NEW GLASGOW – Dubbed the godfather of country music in Pictou County, there are few musicians who haven’t graced the stage with Johnnie Walsh.
Walsh – whose real name was William Huntly, but he went by Johnnie from childhood – was just a boy when he discovered his passion for music. Born in Telford, he moved to New Glasgow to live with his sister when he was just 10 years old, saying it was “too dark out there” for him. The move gave him opportunities to develop his passion.
His daughter, Theresa Farrell, believes her father would be touched to know he was being inducted into The News’ Virtual Music Hall of Fame.
“He’d be just so excited he’d be on cloud nine,” said Farrell.
“It was his life, music. That’s all he did for 80 years.”
Longtime friend Dave Anderson agrees. “It’s the thing he really enjoyed in life…he loved music.
“Playing guitar was, to him, just like talking is to me. It just came to him naturally.”
An excellent fiddle and guitar player, Walsh wasn’t one for the technical stuff, says Anderson, but he was always more than willing to share the knowledge he had, starting many musicians on their path and teaching many young people – including Jim and Don Haggart, Ray Stewart and Anderson – their first chords.
“He was always willing to show anyone anything he knew,” Anderson said. “It didn’t matter who you were, if you were just starting out or if you’d been playing forever, he’d help anyone. And people knew that about him, they went to him.”
Don Haggart will always remember learning at the hands of Walsh.
“He was a formidable guitar player. He’s been in a dozen bands and he taught my brother Jimmy and me, he taught us all, really,” Haggart said. “He had this soft guitar style. He was a very mellow type of a player, very particular how he placed each and every chord, they were all very clear and precise.”
Walsh played in many bands over the years, including the Starlites and The Pictou County Wood Choppers, to name a few. In the 1960s and 1970s, he played with Cameron MacDonald and Len Paquette from P.E.I., August Majcan from Newfoundland, and countless others.
His voice was a familiar sound over the airwaves as well. Walsh hosted a radio show on CKEC with Hattie MacKenzie, Wally Rice, Carl Phinney, Cecil MacNeil and Eddie Anderson.
By the 1970s, he was part of a show on Channel 10, K Vision, until 1979 when he joined the cast of CMO Presents, another Channel 10 production. Walsh starred in and provided accompaniment to some 200 performers over a four-year period. He stayed with the show when the late Felix Bernas took over the Channel 10 production.
Extremely versatile, Walsh had a rather unique talent of being able to pick up a new song during the break with a single listen.
“I never worried about throwing a new song at him,” Anderson recalled. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In the 1980s, Walsh played both fiddle, lead guitar, rhythm guitar and bass guitar for the Chuckwagon Gang, Dave and the Drifters and the Half Century Band. And Walsh could get a tune out of a few other instruments as well.
“He had a ‘perfect pitch’ ear, and, when he tuned an instrument, it was always tuned to standard pitch,” explains Anderson.
Walsh’s repertoire covered all genres of music. He would play Latin American pieces, pop tunes, boogies, rock and roll and old time music on his guitar. On the fiddle, he played backup for two bluegrass bands: Anderson’s group Rusty Nails and his band at the time of his death, Mountain Memories, with Brian and Linda Langille and Glen MacKay. With Mountain Memories, he recorded a CD several years ago.
Music was always the focus in the Walsh house, says his daughter.
“He always played music when I was little,” she recalls. “He always had friends in. They’d play the electric guitar, the fiddle; there were always parties when I was growing up and everyone would play.”
Her father was a man who wanted to share his love of music with others, she added.
“He played in so many different bands and volunteered at every benefit anyone held.”
On Walsh’s 65th birthday, 100 musicians that he had played with were invited to a surprise party. A whopping 55 showed up, which Anderson believes is a fitting tribute to Walsh’s impact on the local music scene.
“This was a tribute to the person who never said no to any request for his talent,” he added.
Walsh played on The Tonveta Country Music show for eight years in the 1990s and played in three provinces, with the highlight being a tour of Newfoundland. Recording artist Laurie Spears used Walsh as a band member whenever he was available.
Cameron MacDonald once described Walsh as the guitarist "who could play any type of music, with proper timing, and a nice touch".
Walsh particularly enjoyed volunteering at all the seniors homes in Pictou County and at the annual Senior’s Festival in Trenton. One of his highlights was playing fiddle with Rusty Nails when they opened for the RCMP Musical Ride in Sherbrooke Village. There was an audience of 2,300 who applauded wildly for his version of The Orange Blossom Special.
A small man physically, Walsh was a gentle sort of person with a very simple way of teaching music. He was noted for his western garb and his long, flowing grey pony tail.
Art Fitt prides himself on having known Walsh, a man he described as taking great pride in keeping fit.
“He was a very quiet, humble man,” Fitt said. “He didn’t say much, but he recognized he didn’t have to be fancy, he knew being tasteful wasn’t about that. When I was a kid, Johnnie Walsh was the player in Pictou County. He was the one everyone went to.”
Walsh died during Christmas 2009 at the age of 80. At his funeral, the pastor described Walsh as a “man who lived his life as a cowboy, in spite of social consequences.”
He was known by just about everyone he would meet, Anderson said, and he took the time to speak to everyone of them.
“He also could make anyone laugh and it was always a pick-me-up to visit Johnnie at the J.W. Ranch,” Anderson added. His apartment was featured in The News a number of years ago, due to almost every inch of it being covered in a western theme.
“He never made any money playing music, really,” Anderson said. “But he never cared about that. That wasn’t what it was about. It was all about the music.”
His daughter believes her father would be touched to know he was being inducted into The News’ Virtual Music Hall of Fame.
“He’d be just so excited he’d be on cloud nine,” said Farrell. “It was his life, music. That’s all he did for 80 years.”
