February 2026

Canada knows how to celebrate their favourite artists. Oscar Peterson is one of them. He grew up in Montreal and was considered by many to be a world class pianist. A friend happened to have a one dollar coin, a loonie, that he thought I would appreciate. We grew up down the street from each other and he said that my mother would give him little tokens of appreciation when he came over years after I had moved away to help her out with renovations and such. So he was kind of continuing the tradition by giving me the coin. There's Oscar on piano minted on to the limited edition 2022 Canadian dollar coin. Here's a picture of it.

When I was at John Abbott College in the Montreal West Island in the mid-seventies, there was a course on 'playing the blues' with a local musician, Trevor Payne. He was also involved with a choir downtown along with Daisy Peterson, one of Oscar's sisters. My piano teacher in the early seventies was Paul de Marky who had retired from the stage decades earlier and who's claim to fame was having had Oscar as a pupil. Small world.

Here's a song that was part of the reportoire 25 years ago when I was playing in a blues band around Toronto. 'My Momma Told Me'.