John Swartz Review - The Orillia Packet and Times Newspaper

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There was a surreal moment at Lake Country Grill Sunday afternoon.

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John Stinson is singing a tune. Of course, it’s Lightfoot Days, so it’s something from the Lightfoot compendium of music. Eric Kidd is playing lead guitar. His affinity for Gord’s music is natural; his guitar teacher was Red Shea. Steve Eyers is playing bass. His ability to get inside a tune Gord wrote comes from growing up with it; he’s Gord’s nephew. Stinson played previous Lightfoot Days. His voice is too much like Gord’s in tone. Add an ability to phrase like Gord and other vocal idiosyncrasies and he sounds just like the voice on all of the records. He doesn’t appear to be trying too hard to be a Memorex machine; it’s more natural. With your eyes closed, you’d think you were in the room with Gord.

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Then you open your eyes and sitting right across from you is Gord.

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He’d come to hear his nephew’s band at what amounts to a bit of a family reunion with more than a dozen other relatives on hand. Between conversation with a niece or other family member, he pays attention to Stinson. How does an observer process that? Seeing the icon watching a darned good band performing the icon’s tunes so  well? Heck, how does the singer process that? Stinson said before he stepped up to the mic, he was a bit nervous, on top of not feeling 100% chipper. He’d sung every day of the festival. But he pulled it off. When the set was done, Gord shook his hand and congratulated him.

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(from Orillia Packet and Times, Nov 16, 2016)

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(Nov 3rd, 2023 SOLD OUT St Paul's Centre)

John replicates Gord in a natural way. ...

One can learn the words and the melodies and have a voice in the range and timbre like Gord, but if you overlook how Gord wrote any line the way he did and the delivery you’ll be just another singer in a rock and roll band.

John isn’t that. He gets how to sing the tunes and does it effortlessly (though I’m sure with a lot of practice) and doesn’t forget the job at hand by inserting himself into the reproduction. Let me qualify that last bit, He’s done it enough times I’m sure it feels he owns the performance and isn’t consciously playing a part.

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Others can tell, even if they don’t know how or why John’s renditions come off as being so faithful. I’ve been told before, and many did that night, they can’t believe how well John sings Gord’s tunes.

(from Sunonlinemedia.ca, John Swatrz, Nov, 2023)

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