in a very short song."

'Saying Goodbye to Ron'

Over the years Gallant said he has shared the stage and music with Hynes and the twobecame very good friends.

One bonding moment etched in his memory happenedafter another tribute concert for the late Gene MacLellan,Canadian singer-songwriter known for songslike Snowbird,made famous by Anne Murray.

Gallant said he was walking with Hynes after the show and started to sing that song he heard years before on WGB,and the two began to sing together.

"I started singing that song, Back Home on the Island, and it was one of those very first songs and not that well known, and the look on his face when I started singing it he was so surprised that I knew it," he told CBC's St John's Morning Show.

"That's a moment that will always stick with me I think."

Gallant is not only lending his voice, but also hissongwriting skills for this event.

While in St. John's for Hynes'sfuneral, he began to write a song for his friend, Saying Goodbye To Ron, which he will perform as part ofthe tribute.

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"It was a very sad but very beautiful event, very touching but the thing that struck me was that Ron was everywhere.You couldn't get into a taxi cab, walk into a shop, no matter where you went,even walking down the street on George Street, people were pumping the music out into the street and his voice seemed to be all over the city and quite likely all over the island in many ways," said Gallant.

"I think it seemed that people were just trying to say goodbye to Ron in whatever they could and it struck me."

"It's just a song about what I was feeling being in St. John's at that time, and how everybody was trying to deal with it, trying to deal with losing their greatest poet, greatest songwriter."

TheEast Coast Music Awards Show will be hosted by Cape Breton musiciansHeather Rankin and Ashley MacIsaac.