ON THE ENTERTAINMENT SCENE
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Border City’s Inimitable Dusty D’Annunzio By Liz Daniel
he French author Jean Cocteau wrote, “One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.” Defying logic, one of the most respected local musicians Dusty D’Annunzio lives as an artist, his last job a paper boy at age 14. D’Annunzio is one of the youngest artists to have received an award from Focus on Canada South, has played over 5,000 gigs as a musician and attended as well as taught at The Canadian Conservatory of Music in Windsor. Local talent Tara Watts credits him as one of the main reasons she does full time music: “He taught me so much about how to perform.” To say he is a passionate, articulate person is an understatement. When Windsor artist Jon Gillies asked D’Annunzio to participate as an interview subject in a Detroit/Windsor documentary film project on which he was working, D’Annunzio became involved in a much bigger way. Iron Street Studio’s “Border City Music Project” has been in development since 2012 with Gillies as Creator, Writer, Photographer, Editor and Executive Producer. D’Annunzio is credited as Co-Producer and Flint, Michigan’s Mark Farner, former lead singer and guitarist with Grand Funk Railroad, as Associate Producer. Released two years ago, it is a look at the role mass media has played in manipulating modern culture. In the seventies prior to the deregulation of the telecommunications industry, Windsor’s AM800 had a very influential Music Director in Rosalie Trombley. She played a major role in programming the hits and was even immortalized in song in Bob Seger’s ‘Rosalie.’ The documentary features
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Dusty D’Annunzio on tour in February 2016 with the legendary Mark Farner. Photo courtesy of Jimmie Romeo.
over 100 interviews with local musicians, as well as one of the great minds of our time Noam Chomsky, and the legendary Dick Wagner. Another passionate project for D’Annunzio is designing and developing guitars after a car accident made it difficult for him to hold a heavy guitar. Working with Dalbello Guitars in Kingsville, Ontario, they built him two personalized custom electric guitars. D’Annunzio says, “knowing the weight of different wood types and keeping the tonal qualities is like designing a race car. You can engineer it, but you need a driver to test it out to see if it performs.” Also working with Detroit’s own Uncle Dave’s Custom Guitars, D’Annunzio developed an acoustic guitar with Uncle Dave’s patented neck through body design.
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“Playing for over 30 years, I have had so many different instrument preferences, but exploring new guitar inventions is very exciting,” raves D’Annunzio. As of late, D’Annunzio has been doing some tour dates with Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad. In February 2016, the two of them played acoustic performances at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah and at Fantasee Lighting Soundstage in Belleville, Michigan, with D’Annunzio on keyboards, guitar and backup vocals. They have upcoming performances in Texas in June 2016 and Traverse City, Michigan in the fall of 2016. “I met Mark at the Windsor Bluesfest and he came to see me play at The Dugout,” D’Annunzio recalls. “He saw me perform Stevie Wonder’s song ‘Superstitious’ and two years later,