[MUSIC] "Parachute Club's Billy Bryans dies at 63"

[rfmcdonald]

This morning, the CBC shared the sad news that Billy Bryans, one of the principles in Canadian pop band Parachute Club, died at 63.

Parachute Club is probably most famous for its 1983 hit song "Rise Up", a song so thematically and actually associated with any number of activisms that it was sung sung at NDP leader Jack Layton's funeral last year by Lorraine Segato, the band's lead singer.

The CBC's obituary highlights other areas of Bryans' career, including his involvement in the world music scene. (I'd not known of this part of his career.)

Billy Bryans Tribute Billy Bryans, the Toronto-based musician and producer who was drummer and co-founder of the 1980s pop group The Parachute Club, has died at the age of 63.

Bryans, who had been suffering from lung cancer, died Monday morning at a hospice, surrounded by family and friends, a spokesperson told CBC News.

Canadian singer-songwriter Alex Cuba and other friends, fans and fellow artists paid tribute to Bryans at a music-filled fundraiser in Toronto last week.

"Rest in peace, gentleman of music. Many thanks for your love and support always," Cuba said in an online statement Monday.

Bryans formed The Parachute Club around 1979 with Lorraine Segato, who was lead singer. The group was known for its exuberant first hit Rise Up and had subsequent hits such as At the Feet of the Moon and Love is Fire.

[. . .]

It won four Juno Awards, including group of the year in 1984 and toured in Canada, the U.S. and West Germany before breaking up in 1989.

Bryans was also a producer and engineer for Downchild Blues Band, Raffi and Dutch Mason and turned more recently to jazz, working with Cuban musicians to get their sound out to the world.

[. . .]

He became involved in world music in the 1980s, producing albums such as Mama Mosambiki and Mother Africa. He also formed lasting connections with Cuban musicians, both those in Cuba and those relocated to Canada.