Ca-na-da's Bobby Gimby dead at 79
David Migicovsky
NORTH BAY, Ont. (CP) -- Bobby Gimby, whose 1967 hit Ca-na-da became an
anthem for Canadian unity, died Saturday at a nursing home in North Bay. He
was 79.
An official at Cassellholme Home for the Aged gave no specific cause of
death, but said he died peacefully in his sleep. Gimby's passing comes 11
days before Canada Day.
Gimby's only child, his daughter Lynn Gimby-Bougerol, said her father had
pneumonia last week and spent a few days in hospital. He had felt fit since
being released, she said.
Gimby (pronounced Jim-bee), a Saskatchewan native, originally wrote Ca-na-da
for a 30-minute film documentary on Canada's Centennial. But public
demand -- mainly from teachers -- was so great the song was released as a
record. The song sold over 75,000 copies of sheet music.
Gimby told The Canadian Press in 1992 that the song was "sung by four kids,
and was then over-dubbed to make it sound like 44 kids."
It starts with the line: Ca-na-da, we love thee, Ca-na-da proud and free.
The song propelled Gimby, then in his 40s, to the status of Pied Piper of
the land, leading swarms of kids down Main Street Canada singing his
trademark song.
For a time, the whole country seemed to be humming, singing or whistling the
jingly, cheerful tune. It topped the Canadian hit parade for most of the
1967 Centennial Year.
That same year, Gimby was made an officer of the Order of Canada.
Even after the tune became a hit, Gimby never re-recorded it. "I got it
right the first time," he said. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
In 1993, Gimby told the North Bay Nugget: "I had those first few words
practically from the beginning.
"I really didn't think it would hit that hard. There have been more than 30
recorded versions of it."
Gimby-Bougerol said Saturday her father's musical talent was part of his
soul.
"The trumpet came naturally to him," she said. "It's inborn, you've either
got that particular sound or that certain feeling."
She recalled fond memories of travelling across the country with her parents
during Centennial Year. Gimby's jewel-encrusted trumpet, which he paraded
with the children down streets across the country, is a work of art created
by Gimby-Bougerol, an artist.
Gimby was born Oct. 15, 1918, in the tiny Saskatchewan town of Cabri --
population about 300 -- some 250 kilometres southwest of Regina. Musical
talent ran in the family -- his father played the fiddle, his mother the
piano, his sister Jean the guitar, Gimby the coronet. He also had another
sister and a brother, both of whom had an ear for music.
"There was lots of nighttime frivolity. We had a little band in the family,"
Gimby said in a 1993 interview.
Harvey Peacock, 85, of Cabri, said Saturday he recalls Gimby as a teenager
who lived down the street.
"I use to hear him practise his trumpet in the backyard. I think his mother
gave him the order to practise outside," said Peacock.
"He practised a lot, and as you know, he became quite good at it."
Later, in Vancouver, Gimby was lead trumpeter with the touring orchestra of
Mart Kenney and his Western Gentlemen from 1941 to 1943. The orchestra was
one of Canada's most famous dance bands. For 11 years in the 1940s and '50s,
Gimby was featured on CBC Toronto's Happy Gang, a staple of afternoon radio
coast-to-coast.
"It was a great education," Gimby said in 1993 of the Happy Gang. "When we
were playing or getting ready, it got so that we knew how each other
thought, all seven of us."
In 1962 Gimby visited Singapore, then part of Malaysia, and wrote a tune
called Malaysia Forever. It topped that country's charts and become an
unofficial national anthem.
In his heyday, Gimby was one of Canada's top-paid composers of pop songs and
advertising jingles. Some of his songs were sung by big names of the era --
Peggy Lee, Georgia Gibbs, Ray Bolger in his Las Vegas act and Britain's Max
Bygraves.
At the height of his Ca-na-da fame, the Centennial Committee paid him a
salary and all expenses on tour, although he wouldn't discuss details.
"If I were doing it all today I'd have a business manager," he said in the
1992 interview. "What I was paid wasn't enough but I was happy. I don't feel
that I was cheated or anything."
Gimby denied stories that he made less than $1,000 in royalties from the
song. Later, when it was still earning sizable royalties, Gimby signed over
his share of profits to the Boy Scouts of Canada.
Even years later, Ca-na-da contributed tremendously to Gimby's reputation:
people would crowd around the musician who seemed to embody so much hope for
the country.
In the late 1980s Gimby split his time between his home in Toronto and his
farm in the Caledon Hills to the northwest. In the early 1990s he moved to
North Bay and lived with a friend before his knees started to give out and
it was difficult to get around.
But the musician in Gimby never really quit. Friends say he played in the
band at a previous retirement home.
His wife Grace, also born in Saskatchewan, died in 1977. They had been
married 36 years.
His daughter said she and his granddaughter, Elizabeth, are "heartbroken"
over his death.
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| David Migicovsky, d m i g i c o v at m y n a dot c o m
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