George Stroumboulopoulos is a television and radio broadcaster, actor, media producer, and humanitarian. His Apple Music radio show, STROMBO, is heard in over 165 countries worldwide. He is an award-winning broadcaster who hosted and executive produced the talk shows “George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight” and “The Hour” on Canada’s national broadcaster, the CBC. His past work includes the show, “Stroumboulopoulos” on CNN and as the anchor on “Hockey Night in Canada”. George was also the host of Canada’s premier culture show, “The New Music”.

Noel Cadastre is Drake’s exclusive engineer, and is a part of the OVO Team, working alongside Noah 40 Shebib. A graduate of Mississauga’s Metalworks Audio Production and Engineering Program in 2006, Noel has earned engineering credits on Drake’s albums beginning with Thank Me Later (2010), to the most recent Scary Hours 2 (2021). Noel has contributed to multiple Canadian, European and World Tours including Drake’s Club Paradise Tour (2012), Drake’s Would You Like a Tour (2013-2014), and Drake VS Lil Wayne 31 City Summer Tour (2014) among others. As a member of the OVO Team, Noel has also worked with a wide range of talented artists including 2 Chainz, Nicki Minaj, Big Sean, Action Bronson, PartyNextDoor, Lil Wayne, and DJ Khaled to name just a few.

Written by Chuck Jackson

I would just like to say what an honor it is to be here to induct one of our country’s greatest performers, and my friend, Jeff Healey… a guitar genius, a voice most singers would kill for, a trumpet player who played traditional jazz with notes from the past, an actor, a DJ, a family man and a humanitarian!

I’ve known Jeff for over 25 years and we’ve played and jammed together at most of the blues bars in the GTA including many times at his club “Healey’s.” We were lucky enough to have Jeff here at the Southside Shuffle as a guest performer with Downchild as well as both of his bands ‘The Jazz Wizards’ and ‘The Jeff Healey Blues Band’.

I remember the first time I hired Jeff to be a guest at my house gig at ‘Heads or Tails’ in Etobicoke. We agreed on a price far lower than he was worth, but he said he would as long as he didn’t have to sing “Angel Eyes.” That’s why I loved Jeff so much, he never allowed his fame to keep him from playing the blues and jazz that was his passion… anytime, anywhere!
Jeff was one of the world’s great blues guitarist, which he played on his lap and in the heat of the night would stand up and bring the audience to thunderous applause. He performed with many legendary musicians including The Allman Brothers, Bonnie Rait, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy, BB King, ZZ Top, Eric Clapton… and of course Chuck Jackson… Sorry folks I just had to throw that one in there!

He was a jazz aficionado, with one the largest 78 Jazz collections in the world. Jeff also hosted his own radio show, ‘My Kind of Jazz’ on CBC as well as Jazz FM.91.

Jeff had a wonderful sense of humor and he and I would joke a lot on stage. I remember one night at his club, Healey’s I told him I was sorry I drank a little too much the last time I was there but thanks a lot for the ride home… the only problem was you dropped me off at the wrong house! He replied, without skipping a beat “Well, you were the one giving me the directions!”

Jeff was also a great humanitarian. He was an advocate for literacy and participated at CNIB charity events. Jeff also raised money for childhood cancer research…more specifically “Daisy’s Eye Cancer Fund”, now known as “We C Hope” or the “World Eye Cancer Fund”… this one has always been close to the family as Jeff’s son Derek was born with ‘retinoblastoma’… the same cancer that took Jeff’s eyesight. Their research and treatment is the reason Derek is healthy, has his full eyesight and is cancer free today!

At this time, I would like welcome Jeff’s family here today, his Dad, Bud, his step-mom Rose, his sister Laura, his wife Cristie and son Derek. Unfortunately, his daughter Rachel, could not be here today.

It is with great honour, that on this day, September, 10th 2016, that I welcome Jeff Healey to the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame!

Please stand to welcome Cristie and Bud as they come on stage to accept this award on Jeff’s behalf!

Written by John Stewart

Legacy stories run in rich veins through Bobby Dean Blackburn’s life. His great grandfather Elias Earls traveled the Underground Railroad from Kentucky to its terminus in Owen Sound where he married a local girl. Bobby Dean has recently served as artistic director for the town’s Emancipation Festival, established in 1862. His ancestors likely attended the same picnic celebration in their own time and sang some of the same songs.

Like the pioneers in his family, Bobby Dean’s musical sojourn has traveled a long road that’s taken him across the GTA, Ontario and Canada. It started at York Memorial High School where his band The Gems won a talent contest and played the first ever school dance. His reward was a threat of expulsion from the principal for “deteriorating the morals” of students by playing rock and roll.

He quit school at 16. He’s essentially been on the road ever since.
Bobby Dean and the Gems fought the Battle of the Bands with Toronto’s other top groups The Consuls and the Wildwoods. He recorded a version of You Are My Sunshine at age 13 at Fred Roden’s Record Corral on Yonge St. There was an offer from Nashville, which his father flatly turned down.
The Gems headlined dances before Bobby Dean truly made his name at the Zanzibar a Go Go, playing 4 hours every afternoon.

There were no after-hours clubs back then, so the Zanzibar became the home-away-from-home for every name jazz, blues and R&B player passing through town.

Music critic Jack Batten described it in 1973 as “the only room in Toronto, maybe in the whole world, where jazz musicians can wander in at any hour of the afternoon and jam away the daylight hours to an appreciative audience of their peers and their fans.” Bobby Dean was the ringmaster.

A short list of those who jammed at his Zanzibar Finishing School includes Paul Butterfield, Rick James, Buddy Miles, Jimmy McGriff, Taj Mahal, Richard “Groove” Holmes, David-Clayton Thomas, Roland Prince, Dougie Richardson, Don (D.T.) Thompson, Eugene Smith and Steve Kennedy. The Blackburn homes in Brampton and Malton, where the family lived for the better part of 40 years, were filled with musicians coming to pay their respects and play.

Blackburn took a three-year hiatus when his doctor diagnosed “smoker’s cough.” He resumed playing after B.B. King told him “you should never quit
playing because you never know when you might make it.” He moved to the
Bruce Peninsula about a decade ago and has revived his career – and not coincidentally the local bar scene – up there.

Blackburn’s CV includes a gospel TV show that tapped his childhood roots singing lead in Baptist church choirs, 3 years playing solo in Yellowknife and a gig on an Alaskan cruise ship.

He was the first black coach in the Mississauga Hockey League. He went back to Westwood Secondary School at 57 to complete his high school diploma and was chosen as valedictorian by hi fellow adult students.
His four sons have grown up imbued with their father’s music and his passion for it. Their Maple Blues-winning Juno-nominated “band of brothers” proudly carries the Blackburn name.

Bobby Dean counts a recent appearance with Blackburn at Summer Folk as one of his career highlights. Many of the group’s songs carry lyrical references to the family history.

In one, son Duane sings “My father played the blues/ always the real deal/ down on Yonge St.” Bobby Dean Blackburn is the real deal to a lot more people than just his sons. Music has been his life for six decades. It still is. Every gig in every bar in every town across Canada has taken him another step towards his arrival today on the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame.

Written by close friend Sander Shalinsky

It is my honour today to induct Clifford Gordon Hunt onto the Mississauga Walk of Fame. It was 23 years ago when I met Cliff, who looked pretty much the same as he does now only with more dark hairs than white ones.

By that time he had already established himself as a pre-eminent Canadian music mogul‎. Right out of high school, Cliff played in a band called The Brass Union. to be honest The Brass Union was before my time, and when I asked Cliff what their claim to fame was, he gave me one of those stares that says, maybe you shouldn’t bring up The Brass Union.

He then did what many players did when they figured out touring is grueling and went over to the business side. His first gig was sitting alongside future Rush managers Vic Wilson and Pegi Cecconi booking bands at Concept 376 which at the time was Canada’s biggest booking agency booking bands like The Guess Who, April Wine, The Stampeders, etc.

Later he worked alongside his dad as the Associate Producer of the CNE Grandstand where he worked with artists like The Beach Boys, Chicago, The Jackson 5 and Frank Sinatra. If I stopped right now, Cliff probably would have done enough to have his name added to the Walk. But Cliff had another 40 years of deals to do.

Later he managed, worked with, and did record deals some exciting acts through the years including Triumph, The Diodes, Zon, Refugee, Lydia Taylor‎ and many others. I met Cliff in 1993 and together we managed a band signed to Warner Music called the Killjoys who went on to win the Juno for best new group.

Cliff saved his master stroke for last. In 1999, Cliff started a company called Musicrypt. The digital age was upon us and record companies were looking for a more rational solution for delivering music to radio stations.

Until Cliff came along, record labels would deliver a physical record to a courier or radio promoter and have them hand deliver a copy to the radio station music director. While incredibly personal, it was also bereft with problems. You can just imagine ego driven arguments between radio stations over who would get the new U2 song first. And what if the courier lost or worse copied the song before it was widely available?

In one grand swoop, Cliff changed all that. With Musicrypt, Cliff would deliver music instantly to all, fully, securely so that no stealing could take place, and better still open a direct channel of communication between radio station and the labels.

Cliff’s solution was widely embraced. It was not too long before Cliff’s solution was used by over 95% of the Canadian music business and widely used throughout the U.S.

Today, the company, now called YANGAROO is the world leader in music and video delivery being used North America wide as well as Europe and Latin America.

If that wasn’t enough, Cliff’s team tweaked the software to become the voting tool for The‎ Junos, the GRAMMYS, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Academy of Country Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards to name the most notables.

Cliff’s contribution to the international music community is significant. Long after he is gone – and based on his mother who is here with us I suspect that will not be for a long while, Cliff’s fingerprints will continue to be all over it. It is seldom recognized but should be a source of pride for all Mississaugans and Canadians alike.

I would like to talk for a moment about Cliff the man.

Cliff has lived his whole adult life in Mississauga, right now living just down the road in Port Credit. His two children, Adam and Shauna, both married, live nearby in Mississauga as well.

Cliff has always been proud of his Mississauga background and couldn’t be happier that his kids and his children’s children still reside in the same place. If you stop and ask anyone about Cliff, I’m sure they’d all say the same thing. He is affable, genial and never ever has anything negative to say about anyone. He is a gentleman’s gentleman. His picture is in the dictionary beside the phrase Class Act.

If the Mississauga Walk of Fame was just about accomplishments in industry, Cliff would be a shoe in. If the Mississauga Walk of Fame was only about devotion to family and community, Cliff would be a shoe in. And if the Mississauga Walk of Fame was solely about the measure of a man’s inner qualities, Cliff would be a shoe in.

With Cliff, you get a three for one. A pioneer of the entertainment business, a devoted family man and community oriented person and a class act all the way.

So it is my great honour to present to you, the newest member of the Mississauga Walk of Fame, Mr. Clifford Gordon Hunt.

After watching a student talent showcase at Mount Carmel Secondary School in the spring of 1993 featuring three school bands, English teacher David Rogers had an idea.

What if the three standout guys who were in the band called To Each His Own hooked up with the standout guitarist in the band Dragonflower? He planted the idea with them and, sure enough, over the summer Ben Kowalewicz (Ko-wall-a-witz) Aaron Solowoniuk (Sol-won-ee-yuk) and Jon Gallant got together with Ian D’Sa to see what would happen.

What happened was an instantaneous musical bond. The energy and mutual admiration were immediate. One of the first songs they played was a Neil Young’ cover. It was supposed to be practice, but Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World turned out to be prophecy.

Even though it was a mixed marriage — two of them were from Meadowvale and two were from Streetsville — the guys made it work. There was no punk-pop scene in Mississauga at the time, so they all but created one themselves, turning Friday nights at the Masonic Lodge in Streetsville into a pilgrimage for every angst-ridden teen in town with a sense of musical adventure. And they gained a reputation — which they’ve never lost — for delivering the real goods onstage.

Whether it was upstaging the headliners at Jingle Bell Rock 4 at Mt. Carmel or playing for a few friends and family at a billiards joint in Lakeview, the guys in Pezz — which became Billy Talent to the rest of the world — were totally committed to the energetic execution of their musical vision on stage.

They wanted desperately to get better and better — and they did. That they played with the same energy and commitment and edge in front of 100 kids in the basement of the Masonic Lodge in the late 1990s as they did in front of 100,000 people at the Rock Am Ring concert in Germany last year, is a mark of their high personal standards of excellence.

Their songs have evolved rhythmically, lyrically, melodically and harmonically over the years, but the nuclear musical fission at their core remains intact.

After a decade of hard-slogging, they became “overnight” successes. While they can now measure their success in terms of millions in sales, and international tours, and media coverage, and awards (seven Junos and nine MuchMusic video awards and counting), they prefer to measure it in terms of their own musical evolution. Which is ongoing.

In introducing their Mississauga forerunners, Triumph at an induction ceremony last year, Ian said “as artists they showed the world time and time again how to give bigger-than-life performances. And they showed the value of really connecting with their fans.”

He might just as well have been speaking of Billy Talent. Despite their huge successes, the band members are very much still the same Toronto Maple Leaf-loving, neighbourhood pub types that they were when they started out. They’re a “friends and family” band for the punk set. From their first gig in Ian’s parents’ basement in Meadowvale to their appearance yesterday before thousands at Riot Fest in Downsview Park, Billy Talent has rocked the talk.

And — now that they’ll have their very own stone — they’ll be able to rock the walk on the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame.

Congratulations Aaron, Ben, Jon and Ian!

Trust and the music business are too often mutually exclusive things. Many bitter artists would say that the concept of “ trust in the music business” is an oxymoron — like truth in advertising. Yet a man we honour here today built a long and fruitful career based on that enduring concept.

Charlie Camilleri was a pivotal figure in the Canadian music business during his exemplary 30-year career at CBS Records. Rejecting a chance to manage American pop star Gene Pitney in the 1960s, Camilleri stayed home with his young family in Mississauga and, instead, paved the way for several generations of performers to make their marks in this country.

From Mississauga Music Walk of Fame inaugural inductee Ronnie Hawkins, to Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, rock group Chicago, Tom Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Springsteen and Wynton Marsalis — on to Celine Dion who he helped introduce to an English Canadian audience through one of the many Variety Club telethons he helped organize — Charlie Camilleri was a key go-to guy if you wanted a musical career in this country.

He knew everyone in the business and he respected and worked with them to foster their careers. Larry LeBlanc, the veteran music writer who won an honourary Juno last year, says Camilleri was a musical “Everyman” in the 60s and 70s when the industry was relatively small. He did print and radio promotion for artists, visited retailers, picked up the acts at the airport and got them safely to the hotel.

He was also the artist’s surrogate family when they were in town. Camilleri’s gregarious personality and his common touch meant he became very close to the artists. “Charlie seemed to know everybody,” says LeBlanc. “Other people showboated. Charlie did things quietly, but he did things.”

When the extraordinarily talented and extraordinarily eccentric Glenn Gould was on CBS, there was only one man at the record company he would regularly talk to. As as happened with so many of the artists he handled, Charlie’s business relationship turned into a personal one. Every Christmas, a call would come into the Camilleri household in Lakeview from Gould and there would be a long conversation about everything under the sun.

Many of the artists dropped into the Camilleri household to have supper, often before they worked the CNE summer shows. And Camilleri’s personal service often included hitting the road with the artists. He travelled the Canadian circuit with Johnny Cash, one of many who became a close friend.

But it wasn’t just the big name international stars Camilleri promoted. He helped build homegrown careers for artists like Kelly Jay and Crowbar, Larry Gowan and Burton Cummings.

When he retired, CBS named a major internal award for Charlie. CBS Nashville honoured him. Legendary promoter Michael Cohl gave him a lifetime backstage pass for any Concert Productions international show. The founders of the Juno Awards Walt Grealis and Stan Klees of RPM Magazine made Camilleri the first inductee into their planned Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.

At the same time he built his legendary professional career, Camilleri was creating a volunteer profile that was almost as impressive. A lifetime supporter of local sports and community projects, Camilleri coached Cawthra baseball and hockey and partnered with Eve Petrescue to build the local human infrastructure in Lakeview that made them work.

His charity of choice was Variety Club. He personally sponsored Tony Bennett into the local chapter and he raised millions of dollars in more than 25 years of involvement with Variety Village. Camilleri made Variety Club the charity of choice for the music industry for many years.

His work earned him the highest honour he could receive from the International Club and the highest he could receive from the Canadian organization, its Heart Award. On the inscription, the group said the award proved that contrary to Leo Durocher’s belief, nice guys can finish first.

Along the way, he also won Grey Cups in 1946 and 47 with The Toronto Argonauts and won the 1950 Canadian softball championship. After his retirement, he was a pivotal figure in keeping the Argo alumni club active.

When you think about the giants of the Canadian music business, Charlie Camilleri’s name won’t be the first you come up with. Or the second or the third.

But his name belongs among the elite. He used his talent for promotion and friendship to foster a fledgling industry and help build it into the powerhouse it became in his time. And he did it all with charm and grace that belied the reputation of the industry he worked in.

It is our pleasure today to add his name to the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame.

Oscar Peterson’s sound may be the most recognizable thing in jazz.
In fact, it may be the most recognizable thing in music. Millions of jazz fans can tell from just a few notes that they are listening to Oscar play piano — his sense of time, his phrasing, his command and his vitality — they all signify that you are listening to “the Maharaja of the piano” as Duke Ellington famously called him.

Peterson was born in Montreal, was unveiled to the world by his great friend and producer Norman Granz at Carnegie Hall in September 1949 and was embraced by the international jazz community in a career that spanned six decades — and spawned a legacy that is unmatched by any other Canadian jazz player and few other musicians anywhere in the world.

His fellow performers revered Peterson for his impossibly high standards, his relentless drive to be the best and his versatility — which saw him front his brilliant trios, act as the house pianist for Verve Records for a decade and then turn around and become the sensitive accompanist to the best-of-the-best of the jazz singing world, from Billie Holiday to the superb duets of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

When Oscar Peterson sat down at the piano stool, there was never any doubt that something extraordinary was about to happen. He’d flash that big smile, then unleash that big arsenal of sound to which, he alone, seemed to have exclusive domain.

Fellow pianist Marian McPartland may have put it best when she said: “He creates a different kind of emotion, a heady excitement, because of his overwhelming capacity to dazzle and generate exhilaration. At times, it’s almost as if he’s driven by a force greater than himself that makes him play at an impossible speed, but when he changes pace and performs a reflective piece, one can hear the tender side of Oscar, the voicings he uses that are his alone.”

Peterson was a proud Canadian. His Canadiana Suite is an homage to his homeland that is as breathtaking in its scope as are the variations in landscape from Newfoundland to British Columbia that inspired its creation.

He was also a proud Mississaugan who lived here for some 35 years. Although he won 8 Grammies, the UNESCO International Music Prize, the Governor General’s lifetime achievement award for performing arts, the Jazz at Lincoln Centre award for artistic excellence and the equivalent of the Nobel prize for the arts, the prestigious Praemium Imperiale award, he said that two of the greatest honours in his career were the City’s 2003 tribute day for him, which included an all-star concert at LAC, and the naming of Oscar Peterson Public School in his honour.

Peterson was a mentor and an inspiration to pianists everywhere, from Diana Krall, to Hiromi, the Japanese fusion phenom. The first words she learned to say in English were “Oscar Peterson.”

She told me in an interview before her 2004 tribute concert at LAC that one of her greatest honours was meeting Peterson at his home when she was in her early 20s.

“It was an amazing experience. I could touch his piano. I could play his Boesendorfer. I was seeing my super-hero right in front of me. I was crazy- happy, listening to all of the stories about Frank Sinatra and all the other jazz legends he’s been playing with.

“It was like a dream house to me, with all of the posters of old concerts on the walls. It was like a museum to me.”

She continued by saying “When I got back home I went to the park and they took a picture of me jumping as high in the air as I could. I love jumping. I sent it to Oscar and said this is how I feel to meet you.” That’s how it was for everyone to meet Oscar and to hear his marvellous music.

He made us all leap for joy at his genius.

If you can make your passion your profession, you will never have to do any real work again. It’s a philosophy that many men and women have dreamed of, but few have successfully executed.

Pre-eminent among musicians who have transformed their careers on the stage into a business that hasn’t just survived off the stage, but has earned its stripes on the forefront of the Canadian music industry, is Mississauga’s Gil Moore.

Everyone knows the story of Triumph, the Mississauga band who performed anthemic metal miracles in arenas around the world in the 1970s and 1980s, releasing more than a dozen albums, selling millions of records and eventually earning a place in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.

In 1978 the band opened its own private studio on Mavis Rd. so it could tinker with its songs and not have to worry about booking studio time. When Triumph stopped performing a decade later, Moore dedicated himself full-time to the studio.

“Who doesn’t want to work at Disneyland each day?” he said when asked about his motivation in launching the studio. It is a decision that Canadian musicians — and musicians everywhere — look back on with deepest gratitude.

Metalworks has gone from a hole-in-the-wall industrial unit, with 20 students, to a musical mecca that is now more than 17,000 sq .ft. in size and features six studios, state-of-the-art lighting and sound, and audio facilities and innovative teaching techniques that reflect its owner’s unmistakable stamp of professionalism — a word that isn’t always top of mind in many aspects of the music business.

“Word of mouth from the artists is important,” Moore told The Mississauga News in an interview last year. “I think trust is number 1.” When the referrals are coming out of the mouths of artists with first-hand experience at Metalworks whose names are David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Katy Perry, The Cranberries, Rush, Prince, Tom Cochrane, Christina Aguilera, Guns ‘N Roses, Nelly Furtado, Anne Murray, Feist, and Metric, to name but a few — that’s a gold-plated endorsement.

Metalworks was named Recording Studio of the Year at the Canadian Music Industry Awards for a dozen consecutive years – so often that it might as well have been renamed the Gil Moore Recognition Award.

With all of the accolades that Triumph and Metalworks have received, you might think that a little some of that might go to a person’s head. But Gil Moore remains the same native son of Mississauga, the same unpretentious guy who founded Gil Moore Audio as a teenager and attended Streetsville and T.L. Kennedy Secondary Schools.

The same guy who always had a yen for construction – which may be why the never-ending expansion of Metalworks continues to this day. If you need a Mississauga Idol judge or sponsor, Gil is there. The prize may be studio time for just the winner, but somehow, he finds time for the top three finishers to record.

Metalworks sponsors the Q107 Homegrown contest , which is no accident. Moore has always had a deep and abiding respect for homegrown talent and he’s always respected his roots — which were planted deep in Mississauga, where he still lives.

He grew up in Erindale Woodlands and his parents, Martha and Herb, wrote columns for many years in The Mississauga News. One of those columns was called Suburban Style.

The Moores would be infinitely proud to know that their son has come to epitomize his own form of suburban style — one grounded in respecting and teaching the entire business of music, from conception to performance to recording to marketing and beyond, to succeeding generations of musicians.

Yes, Gil Moore is a wonderful musician, but we recognize him today for all the things he has done that make him so much more than that — those things that make him a true champion of his craft and a perpetual leader of his industry.