NXEW Brings An Epic History of Windsor’s Indie Music Scene

“The honesty in Windsor’s music is its strength – pleas of love and cries of anguish, all searching for a better place, a better state of mind, a better wind to blow through Windsor and make it whole again.” Jamie Greer, So Who Does Windor Ontario Think They Are?

Windsor Ontario, I had no idea! The history of successful and moving music coming out of Windsor these long years surprised me, revealing the Montreal/Toronto bigtownbaby bias in me, I guess, so my many thanks go to Jamie Greer at music blog NxNW for the eloquent enlightenment!

1: I hadn’t heard of Jack Scott, which seems likely to have been the result of a massive anti-Windsor conspiracy (kidding, put those tinfoil hats away) given how successful he was at the time:

With such monster hits as “The Way I Walk” (which was covered by The Cramps), “My True Love”, “What In The World’s Come Over You” and more, Scott became an over night sensation. Dave Marsh, one of rock’s most respected journalists and a co-editor for Rolling Stone once declared that Jack Scott “undeniably the greatest Canadian rock and roll singer of all time.” His 19 singles to hit the Billboard Top 100 in the U.S. is better than such legendary figures as John Lennon, Paul Simon, Metallica, and Cheap Trick (to name a few) – what makes that number more impressive is that all 19 of those hit in a period of 41 months. Only one other recording artist in the history of music has done better than. Four guys from Liverpool named The Beatles.

Nor had I put together how many of the local indie folk music acts we love and have written about came from the blue collar city by the water:

Elliott Brood, The Sunparlour Players, Dean Drouillard, The Golden Hands Before God…, Ron Leary, Songs From A Room, The Unsettlers, Richard White of The Besnard Lakes, Ryan Yoker of Bombs and far too many more to be mentioned.

Here’s a video from the Sunparlour Players, apparent Windsorites whom I love:

Check out Jamie Greer’s great article in full (there’s loads more to it) over at the geographically unlikely music blog, NXEW – So Who Does Windsor Ontario Think They Are?