Things were going well; the ratings for “Class FM” exploded, which meant my client list was growing, so I partnered up with my brother Reg to try and keep up with all the action.
Even though I was too busy to do so, some twenty years after leaving, The Jury, I returned to Winnipeg for a band reunion.
John’s book was so popular that they reunited those bands for a charity concert at the Winnipeg Convention Center.
Not only hadn’t I touched my guitar in twenty years, but I also hadn’t seen any of my bandmates, so I was looking forward to hanging out with them.
It is said that life is measured by its breathless moments, and as my plane began its descent to Winnipeg over the Golden Boy, I remembered that I had more than my fair share of them in my band days.
When I was asked by customs what the purpose of my visit was, and I answered, ” I’m here for a band reunion,” they all broke into big grins and said, “Welcome home, Mr. Johns; the whole town is very buzzed about the show, and we’ll be there.”
Rolly, it turned out, wasn’t excited about the reunion because, I guess, after I left the band, there’d been more than a few incidents, and apparently, the scars hadn’t healed.
The backstage area was like a scene from a rock movie, Neil Young was hugging his old bandmates from the Squires, Randy Bachman was chatting with Chad Allen about the early days of The Guess Who, and Burton Cummings was laughing it up with his old band, the Devrons.
When I met John Einarson, whose book had inspired the reunion, he surprised me by saying that he’d bought The Jury’s first record, “Until You Do,” just so he could learn to play Terry’s guitar intro.
You haven’t lived until you see Bachman Turner Cummings & Young do a 20-minute version of “American Woman.”
Standing there watching Randy and Neil trading guitar licks made me glad I’d put my guitar down so I wouldn’t have to embarrass myself tonight. Unfortunately, as it turned out, that wasn’t the case.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Randy and Burton strap a Strat on me, and as they push me out onto the stage, they yell, “It’s not the Jury if George Johns ain’t with them.”
Standing there, petrified, I told a stagehand that if he valued his life, he would leave me unplugged.
When Terry kicked into the intro of “Until You Do,” the years melted away, and just like that, it all came back.
Mark Knopfler got it right when he sang “Guitar George Knows All The Chords,” because I sure did that night.
Some thirty tears before I was unplugged the night I’d begun my musical career, and now it had just ended the same way. Perfect!