Jerry Mercer - Keeping the Beat!

Season 9 of The Kingstonian Podcast kicks off with a legend.  Jerry Mercer has been keeping time for more than 70 years — three decades of that behind the drums with one of Canada’s most beloved rock bands, April Wine.

In this conversation, Jerry talks about his lifelong passion for music, the instrument that’s captured his curiosity these days, and the moments that defined his journey — from Mashmakhan to Ellen McIlwaine, Roy Buchanan, and, of course, April Wine. Along the way, he shares stories from the road, reflections on a life in rhythm, and a few surprises that might just inspire the next generation of musicians.

Recorded in early October 2025.

Our theme music is “Stasis Oasis”,  by Tim Aylesworth

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Send comments & suggestions to  thekingstonianpodcast@gmail.com 

Episodes also air weekly on CJAI at 101.3fm (Tue. at 4pm) 

Transcript

Steve 0:08

Welcome to the Kingstonian, a podcast that profiles people who are passionate about what they do for a living, what organization they belong to, or the community they are a part of. Here is your host, Dave Cunningham.

Dave 0:24

Hello everyone, and welcome to season number nine of the Kingstonian Podcast. I'm starting this season off with a bang, literally. My guest is Jerry Mercer, a drummer whose career has spanned more than 70 years, including three decades with Canadian rock legends April Wine. Jerry talks about what's kept him passionate about music all this time, the new instrument that's captured his curiosity, and shares some great stories from his years playing with Mashmakhan, Ellen McIlwaine, Roy Buchanan, and of course April Wine. Let's dive in. Recorded in early October 2025. Here's my conversation with Jerry Mercer. Jerry, thanks for joining me today.

Jerry 1:09

My pleasure, Dave.

Dave 1:10

Uh let's start with this. Which three drummers from the 60s and 70s, other than yourself, made you stop and go, Well, that's how it's done.

Jerry 1:20

Well, I've always been uh an admirer of Buddy Rich because Buddy is a master. Uh, he can do things on drums uh that even today is challenging for the best guys. He just was one of those people. In Canada, I've always liked Neil, but there's been a few drummers whose whose names I can't remember that I've I've heard, you know, in different bands and stuff. They do a good job.

Dave 1:46

You're talking Neil Peart, right? Neil Peart, yeah.

Jerry 1:49

Yeah. Well, Neil, I mean, I'm a little older than Neil, so I think he saw me first when I was with Mashmakhan. And that and that sort of gave him an effect. Helped him push on drums and gave him some ideas. But the thing that I admire about Neil is he never stopped learning. He never leveled off and said, I'm good enough, or this is good enough, or the music is good enough. He always pushed himself and uh pushed himself in different directions. I mean, that whole thing he did with the the National Hockey League, you know, went on and played that entire theme and everything. That's gutsy, you know.

Dave 2:32

Yeah.

Jerry 2:32

Putting himself out there. That's gutsy and and brave, and uh I I admire uh Neil in many respects for that kind of thing. He was a very intelligent guy, and uh a very um he he was really the quiet one, yeah, you know. Yeah, he was a a reader, yeah, an avid reader, and their bus was wonderful. There was three staterooms on it, and their their six foot seven road guy used to sleep in the back lounge because he was the only one that could sleep across the bus. It was the only thing long enough for him to sleep in. But they each had their own staterooms with their own interests, and I remember traveling with them on their bus between some gigs that we did with them, and uh Alex was cooking breakfast and on the stove for us all while we're traveling along. Yeah, it was just uh I found that Rush in general was a group of gentlemen. Yeah, they were not assholes, they they treated everybody with respect. Their road crew loved them and stayed with them for years. They were very stable, yeah, stable organization and uh consistent, and their fans were just as consistent. Some fans had seen a hundred and thirty-seven shows, something like that. Unbelievable. Many of their fans seen over a hundred shows. People would take their their week or two or three summer vacations and sort of plan it around where uh Rush was touring and follow them around. That's devotion.

Dave 4:10

Oh, yeah.

Jerry 4:11

So we've had uh Buddy Rich and Neil Pert, and of course, John John, I mean Bonham, Bonham, you know, led separate. Bonzo changed everything. Yeah, he did. He uh he introduced a kind of RB funk to rock which didn't exist there before in rock. He found a different way of playing it, and I I've never been a drummer to try and copy another drummer. I mean, I like Buddy Rich, but there's almost nothing I can do that he can do. We're two different worlds of drumming. So I never tried to copy anything he did, and I never tried to copy Bonzo except in the attitude, the feel of whatever I did. I try to keep him in mind because that feel that he developed, but you can't copy somebody and make it feel like them, really. Yeah, you still have to be you. You've gotta be you. And uh if you're not, you can't be consistent. If you're being you, you'll be consistent and having fun doing it.

Dave 5:22

Now, was it Bonham that gave you the idea that you had to be more of a showman when you were playing the drums?

Jerry 5:28

No, I was at that long before I heard him. Yeah. I started my solo back in the Mashmakhan days. Uh and uh I didn't do it when I was doing RB with Trevor Payne and the Soul Brothers. Trevor and and the Soul Brothers, that was you know, that was all through the early 60s. Right. And uh that was a great RB band. We worked constantly, but a lot of bands were constantly in those days because everybody didn't have TV and people went out to dance and the music was the thing. So I loved that time period. I was working for IBM then and just playing, you know, on the weekends, and but uh the last the last year in 67, the last year that I was with IBM, instead of taking my three weeks vacation, I took Mondays and Fridays off because we were playing Wednesday to Sunday at night, and I'm working Monday to Friday, so it became exhausting. So instead of taking my regular summer vacation, I stretched it out through the whole summer because it was Expo 67 in Montreal at the time. So there was a lot of activity and a lot of work, and that was the year that we all left our day jobs in September 67, and uh from then on I've been I've never done anything else. But play music, just play music. I played with a number of different people in the early 60s and in the late 50s, you know. You're searching around, you're you're trying to learn your craft, and whoever you meet, you get a gig, and yeah, it's like that. You're playing with a lot of different people. So the groups that I played with, the Firebirds, I played with a group called the Firebirds for three, three to four years, and then that morphed into Trevor Payne and the Soul brothers, because uh that group didn't want to practice anymore, it didn't want to grow anymore. It kind of that's where they were. But uh I hooked up with another group called the Dominoes, which was Pierre Senecal and Ray Blake and another drummer. And one night the drummer was uh ill and they called me if I could sit in, and I had my left leg in a cast. I had come home from Switzerland and buggered up my knee. My left knee. So my left leg was in a stovepipe cast, so I couldn't deal with a hi-hat.

Dave 7:52

Yeah.

Jerry 7:52

But I told them that, and I said, but I'll come out and play with with one leg and two arms if if if you're stuck. And so that's what it was. I was going up the stairs carrying my drums up to the second floor, and I'm on crutches. But we got them all loaded in and I played with them for the night, and we had such a good time that I joined them.

Dave 8:16

When you're when you're bouncing around from band to band like that in the early days, yeah, how long does it take you to figure out how to play with that particular band when you're moving?

Jerry 8:27

I work by instinct, I have excellent musical ears. Yeah, I hear harmonies. If if there's three people singing, I can listen and hear out a fourth harmony where there's holes, where they're not covering. I it I just I can't even explain that. Yeah, but I have excellent music, not perfect pitch, and certainly not the best musical ears in the world, because there's some musicians that absolutely floor me with what they hear when it comes to chord changes. The the chord changes they come up with is beyond my imagination. So, but within the realms of what I'm led to do, my hearing, my musical ears are great.

Dave 9:11

Yeah.

Jerry 9:11

So I've always moved from group to group. I didn't have to figure out, I never stopped to think about well, how do I play with these guys? I just played, I listened to them and responded what came to me naturally to do. Every time I was working with April Wine and we were working on a recording, we would do multi-recordings of the basic track because it was just me myself and a bass player and one of the guitar players going out to do all the basic tracks to the tune before the extra guitars and the vocals and all the stuff came on.

Dave 9:44

Yeah.

Jerry 9:45

And I don't think I ever did two tracks exactly the same. I might have done six tracks of the same song, but you won't find the same passes in the same place all the time. I never nailed myself down unless a pass was absolutely germane to what everybody else in the band was doing. I mean, it was a whole organized, orchestrated section.

Dave 10:08

Yeah.

Jerry 10:08

Then whatever pass went into that, I always stayed consistent with it. But if there was room for improvisation, I always thought of something different. Yeah. Uh trying to maintain the feel and groove. That was the key. And no matter what you do, it's about the feel and the groove with drums.

Dave 10:31

Yeah. How did you get involved with Mashmakhan? That was in Montreal, right?

Jerry 10:35

When I was with the Firebirds, uh they disbanded. Uh, I joined the Dominoes, which was Pierre and Ray, and Brian Brian Edwards was the bass player and lead singer for the for Dominoes. So when I joined them, that's what became Mashmakhan. Without Brian, it became Triangle . Okay. Three-piece group. Then we brought Brian back into it. It became four. We called it Mashmakhan, and that was how that fired off with Brian and Edwards on bass and uh lead singing.

Dave 11:09

The song that we remember Mashmakhan for is as the years go by. Were you involved in that particular tune?

Jerry 11:16

Absolutely. That wouldn't have been recorded if I hadn't been there, as a matter of fact, because the producer was a New York experienced at what he was good at, but what he wanted us to do was be what we were not. He was telling us we should do a version of Love Child and we should do this and that. And as the years go by, was the squarest, whitest, least interesting song he ever heard. And he didn't want to record it. And I had to fight with him. And Pierre, I mean, it was causing Pierre to start to drink because he wrote the song and and we worked it all out. We polished it and it was ready to go. And the public seemed to respond to it. But this guy hated it. And what? He never saw us on stage. He's a new art producer, he's there to produce our record, and we present him our songs, and he goes, So I said, This is one of our originals, people like it, and we want to record it. So we're going to record it. He says, Okay, but I'm not going to spend any time on it. So we started into the basic track, and we got about halfway through, and they stopped us in the control room. Something in there and microphone or something wasn't quite right. So we counted it in again and started and went from top to bottom, and that's the basic track that people are still listening to.

Dave 12:46

Talk about Montreal at the time as a place where music was being awesome.

Jerry 12:50

Montreal was amazing in the 60s. Before everybody had television, there were clubs all over town and uh lots of places for local musicians to play. My alma mater was the Esquire Show Bar. The Esquire Show Bar was the only place in town where all of the musicians who were on what they then called the Chitlin Circuit, where they would be going from state to state, city to city, doing their thing around the states, and they'd pop up to Canada, and the Esquire Show Bar was where they went in Montreal, nowhere else. And then they'd move on to Toronto. I think they might have played at the Brass Rail or there was one Toronto club where they always appeared at. And I would go to that club seven nights a week if the right people were in there. I'm I'm it was crazy. I I would finish work and I'd be in the club by 9, 9:30, and the music went till three in the morning. And there was always two bands live. And when one band finished after 40 minutes, they would go into something called intermission riff. And one by one, the musicians of the other band would come out and replace the guys who were on stage. So another sax player would come out, they might even play together to finish the thing. But uh otherwise the other guy would leave, uh drummer would come out and have a drumstick, he'd come in on the ride symbol, and the other drummer would slip out of the seat, the new guy comes in and picks it up. So Intermission Riff was started by one band and completed by the other band. And when it was done, they started their set of music. And when they were finished, they'd go into intermission riff, and the other musicians would all come out and change one by one during the song. And this was continuous music from nine till three in the morning. And all good R&B drummers. And I'm sitting at the bar, and I can I can reach out almost and touch the bass drum. There was a distance between where I was sitting, the distance to the stage was the width that you need behind a bar to walk around bartenders, you know, three foot space, whatever. And there they were on stage. I mean, uh I I and I'm sitting and they're on an elevated stage, so I can look out, see the drummer's feet, I can look up and see his hands, his fingers, I can see everything he's doing. And that was going to school. Not to copy, but to just be fed. I was I was musically fed by that club for at least eight years. And in the last few years they changed it into a jazz club. The owner got, you know, pressed on from the city to close it. And like I said, some nights I was there six, seven nights in the week, if the right bands were in.

Dave 15:42

So 1969 is the year that I have that April Wine sort of came out of the Maritimes. Myles Goodwin was singing, playing guitar.

Jerry 15:51

Yes.

Dave 15:52

You had David and Richie Henman, who are brothers.

Jerry 15:55

Yes.

Dave 15:56

One played uh David played guitar, Richie played drums.

Jerry 15:59

Yes.

Dave 15:59

And a cousin named Jim Henman played bass.

Jerry 16:03

Bass and sound.

Dave 16:04

Okay, that was 69. In 71, Jim Henman decides to leave, is replaced by Jim Clinch.

Jerry 16:10

Yep. And then the Henman brothers leave.

Dave 16:12

And then at 73, the Henman brothers leave, and that's where you come on the scene.

Jerry 16:16

Yes, because during I I finished with Mashmakhan in 72, but it during 73 and 74 were the period when I recorded with Ellen McIlwaine and uh through her producer ended up playing with Roy Buchanan because he was also Roy's producer. So when they were putting together a new band for Roy, I had had a good experience with him working for Ellen. Do you know who Ellen McIlwain is?

Dave 16:42

I've heard the name. I can't think of a song anyway.

Jerry 16:46

There is a documentary on the Bell system right now called Queen of Slide. Ellen was the best slide player I have ever seen, bar none, male or female. She was absolutely incredible on guitar, and she would sing with a perfect pitch, uh so if she was gonna harmonize with herself, she'd sing the main tune, top to bottom, and then add a second harmony, top to bottom, add a third harmony, top to bottom, and they were right on. The harmonies were you didn't need to punch in and fix and fart around with it. It was done. It was done. The woman was that good all time consistent. But she she insisted what would happen is the record companies would get excited about her because she was so good. Well, then they sign her up because they want her to be a certain way, and she would that's not Ellen. Ellen was Ellen, right? She got to be the way she is by not paying attention to everybody else, and she wasn't about to change because of the recording opportunities. And she ended up getting dropped by a lot of companies because she wouldn't, they wanted her to really go commercial, you know.

Dave 17:54

They wanted to pigeonhole her.

Jerry 17:56

Oh, yeah. And they couldn't, and she wouldn't allow them. And she ended up quitting music and driving a school bus in her latter years, and she passed away a little while ago, and that's why they came out with the documentary. But that was an exciting time for me to meet to meet Ellen and uh to you know get involved in that in the American scene.

Dave 18:16

What was your experience like with Roy Buchanan?

Jerry 18:19

Roy was an unusual man, he's very introverted, and he couldn't be led, but he wasn't a good leader. So you're kind of stuck in his personality, trying to do your best for him, but you wouldn't get feedback or encouragement from him to, as a unit, get better. We organized a practice when we were in England and touring England for three or four weeks in England. We were living in London, two Damler limousines to go in and out of London to the all the places we played. Polydor gave us their studio for a week. The band said, Great, we're gonna fix the arrangements because we never rehearsed. The band never rehearsed. It was sound check, do a gig. Next gig, you remember what you did on the gig before? And then there was new songs added on the second one, and new songs added on every gig. There would always be a couple of songs we never played before. That was Roy. He didn't understand or appreciate the how you could build arrangements behind things and make them stick out. He was just himself, and so every band he had sounded the same. Didn't matter who the musicians were, everybody ends up playing carefully behind Roy. Make sure you leave lots of room for Roy. But you don't know what's coming, and so you have to play. I say carefully because you know you can't just be free to improvise and throw things in. So uh uh uh that was an experience. Uh on stage playing with him was absolutely amazing. I never played with anybody who made me listen to that level. I mean, I was I was absolutely riveted because he doesn't play loud, so you can't be banging and thrashing back there. You know, you've got to always hit the right groove, and and he goes from a whisper to a roar.

Dave 20:09

Okay, so a heyday for April Wine would be the 70s and 80s.

Jerry 20:13

Yeah, the late 70s and uh 81 was uh 81 was uh "Nature of the Beast", which had uh "Just between you and me" on it. Yeah, and it was the biggest single that we ever had. It got to number 20, 1920 on the national charts in the States. Yeah. Uh "Roller" was also a hit in the States, but it never got higher than about 35, but it stayed on the hit parade for like four or five months in that 30 to 40, you know what I mean, uh rotation. It maintained that number. Uh it's not a number one hit, but at 35 you get a lot of airplay.

Dave 20:55

So I think I think it probably stayed on the church that long because of the drumming in the background.

Jerry 21:00

It was a good, that's a good track. I know. I've always liked that track. I always felt that that was just a sizzler. Uh just a sizzler. I remember doing it, it was just Gary and Steve and myself out there, and we had rehearsed the song as a group, so we know what's gonna go on top. But when you're out doing the basic track, all of that's in your imagination. Yeah, it ain't there. Yeah, so you just play knowing that you leave the space for what's coming, and you still have to make it feel like it's all together.

Dave 21:33

I want to get back to my question I didn't ask her yet. In the 70s and 80s, when you guys were enjoying a lot of success, what was success like for you from the inside?

Jerry 21:43

It didn't change me a whole lot because I wasn't a kid by the time the success came. I was 10 years older, 13, 12 to 13 years older than the other band members. So, you know, when success started happening, I was 33, 34 when I first joined April Wine, Myles was in his mid-20s, and all of the guys were, you know, in that in that zone. Some of them were a little younger than Miles. So it was always 10 to 13 years between me and the rest of the group. So the group became successful. It didn't affect me the same way it affected the others. But by the time I was making any money, I was a little older and uh uh, you know, not fixated on I gotta have a new car and I gotta have this and I gotta have that and impress impress everybody. I was past that. Yeah, I was focused on saving money because I knew someday I'm gonna want a house. Yeah. So my money was being saved. And I'm a late bloomer. I I left IBM at 27, 28. I joined April Wine at about what, 33, 34. By the time the success was happening, I was closing in on 40. And uh I didn't get married until I was 41. Start a family. So I I do things late.

Dave 23:02

All the songs that April Wine recorded, they had a lot of very memorable tunes, got a lot of radio play over the years, uh still getting a lot of streaming. Any particular song uh that when it comes on, you go, okay, that that's one I like. That's one of my favorites.

Jerry 23:21

"Say Hello" has always been a favorite. I think it's a unique kind of feel, that song, because the guitars are sort of playing in a beat of six against the drums, which are in a four-four time. So the downbeat of the guitars is So the first time dun dun dun dun is on the bass drum, and the next time dun dun dun dun dun comes on the snare because I'm boom boom boom boom dum boom boom boom dumbo. So their guitar part is in the count of six. One, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six, and I'm playing this slow four under it. It makes a very unique feel, and so that's one of my faves, and also because it was produced, that album, "Harder Faster", was produced by Nick Blagona, who was my favorite all-time record producer, uh slash friend. But Nick was one of those guys who you'd be in the studio for 12, 13 hours, you're exhausted. But Nick, if he was on the microphone on the other side and you were trying to cut a track, he would give you positive feedback every time you tried. He would tell you, everything's great when you go into the course, just before you go into course, take a breath. So the next time I was doing it and I'm ready to go into course, I'd, you know, just actually take a breath because I was just jumping on it a little too soon. But he knew what to say. It's not a matter of counted, because you're talking hairs.

Dave 25:02

Yeah.

Jerry 25:03

You can't count that shit. But he would he would give you a take a breath or lean forward or lean backward, or you know what I mean? These are subtle things that to me make sense as a drummer. Yeah, you're not talking about notes and pitch and all that shit. So he knew how to get the best out of everybody on the floor, no matter what instrument, no matter what they were doing. And after we recorded up there, Rush went up there. And all the time, Nick Blagona was the guy, and uh, he just had a way of getting the best out of everybody.

Dave 25:37

Now let me ask you a question about technology. Technology has advanced so much these days, particularly when it comes to recording.

Jerry 25:45

Yes.

Dave 25:45

And I've spoken with a lot of local musicians who, you know, set up their stuff in the living room and record in their living room, and it sounds really great, and that saves them whatever it costs now to rent a recording studio. But there's a lot of things you can do in a studio now that you could never do when you were doing April Wine or doing any of the other bands you worked with. Is there anything there that is available now that you wish you had back then, technology-wise?

Jerry 26:14

What we used back then was two-inch tape to record. Yeah. And it was running at 30 inches per second. Okay? Every second that much tape would whiz by. So the sound was very pure. There was lots of room on the tape to develop the sound. Whereas, you know, uh some of the digital technologies they compress everything. You still get the part, you still hear all the notes, but there's a difference in the way the sound breathes. I don't know whether it makes sense to say it that way, but there's something about when you listen to something on vinyl and then you listen to the new versions of it, there's a difference. You know, there's a difference. So uh I I like the technology. I mean, for years, drums couldn't punch in. You couldn't punch in. You ran, you played your basic track from count in to last note, and if you made mistakes, then you did it again and you did it again until it was right. Uh, but but there was no punching in anyway. You needed a break in the music of at least one, two, three, four, boom, and then you're going again. You needed a four-bar break with no symbol overlay, you know, nothing over the top, a dead beat, four, uh, a break for four beats. Then you could possibly say, well, let's up to the break is good. Let's punch in at the break and go from there. You know what I mean? Yeah. That gave me a chance to do a song in two sections. Yeah. So once you had the front satisfactor satisfactorily performed, then you could focus on the end, and that was good. You didn't you can stop looking from top to bottom all the time. So that was always good. Now, once the technology got developed, they could punch you in almost any note. And the only problems were what you were playing at the time. If you had, you know, if you'd crashed a symbol and then there'd be a something left over from that symbol going into where they punch you in, that wouldn't work. So you still had to be careful about how it worked, but you could always find the spot. You could cut it on a snare stroke instead of cutting it on a bass drum stroke with a cymbal crash.

Speaker 1 28:31

Yeah.

Jerry 28:32

You know, uh, because you're not dealing with the whole band, you're dealing with the drum track. So there's ways and ways. Uh I I th I appreciate the new technology, but it's gotten to the point where I don't like the music that's coming out. Because it's they all sound the same. The style, everybody's doing the same kind of vocal gymnastics, and the melodies are very limited, most of the time, limited kind of melody, which may repeat while the chord changes behind the melody might move. But very often the same line is a repeated line in the verses, and very often that same repeated line is almost the same melody when it gets to the chorus. Maybe different words, a different message, but you know, that's the way I'm hearing a lot of songs these days. Now, every now and then there's a beautiful piece of music created. I'm not saying it's all shit, but most of what I I see uh when I see groups come on Saturday Night Live, and you know, these are contemporary groups, and most of it's I'm I'm not impressed. I watch the late night uh programs. Usually they always end up with some artist getting up to perform one song or two songs, and there's only a few that I see, and I'd uh I'd like to be I'd like to play that. I wouldn't mind playing drums in that group, you know.

Dave 29:59

Is there a big group that has been out there a while that you would love to have jammed with?

Jerry 30:04

Yeah. Tower of Power. That bass player and that drummer and that uh that baritone sox player uh and the rhythm guitar player, they made things happen in that band that were just unique. And it didn't matter what lead singer they had, uh, that rhythm section just popped. And I always enjoyed what David Garibaldi. David Garibaldi was like a uh a music professor. He never wanted to play exactly the same beat on any two tracks that he recorded. He had always find something different to do that he didn't do over there and that he's not gonna do over there. I I give him that. He was always like, and when you listen to the tracks, they don't sound complicated until you try playing them and you go, holy shit, that's pretty you know, the way that slipped in, that's pretty neat.

Dave 30:56

Do you know Larry Stafford? No, local musician. He does a well, I don't know if you're on Facebook, but he does history of local Kingston bands. He puts up posters, all the posters that they've ever had, because his dad ran a record store years ago. But he's in a band, loves Tower of Power.

Jerry 31:14

Yeah.

Dave 31:15

Just loves them.

Jerry 31:16

Yeah. I uh I I've seen them with different lead singers. Uh I've got a documentary where on this documentary they brought in all of the different members who have come and gone during the time of the group because there were a couple other drummers that sat in and different lead singers. But that bass player, he's and when you listen to him all alone, he almost sounds sloppy.

Speaker 1 31:42

Yeah.

Jerry 31:43

But his 16th note pattern and the way he played it underneath everything. It's like there's a feel to that. It's just so undeniably. He you didn't need to listen to a whole song and say, oh, that's Tower of Power. You could hear a couple of bars and know exactly, you know. They were so clean and their sound sound was distinctive. So I I like groups like that. I mean, I respect the stones. I I did concerts with them. Uh, it was fun. Um uh when we did the concert together at uh the Elma Combo, I was standing on a chair on a table, standing on a table with uh with Maggie Trudeau. Yeah, Mama Trudeau. And uh and and we were the the the club was along sideways, but the stage was that way, and we were standing right opposite the stage, so you were close to the stage. Yeah and we were on a table and we're dancing to the Rolling Stones. But uh, you know, yeah, they were great memories. Uh great memories. Oh, there's there's so many stories there, you know, stories in the studio, stories that have songs, you know, little bits like just between you and me. Miles wrote the tune, wrote it for his first wife. So we got in the studio and we we recorded it, and he'd get on stage and he'd say, Well, there's a new song I just recorded and I wrote this for my wife. So just between you and me, and everybody loved it. Then they get divorced. So then he marries again. So then it was like, I wrote this song for my first wife, and now I dedicate to my second wife, and that's what this was him talking, and it's not me making fun of him. This was Miles, and so then he gets divorced, and he ended up getting married to a third wife, and I'm sure at some point he must have said, I dedicated to my third wife, but I never heard that. I never met his third wife, but I did I did phone Miles in the last year before he died and patched up our differences because I left the group because he broke his word to me. And I just I'd had enough and I said I wasn't gonna spend the last few years I have of music playing in a situation that I couldn't enjoy or feel respected in. I'd been there too long to have to deal with that, so I quit the group and we didn't talk for a long time, long time. But I found myself on a couch with uh sciatica, really bad pain. And Miles' name kept popping up in my head. I'm laying on this couch here, and it kept popping up and popping up. And to my way of thinking, when someone keeps popping into your imagination, that's not for nothing. That means you need to call them. There needs to be something done. There's a reason why they're coming up, right? So I phoned Miles, I hadn't talked to him on the phone in years. Uh I encountered him once or twice at gigs, but even then he was too busy to, you know, he wasn't unfriendly, but he was too busy to chit-chat. So I phoned him up and said, Hi Miles, it's Jerry. I know we haven't talked for a long time, but you've been popping up in my mind for the last two weeks. So that means to me I need to call you. So here I am calling you. What have I got to say? Thank you for writing those songs. You've allowed me to retire in relative comfort. There's nothing that I don't have that I want, which is important. Uh, I'm comfortable with where I am in my life in terms of needs and and wants and all that horseshit. I'm doing fine. Uh and I just called them up to say thank you for writing those songs. And it was going to be a two-minute conversation. Well, it turned into almost a two-hour conversation. And he started, he sent me uh copies of the new songs that he had been writing and some of the recordings he'd been doing with Jim Henman. I was knocked out by their vocal blend. They they they they sounded like the Everly brothers. I'm talking about the blend the blend, you know, just just the pitch of their two voices and the way they they blended together was like, wow. That's much nicer than April wine. It's a much nicer blend than Miles achieved with Brian or anyone else. Jim Hanman. Yeah. Wow. And Jim, all these years since he left the group, has been writing songs and he's built a whole career for himself in the Maritimes. He doesn't come out of the Maritimes, but he's doing quite well in the Maritimes. Yeah. Selling his selling his song, selling his records. He'll put together a record, sell that on the gig. So he's been doing that for years and is quite well established. He goes down south for three months every year, avoid the winter, and been doing that for years, so you can't do that unless you've stacked up some dough. So he's doing quite well for himself, I'm happy to say. He's a nice man, he's a really nice man. Yeah, he's genuine. He left Aprwine because he he's a committed Christian and felt that the lifestyle that April was headed for was not what he wanted to be a part of.

unknown 37:28

Yeah.

Jerry 37:29

And he had the chutzpah to know that, make that decision, and leave something that was on the way to being successful because they had already had could have been a lady, and it was a hit. But that was uh that was Jim. He has those principles, and that's how he lived. And uh I've had conversations with him. He's a delightful person to hang out with. I wish he lived closer. I'd love to spend time with him, but that's the way it goes.

Dave 37:57

Let's let's bring it back up to uh 2025. Okay. So what are you doing now musically?

Jerry 38:04

Well, in here in the building that I moved into, I'm fortunate that there are enough people interested in learning how to play ukulele and guitar and sing that we started at uh a good one of the girls in the building uh put up a notice. Anyone interested in learning ukulele, come by my apartment on Tuesday night. So the first Tuesday night, my wife and I showed up. The next Tuesday night there was like five. After that, there was like eight, nine, fifteen. Got up to 18 people in our little apartment, and then we moved it up to the common room up on the roof.

Speaker 1 38:39

Yeah.

Jerry 38:39

Uh so that we could fit more people. And uh when COVID hit, we were 35 people meeting in that room. Uh, the doors had to be left open so that people could be standing in the doorways just outside and still see and hear and be involved. Two doors to the room. So it was a good crowd. Then COVID hit and everything stopped. So I'm just beginning to play bass with this country and pop music. You know, it's a lot of boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Simple stuff. You're playing one threes and little runs in between. But like I said, I got great musical ears, so I can do that stuff without rehearsal and not have a problem with it. So uh when the music stopped, I didn't want to stop. I was just getting going on the bass, and I was exciting about what I was, you know, the potential. So I called up uh the flute player that I had met uh during my time here, playing with different different musicians. Glenn Tooth is a good jazz, uh jazz fluist. And uh I said, What you doing? He says, Nothing. I haven't played my flute now in a three years. I said, Well, you're rusty and I'm green. We're gonna get together. And I went over to his house and we sat seven or eight feet apart, flute and bass for the first time. I said, Start something. So he starts playing a song out of nowhere. Well, I know the song. You came along from out of nowhere. I know the song, I feel feel what key he's in, and then we're off. And I think I probably played 80 to 90 percent perfectly the first time, because it's not a difficult tune, and we weren't trying to race through it at big tempos or anything like that. So we were taking them down to a like a slow swing, and but to be able to just play from top to bottom on a song that I never played before, but I I know in my in my heart I know it. I've I I know what the changes sound like, but I've never sung it or never played it. Yeah, and yet I could sit down for the first time and and play it comfortably. All those type songs that I that have vocals to them, whether I sang them or not, I listened to the vocalists, so I knew the songs. Yeah. Everything that Sinatra did, and everything that Tony Bennett did, and all these beautiful classic ballads, and everything. They're they're they're beautiful compositions. I love that music. Yeah, I like it for the sound, for the melodies, for the changes and the lyrics. So now, you ask me what am I doing in 2025? I'm collecting songs that I want to sing. I haven't sung really in years, and having singing with the people in the building upstairs has reawokened my desire and my voice. And now I want to learn at least uh half a dozen April wine tunes so that I can do my rendition of them very simply. Just myself and the bass with a hi-hat and a tone block to do backbeats. I I would like to accomplish the goal of playing my songs on the bass and being able to sing and play my own percussion well enough that I feel comfortable with other musicians joining me. I'm not hunting and pecking and trying to figure out how to play the songs, you know. I know them, I've played them often enough by myself, so that's that's the pressure I'm putting on me. I want me to be good enough at these songs so that I can invite my other musician friends to come in and play them with me. Yeah, and they'll know what to do because my parts will be solid. When you're solid, everybody else can join you, and they know what they they, you know what I mean? It makes it easier on everybody. And I'm playing percussion with my feet as well as I have a percussionist. So I'm setting the time with the bass and what I'm doing with my feet. So he's accompanying, you know? And uh that's it gives the group a totally different sound with no kit drum kit. There's no bass, drum, and snare drum and ride cymbals, and that's what you're used to hearing. So I called him I called the band Clear Breeze, and I I describe the music as friendly jazz. It's mostly standards that people know are familiar with, uh songs that have been sung for years by great singers. And um yeah, it's just that it's friendly jazz, it's uh do the tune, play the melody, improvise a few choruses, and boom, and then another song, you know, there's no 20-minute solos, not John Coltrane type type stuff. So that's what I'm doing now, and I am enjoying the process, and I'm so grateful and thankful every day that in spite of the fact that physically, I mean, at 86 everything isn't working perfectly, you know, there are various problems, but I can I can still move my bass and my little amplifier and my foot crap around and set it up. I can't deal with drums anymore. I mean, I got no place to store them, first of all. But even if I did, carrying, making five six trips out. To carry my drums and put them all in the car and then drive to the gig and unload them into the gig, set them up, play all night. That's the easy part. That's the fun part. And then start tearing them down when you're tired. And then gotta get them back in your car. Then you gotta get them home and get them out of your car and take them somewhere. That is too much physical work for an 86-year-old. I'm sorry. So that's the reason why I'm not playing drums anymore. Not because I don't like them and not because I don't feel them, because I sit here in my chair and I hear drum parts. Funky drum parts. I'm always twitching in my chair. My hands are going, and my feet are going. My wife thinks I'm cracked up, but she can't hear what's going on between my ears. So I look spastic, but there's there's groove in the spastic moves. There's a groove. Anyway, that's the way it is now. I I find that uh I love to play bass. I'm enjoying using that part of my musical ear, which I hadn't really employed as a drummer the same way, because you don't have to worry about chord changes and all that stuff. Um uh so I'm enjoying the new focus.

Dave 45:18

That's Jerry Mercer, 30 years keeping the beat for April Wine, one of Canada's great rock bands. Before we go, a couple of quick follow-ups. Jerry mentioned a documentary about Ellen McIlwain. It's actually called Goddess of Slide, and you can find it on the CBC Gem streaming service. It's a wonderful tribute. And if you want to hear Jerry at his best, cue up Roller from April Wine's 1978 album, First Glance. It's a classic. This episode was recorded in early October 2025. I'm Dave Cunningham. Thanks for joining me, and I'll be back soon with another conversation.

Steve 45:59

The theme music for the podcast is Stace's Oasis, written and performed by Kingston musician Tim Aylesworth. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about any of the episodes, please send a note to the Kingstonian Podcast at gmail.com. For details on upcoming guests, follow us on Facebook. The Kingstonian Podcast is hosted by Dave Cunningham and produced in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.