MISSISSAUGA MUSIC WALK OF FAME

He’d grown up immersing himself in the Bon Jovi albums Slippery When Wet and New Jersey and was blown away by the songs and the band.

He was a budding guitarist who might have found a little fuel for his big musical ambitions that night in a couple of lines of one favourite song that the band played, a song that was the calling card of his own youth: “We’ll Make it I Swear – Livin’ on a Prayer.”

You might say his prayers began to be answered on April 14, 2011, when he got a call from an unknown New York number. “Hi Phil. This is Jon Bon Jovi. Give me a call.”

That’s what began the slow integration process that five years later saw the man they call Phil X officially succeed Richie Sambora in a band he’d idolized for many years.

Not bad for a kid who launched his career singing Elvis.

Phil grew up in a Mississauga household filled with music, mostly Greek music. After being given his first guitar (a copy of a Vox hollow-body teardrop model) which he could barely hold at age 5, he watched and learned as his musician father Peter played bouzouki and sang.

It was Phil’s father who, during his band’s intermission at a “big fat Greek wedding” convinced his son to play and sing Blue Suede Shoes and Teddy Bear.

The audience was enthralled with the 8-year-old — and he was enthralled with their enthusiastic response.

At 17, he was bartending at his Dad’s pub. The Magnet in Westdale Mall. When Dad went on vacation, Phil booked his own band to play the small corner stage.

For six years Phil played in a band named Sidinex, which was his surname spelled backward. They played covers of metal bands and made an EP in 1985 that placed in the top 25 in Q107’s Homegrown contest.

After a sound man for Frozen Ghost heard him play he alerted producer Arnold Lanni who checked him out at The Gasworks, then rushed him into the studio to record with Frozen Ghost. After working with Aldo Nova he succeeded Rik Emmett in Mississauga’s ultimate metal band Triumph.

Starting anew after moving to L.A. in 1997, Phil was painting producer Scott Humphrey’s garage when Tommy Lee needed a guitar player for Methods of Mayhem.

The paint strokes were swapped for guitar strokes on a Les Paul. Phil’s work must have been impressive because it quickly led to additional sessions for Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper, with whom he recorded Brutal Planet.

A Chris Daughtry recording in 2005 cemented his growing reputation. Phil X has since marked the spot as “supreme session guitarist for hire” on records by Chris Cornell, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, and Thousand Foot Crutch, to name just a few.

And he still finds time for his own band, Phil X and The Drills.

What marks Phil’s work is total commitment — whether squeezing the last ounce of energy and sound from his instrument, straining for that last squeal out of his voice or searching for the exact pace and tone that best suits the material.

Phil’s a generous teacher – as a series of legendary YouTube videos attest.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, he should be flattered at the seemingly endless supply of copycat efforts.

He’s also generous with his time, whether on GTA school visits or guesting at clinics or on podcasts.

When a 25-year-old Mississauga woman and hobby musician died suddenly of congenital heart failure a beloved guitar she had designed was donated to a local guitar shop. Phil heard of it and played it in concert at a Bon Jovi show at Air Canada Centre to honour her memory and her creative flair.

That brought immeasurable comfort to her grieving family.

Phil X and his irrepressible style epitomize the infectious energy that’s at the heart of the music he plays.

He says he still gets goosebumps when he kicks in with the talk box on “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Which may explain why so many of the rest of us also have that same reaction. He’s never lost the joy of performing that thrilled all those people at that long-ago wedding.

And he’s able to convey that same sense of joy to his audience every time he picks up a guitar or sings.

An exemplary career that’s taken him from a childhood covering Elvis to electrifying Bon Jovi means Phil X marks the place on Mississauga’s Music Walk of Fame.

What Brian Smith remembers most about the fledgling Malton rock ’n roller he met while they played lacrosse together as teens in the mid-1960s was that “he had a hell of a scream on him.”

Smith, a guitarist, lived in Westwood Village. Jim Tovey, a singer, lived in Victory Village. Smith had a band called The Soul System.

Tovey had a band called The Grass Impact.

The bands would get together to jam. Eventually they would join forces.

“The reason we got Jimmy in the band – which was renamed The System –  was because we heard him scream one night,” says Smith.

Tovey was doing his best James Brown and really struck a nerve with his future bandmates. “We knew that anyone who could scream that good would give us a great added attraction,” Smith laughs.

Tovey’s next door neighbour, Bert Mellen, played bass, Al Cairns was on drums, Smith was on guitar and Mike Whitham, the only one who from Brampton, was on keys.

Anyone who knew the enthusiastically independent Jim Tovey will enjoy the thought of him fronting  “The System.”

The band played Malton’s two community halls, local high schools and shows at Bramalea Civic Centre where they were often double-billed with another young group named Rush.

Rush bassist Geddy Lee often sat in the front row while The System played, keeping a sharp eye on the work of Bert Mellen to see what he could pick up.

The System’s repertoire of Rhinoceros and Steppenwolf covers, mixed with originals by Smith and Tovey, earned them a spot on the CBC-TV summer show Drop-In, where they played three originals.

Tovey auditioned to host another CBC show but lost out to some guy from Hamilton named Martin Short.

Jim at first appeared headed for a career as a visual artist – his primary arts passion in high school – before the magic of the music carried him away.

He quit high school to play full-time, a decision that didn’t sit well with his parents.

A farmhouse in the country on Airport Rd. where Jim and Bert lived was where the band rehearsed, partied, wrote, rehearsed, partied and rehearsed, not necessarily in that order. Smith stayed there on weekends because his parents wouldn’t let him live there full-time.

“We played every weekend, then went back to our families,” says Smith. “That was the start of it all.”

Jim was a natural showman, who could contort his body in strange ways. He had a confident stage manner, loved to lean out into the audience, swing the mic out and pull it back in and use his very loud voice to full advantage.

Smith, who did imitations of other band’s singers to warm up audiences, couldn’t imitate his own band’s lead singer because he was always changing his approach.

“He was born to be a frontman,” says Smith, who runs his own music promotion business in London, Ont. “He could quickly get people in the palm of his hand.

In a premonition of his future career as a carpenter, Jim cut up chunks of wood before one show, had The System’s name stamped on them and got the audience to play percussion, getting  everyone involved — a collaborative style he favoured in all his careers.

He’d studied voice at the Ontario Conservatory of Music and made his singing debut around age 10 in the Christmas Eve concert at Our Lady of The Airways Church.

He would prove to be a much better singer than altar boy.

After The System broke up, Jim was in several groups, including the regularly rotating membership of Bond.

His late brother-in-law Dave Cooper recalled on his blog that “Jim had this idea for a show band called the Alpha String Band. We played Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, that type of classical-inspired rock. We had these coloured suits,  pink, blue and white, a different colour for each set.”

The group formed after Tovey met John Oglivey in the subway, lugging a huge case in which he carried his cello.

One can just imagine the conversation:

Jim: “What’s in the case?”

John: “A cello”

Jim: “Cool. Want to be in a band where you get to wear different-coloured suits?”

In his blog, Dave Cooper explains that Jim later lured drummer Paul Nixon  – best known for his drumming on  Downchild’s original “Flip, Flop & Fly” — to join him, Brian Smith, and “Shady” George Bland in Rockit-88. Most of the band lived together in a house in Westwood Village.

It was a bluesier band that morphed into a group called Live Jive and then transformed into Hott Roxx, the band which survived the longest and for which Jim is probably best remembered. It featured guitarists Dave Harrison and Papa John King and toured extensively showcasing the music of The Rolling Stones.

That ended abruptly when an explosion and fire at a Thunder Bay bar destroyed their uninsured equipment.

Their many friends in the business held a benefit concert — but Hott Roxx never recovered.

Jim, with his wife Lee’s assistance, crafted a second career as a carpenter. They moved to Mississauga in 1989 and he started another career as Ward 1derful councillor in 2010.

Music remained a powerful force in his life.

In 1994, Jim got up on stage with a band at the Grosvenor Exchange bar.

From the moment he nailed a Jaggeresque straight overhead kick to start off Chuck Berry’s “Oh Carol,” Andrew Dixon knew he’d found a fellow-traveller. It took about a month of convincing but Tovey joined the band known as The Primitives. It included Dixon on lead guitar, David Smith on rhythm guitar and backing vocals Bob Heinrich on bass and Dan Hill, later replaced by Stuart Hull, on drums.

They’ve played together since, across the GTA but especially up-and-down Brown’s Line.

His political career slowed the band down a bit, but Tovey continued to co-write songs and the band performed periodically, including backing him at the Waterfront Festival for the song he wrote to celebrate Hazel McCallion’s 40th year in office.

The chorus he wrote perfectly captured the intersection of a disaster and a political coronation:

“When the train it went flying

and the tankers were torn

That was the moment

the legend was born”

In the last few years whenever he felt people were giving him too much credit for one of the numerous projects he’d gotten rolling, Jim was fond of saying that nobody accomplishes anything alone.

It’s true that it often takes a community of people convinced to believe in a good cause before it can be achieved.

But there’s usually a main instigator – somebody who hears “no” and translates that into “there’s still a chance.”

The truth is that Mississauga Music Walk of Fame would not exist except for Jim Tovey’s love of music and his insistence that local players – be they musicians or singers or promoters or composers, be celebrated in – and by – the community that fostered them.

When Jim and Lee visited a music walk of fame in Philadelphia, which was then recreating itself as a city of the arts, Jim saw many names he didn’t recognize. He realized that enshrining names in stone in a local park would educate the public and celebrate many worthy Mississaugans – famous and not so famous – at the same time.

He suggested a “pilot project” that – like so many of his temporary ideas – has turned into something pretty permanent. He recruited a committee and cajoled staff and council on board – using the charm that made his mother say that, even as a child, he could sell anything to anybody.

The rest, as they say,  is history — our collective musical history celebrated.

He even helped install the stones the first couple of years.

Jim Tovey was a dynamite package of passion, plans and persistence.

Take, for instance, his idea to have some kind of physical recognition in Port Credit’s streetscape of the village’s rich music and festival culture.

He had the bright notion of having the pedestrian crossing at a major intersection marked in the shape of piano keys.

In the city that Tovey’s piano hero Oscar Peterson called home for the last 35 years of his life, it seemed most appropriate.

But the official answer was no.

So Tovey went home and figured out  – to scale – how it could be done, then went to the works yard to chat with the template maker.

The next week he got a call to visit the works yard to see the test strip of piano keys that had been painted on the parking lot.

When they were installed at Hurontario St. and Lakeshore Rd., a  photo of the “piano keys” intersection taken from on high from a nearby condo went viral on the Internet.

That was the Jim Tovey that people in the musical and political communities shared –  a man bursting with ideas from his hyperactive imagination with an infectious way of expressing them — so everybody sang along when it was time for the chorus.

The piano keys were just a quirky little dab on our landscape but they spoke volumes about the talent of the City of Mississauga’s musical frontman – James Michael Tovey.

We welcome him into the place that clearly wouldn’t exist without him: Mississauga’s Music Walk of Fame.

A press release for Liberty Silver’s 2010 album Groove Symphony, explains that “Liberty’s inspirations for the album revolve around the life lessons and the ups-and-downs we face in life.”

If we assume that ups-and-downs are kindling for the spirit, Liberty Silver has experienced more than her share of inspiration by adversity — which has only seemed to make her innately strong voice even stronger.

A black girl adopted as a baby into a British family in Peterborough, Liberty grew up a child out of sorts with most everything but the music that was her lifeline to joy.

She was bullied incessantly by fellow students and disrespected by teachers. When she won high school track meets, she wasn’t allowed to go to provincial championships.

When she was kicked out of Sunday school for suggesting Jesus looked like a black man, Liberty gave her own solo concerts in the church basement.

History suggests that if the congregation wanted to hear someone communing with God in a truly unique voice, they should have headed downstairs.

She bolted from her home as a pre-teen after learning she was adopted.

In one of the many remarkable turns of events that mark her life, she found herself opening for Bob Marley at Madison Square Garden’s shortly after that – as a 13-year-old.

“Music is my life,” Liberty has said. “It saved me from what I went through at a young age. There’s a purpose. Music is what was given to me.”

For someone who couldn’t win an audition to be a chorus singer in high school, she’s done pretty well for herself.

The scorecard includes a Grammy, three Junos, five Black Music Awards, a couple of Olympic theme songs and a whole lot of confusion about what type of singer she is.

If Duke Ellington was known for being “beyond category,” then Liberty Silver should be known for being beyond categories.

The industry’s always been a bit baffled about exactly where to slot her.

Her first album was jazz. She’s been Jazz Report Magazine’s Female Singer of the Year. She’s won Junos for reggae & calypso and r & b & soul. She’s headlined the Smooth Jazz Awards at LAC with George Benson. She’s had a #1 Canadian country hit.

If they can’t class her, they at least know she has class. She’s shared stages with Harry Belafonte, Aretha Franklin. B.B. King, the SOS Band, Manhattan Transfer, Maya Angelou, Natalie Cole, Mary Wells and Stevie Wonder. And with Bobby Dean Blackburn, who was inaugurated into the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame last year.

When David Foster caught her at The Blue Note one night, he recruited her to sing on the Ethiopian relief charity single Tears Are Not Enough with Canada’s musical elite. She may have been surprised to find herself in such company, but she shouldn’t have been.

Through a prodigious number of recordings, concerts, festivals and television shows, Liberty has proven she fits wherever she chooses to sing and whatever type of material she chooses to master.

With her own Mississauga home studio, where Groove Symphony was produced, Liberty controls her own career and keeps her musical integrity intact

Her Brampton-based charitable foundation allows her to teach the business of music and pass on the lessons about navigating life’s ups-and-downs to at-risk youth.

Her advice to readers of the liner notes of Groove Symphony sums up both her credo and her contribution: “Life is a gift, shine in everything you do and light the way for others.”

That’s what she’s done.

Fito Blanko was about to go on stage with Elvis Crespo to sing before 20,000 people at American Airlines Arena in Miami and 5 million more watching the Spanish People’s Choice Awards on television.

Pacing back and forth, he spotted superstar guitarist Alejandro Sanz, who’d won many Grammies, warming up.

“Señor Sanz, you have no idea who I am. I’m a little nervous – any advice you can give me?

“You’re performing right?” replied Sanz. “You’re here for a reason. You’re a professional – now go out and do what you love to do.”

Fito says it was the most inspiring thing anyone’s ever said to him.

“This guy who recorded with Beyoncé and is one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time just called me a pro. Why am I questioning myself? Whether you’re performing for 10 people or 10,000, the energy remains the same.”

It’s the energy to perform that has always driven Fito, who remembers performing in Panama before his family moved to Canada when he was five.

Music is in his DNA. His heroes remain the many Panamanian legends whose names are not well known outside their own country.

In high school at John Cabot, Fito used the record collection he’d carefully curated to create a DJ experience no one else could offer.

“All the signs for music to be part of me happened early in my life,” he says.

Like freestyling at the Square One transit terminal with friends and having Brampton musician LaSol cruise by and hear him.

Or being at the 21 Tavern in Panama City and spotting Grammy-award winning singer Emilio Estevan and getting his phone number after an impromptu audition.

Or travelling to Miami with close collaborator Sensei Musica during Grammy week and connecting with Estevan and record company executives there, even though he was too young to legally attend the parties he talked himself into.

“I believe everything happens for a reason,” Fito says. “God puts you in certain situations that leads your path and will open doors for you.”

His “under the radar” Mississauga springboard opened doors for Fito that have led to singles on numerous Latin charts, collaborations with Drake, Crespo, Cardinal Offishall and Pitbull , an appointment as youth ambassador for the 2015  Pan American Games and a song in the Furious 7 film and soundtrack.

His music is played in clubs around the world. Fito now co-owns and leads his own music company.

It’s a cliché but it’s true – music is the international language of communication.

There were few role models in Canada for Fito growing up but he is showing others how a Latin kid who grew up in the GTA can have an international impact in a genre many Canadians don’t know well enough.

“It’s like a dream come true but I had to figure a lot of it out on my own,” he says.

It all started with the will to get up and do what he loves to do.

“I make music for people to enjoy themselves. I want to provoke some sort of motion and vibration through sound.”

His good vibrations have earned Fito Blanko a home on Mississauga’s Music Walk of Fame.

Ronnie Hawkins has a way of landing in the middle of everything. From being born two days after Elvis Presley, to recording at the legendary Sun Records studio in Memphis in the 1950s, to anchoring the wave of rock and roll that swamped the Yonge St. strip in the 60s, to hosting John Lennon and Yoko Ono at his Mississauga Rd. farm as they launched their Peace Campaign in 1969, to playing Bob Dylan in Bob Dylan’s own movie, to acting in Heaven’s Gate — one of the biggest box office flops of all time — to dancing the Last Waltz with the boys in The Band — the Hawk has seen and done it all And quipped about it every step of the way.

He was born in Huntsville, Arkansas in 1935 — and reportedly did his first Camel Walk at the age of two.

He studied phys. ed at the University of Arkansas but really majored in rockabilly on the chitlin’ circuit. When his friend Gordon Jenkins, — stage name Conway Twitty — told him about how they loved southern-fried music in Canada, Ronnie was on his way north.

Turned out he was sentenced to be up here for 40 Years — and counting. He met and married Wanda and found a home on Yonge St. He mentored several generations of musicians in the best rock and roll finishing school of all time — Mr. Dynamo’s Nightly Bar-by-Bar World Tour.

Bob Dylan called Ronnie his “hero “ and said he was “the guru of rock and roll.”

He’s on Canada’s Walk of Fame and in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and has won a Juno but his real claim to fame is that he’s never stopped believing in the hard core music he loves.

Through innumerable ups and downs, career breakthroughs and fallbacks, from disco to rap and back, Ronnie Hawkins has never wavered. He has remained true to the music he loves — old-school kickass rock ‘n roll.

So, Who Do You Love? How about the guy from down south who taught the Northland how to rock?