A Blues Christmas Rick Fines
By Jay Cooper Contributor / Musican
Rick Fines was born and raised in Peterborough, to parents that loved music but were not musicians. The jazz of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and soul music by Ray Charles could always be heard being played in the house. So why does he still love the Kawarthas so much to this day?
‘Peterborough is the perfect place for me to settle. I moved to Toronto three times, people always told me to make it in music you have to be in the city (he laughs). I loved it there but man, I couldn’t make a living in music. I always left the city to make money so I could go back and pay my overpriced rent. The last time I moved back to Peterborough, I met an old friend and married her and she had no intention of leaving. I love it because in ten minutes I’m out in nature from the downtown core. The Kawarthas is as good as it gets and we’re lucky. We are the hub of the wheel here to go to Kingston, Toronto, Ottawa or head north,’ he says. He continued, ‘I’m the second youngest of five kids and my two older brothers (5 & 6 years older than Rick) both played guitar. I would hear music from their room. Reverend Ken/Washboard Hank would come over and hang out with my brothers. I would lean up against the door and listen to them playing. More times
than not I would fall asleep, they would open the 1957 canary yellow Bel Air that had been hacked door and I would fall into the room,’ he laughed. up into a El Camino style ‘57 Chevy. I saw a guy ‘They played old blues, rock and hillbilly music. get out with a handle bar mustache and a tweed When I was a teenager, they would take me to these hat. He pulled out a tweed Fender case and a blue grass festivals with their band. I loved the soul brown-faced amp and went into his house. He music and the R & B. I would hang around the back looked to me like Duane Allman. The next day I door when I was underage, at the Trent Inn, to hear sat on his step with my Gibson SG and waited for Buzz Thompson, Max Mouse and the Gorillas and him to show up. He did and I asked him if I could Bobby Watson. I would step in on the back steps play some music with him (he laughs). So he inuntil people would give me a signal that the server vited me in and we played music and that was was coming and then duck back out,’ he laughed. Gary Peeples. We have been playing together for years after that, along with Al Black.’ ‘Then I started playing with high school buddies that were older, already had jobs and had rented a ‘When we all got together and played old blues, house. In the house, in what would be the dinning it felt like there was no one in the world. We all room, there was Marshall and Traynor amps and played rock music, but were looking for where it a drum kit. I watched out the window and saw a came from, the whole blues revival in Britain, as Page 46
