Veteran musician Bobby Dean Blackburn still on top of his game
February 6, 2020
Returning to the classroom as an adult to acquire a high school diploma helped 79-year-old Bobby Dean Blackburn kick his drug addiction.
On his way to buy cocaine 22 years ago, the musician saw a sign at Westwood Secondary School in Malton (renamed Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School in 2000 after merging with Morningstar Secondary School), encouraging adults who didn’t complete high school to apply to do courses to earn their credits.
“I figured that was a good way to get off the dope because I was hooked,” he said. “I signed up and have not touched drugs since. That decision probably saved my life.”
Chosen the valedictorian after graduating with honours two years later, Blackburn wanted to use the opportunity to address drug use and its adverse effects.
School administrators rejected his request.
“There was a lot of dope sold in Malton and I wanted to let people know about that,” Blackburn said. “In fact, one of the guys that I used to buy drugs from enrolled in the adult high school program and I let him know that I would turn him in if I ever saw him selling any dope at the school. He never returned after I told him that.”
At York Memorial High School, he won an acapella competition and his band – The Gems – played for the first school dance.
“There was a Dixieland Band that also performed because the Principal didn’t want rock and roll to be played,” Blackburn said. “He thought that was the devil music. We, however, played a little rock and rock which the students loved.”
That decision probably cost him the opportunity to finish high school.
Needing a 60 per cent mark to transition to Grade 10, Blackburn’s mark was 59.5.
He’s convinced that school administrators didn’t want him there because of his refusal to adhere to the Principal’s request not to play rock and roll.
“I told my father I passed the test and I was trying to encourage him to take the matter to the board, but he sided with the school,” said Blackburn whose great grandfather – Elias Earls – travelled the Underground Railroad from Kentucky. “Also, the cost of the challenge was $25 which was big money at the time.”
Quitting school at 16 in 1956, Blackburn turned to music which he developed a keen interest in at a very young age.
He started singing and playing guitar in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church.
“I remember there was this old woman who came up to me one day and said, ‘Bobby, don’t ever stop singing because you have it’,” Blackburn, the first mainland entertainer to tour Newfoundland when he was 30, recalled. “I was about eight or nine at the time.”
Switching to the British Methodist Episcopal (BME) church on Shaw St., he was the lead singer in a sextet led by his aunt, Grace Trotman, who was the choir director and organist. She migrated from Liberia in 1920 and was a Royal Conservatory of Music graduate and outstanding teacher.
Among the first Black entertainers on Yonge St., Blackburn and his Gems band was a fixture at the original Club Bluenote which was the first after-hours R & B club in the city and at Zanzibar Tavern.
Four years ago, he was inducted into the Mississauga Music Hall of Fame.
That honour and meeting late rock and roll legend Fats Domino in the early 1960s are the high points of his career.
“Fats was one of my favourite artists and we spoke for just over an hour before he went on stage,” said Blackburn who was part of a CBC TV Good Friday show in which he played ‘Peter the Apostle’. “He was on the road and he told me he was doing 350 one-nighters to pay off a large Internal Revenue Service (IRS) debt. I knew every one of his songs and when I told him that, he said he hadn’t had a hit in 10 years. He gave me his address in New Orleans and asked me to write some songs for him.”
Approaching 80, Blackburn is still active.
In the summer, Bobby Dean Blackburn & Friends do a Sunday afternoon gig at the Wismer House in Port Elgin and he takes his keyboard to Mexico – where he has spent part of the last five winters – and plays at resorts.
He plans to release gospel and ballad albums in the next year.
Blackburn’s last album, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, was released in 2009.
While he has played throughout Canada in the last six decades, Blackburn has no interest in performing in the United States.
“I don’t like that country because of the racism,” he says flatly. “In Canada, there is racism, but it is mild. Across the border, it is in your face.”
As a karate coach, Blackburn went to tournaments in the US on a few occasions. He also coached hockey and boxing.
At age 13, the veteran musician recorded a version of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ that was sent to the Grand Old Opry and there was an offer for him to go to Nashville.
“I really wanted to go, but my father said ‘no’,” he pointed out. “Back then, I didn’t know about the racism, but dad obviously did and he made the right choice.”
Bobby Dean Blackburn (c) with his cousin Billy Blackburn (r) & Jay Douglas
Last month, Blackburn was recognized for his contributions to the arts with the Addie Aylestock Award at the Ontario Black History Society Black History Month launch at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Aylestock was Canada’s first ordained Black woman minister.
“This award is special because it’s the biggest honour I have received from the Black community,” said Blackburn who was the Owen Sound Emancipation Festival artistic director.
He and his wife of 60 years, Jean, have four children.
It’s no surprise that Robert, Cory, Duane and Brooke are musicians.
The Blackburn Brothers band won a Maple Blues Award in 2010 for ‘Best New Band” and was nominated for a Juno six years later in the ‘Best Album of the Year’ category.
