Of course I explained that they were a Blues Band and would be keeping their clothes on!"
Jacquie, October 13, 2007

How many of these bandmates can you name? Breakwater still plays some great blues for us in Bruce County!

October 23

Dark Angel is another blues band from the 70's that played a lot in Bruce County and we still get to enjoy today! They are also part of a Christmas tradition up here, playing a blues matinee, "Brownie's Boxing Day Bash" every year at The Bruce Bar and Grill, in memory of Larry Brown, who passed away about 10 years ago and was a friend of many. This traditional gathering on Boxing Day is a great opportunity to gather with old friends home for the holidays.

October 23

How many of you remember the origins of the name for local blues favourites, "The Breakwater Blues Band"? Back in the early seventies a right of passage for Kincardine youth was to swim out to the breakwall or breakwater as many called the concrete structure off shore. In about 1973 Bob MacLeod and Bob Rigby had some friends take them with their acoustic guitars across the water to the breakwater in their canoes. Soon these boys were ferrying a lot of other kids out to the breakwater and a real party began. Bob and his buddies were just fooling around with their instruments and after one particularly well appreciated tune he was asked what it was. "Well, I guess that was the Breakwater Blues!" and the name stuck. Soon a band was formed, their main gig being at The Windsor Hotel and area stag and does and 35 years later, the band is still playing!

taken from a radio interview with Rob MacLeod,  Tuesday Night Blues, The Coast 95.5 FM

Brownie was a character unto himself, and anyone from this neck of the woods
knew his name, and could probably tell you a story or two....or ten!!!!
Brownie and Party were usually in the same sentence.
He was a grumpy S.O.B. And loveable at the same time, you just couldn't help
but like him.....he knew the roughest of men and the wildest of women
(you'll have to ask Brad & Stink}.... but a child (mine) would crawl on his
lap, knowing unconditional respect and love.
Loved the CBC, Vodka and Orange, decorated his Christmas tree with all the
plastic lemons he'd collected over the years, had a shelf in his kitchen
where he proudly displayed rocks and other trinkets that children had given
him.....To: "Uncle Brownie".
He could run a back hoe like no one I've ever seen.....could delicately
knock an ash of the end of a cigarette with the bucket (shovel?).
He bought my Dad's VW back in the 60's.....Dad could tell you a few
colourful stories I'd bet.....he won't tell me!
We'd sit on his apartment steps to watch the Santa Claus parade....
He loved antiques and old historical pictures.
He loved his family.
Had more friends than I think he ever realized.
Loved to laugh.
Loved company.....
And , oh, did I mention.....
He loved to party and listen to the Blues!
with the utmost love and respect, Jacquie, Boxing Day, 2007

We spent some time with Feet MacLeod this afternoon in his garage which could actually serve as a blues museum. The walls are festooned with memorabilia of the music career of Feet and his friends. There's pictures and posters from the high school rock bands of the late '60's and early '70's like "The Last Remains" and then of course the great blues band of this area, "Breakwater Blues". As Feet related to me, it was after Tommy Cuyler returned from his travels to the sub continent, enthusiastic about the great blues tunes he had learned while away, that the boys' musical focus shifted more and more to the blues. Tommy ends up returning to Australia but the his influence on the musical direction for the band remained and Breakwater has been playing the blues ever since!

Below you see Feet holding on an actual section of the handrail that was on the north wall of the Windsor Hotel, at the street. Feet related that more than a few local boys had to hold on to this rail pretty tightly as they headed home. In the middle picture are two early Breakwater posters and in the background of the one on the right is the logo used for the early Brownies Boxing Day Bash, a large bear in glasses with a guitar! The third is Feet's Wall of Fame.

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Apparently blues wasn't the only entertainment at The Windsor Hotel in those days. But having a venue that offered live music, great blues music, was certainly good fortune for people our age at that time. The Windsor, for example, had live bands playing most nights of the week! Sadly these places began to disappear, replaced by DJ's, disco balls and canned tunes. Venue owners, who never paid bands a lot in the first place, started cutting back, opting for the less expensive DJ format. In part I think one reason was that so many of us just stopped going to the bars as often as we used to, maybe due to jobs, having kids, whatever. And the young kids that took over were listening to a different kind of music by then and didn't need a live band to play it. But even though the Windsor disappeared, the blues hung on and guess what, we're back!

Rick and Marilyn, January, 2008

John Sharp was with the Breakwater Band in the early days of the band in  the mid seventies. It was with John's help that the band was reorganized in 1990 for the Kincardine reunion after being broken up for the last 10 years since the 1980 reunion. It amounted to John and I teaching our songs to a new guitarist, bass player and a drummer who had not worked in what we would call a blues band.

Feet MacLeod, January, 2008