Gino lays himself bare with this release, crafting songs that illustrate the range of emotions that accompanied the ordeal. They subtly at the heart-strings, especially when you read the lyrics outlining the singer's devotion to his wife and desire to be there for her in every way. Songs like "Stormy River" and "A Little Bit Broken" bleed with obvious emotion, expertly crafted by a master who knows how to negotiate the successful union of a profound lyric and a pleasing melody.
Being a fan for over 50 years, it was a thrill to speak to the singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist whose hits include, "I Just Wanna Stop", "The Wheels of Life", "Powerful People", "Love of My Life", "Black Cars" and a ton more.
antiMusic: First of all, my sympathies on your loss. I've been married for 41 years and I can't imagine what you're feeling.
Gino: I don't know. You just don't get over these things. I'm just very lucky I have my work to throw myself into and that's about it, you know? Because she was everything to me, Morley.
antiMusic: The new record The Life I Got (To My Most Beloved) should come with a box of Kleenex cuz the eyes started filling up in "Stormy River" and continued for the whole batch of songs. This is just a beautiful record, Gino.
Gino: Ah, now you know why I had such a hard time to finish it. When Tricia was on the verge of passing away, I was trying to finish it and I knew she wouldn't last much longer. And of course, when she did go, I didn't think she'd go the way she did. She had a stroke because of all the surgeries. She was just the most beautiful person in the world inside and out and this had just ravaged her. I suffered to see her suffer but the best way I knew how to deal with it was to dive into the record and I found it very, very difficult to finish the last vocals so that's probably what you're hearing.
antiMusic: The media release says that you wrote this record during your wife's illness. Had you started any of it musically prior to that or did her situation solely dictate the material?
Gino: I think maybe one song but no, the whole record was written during her illness because she was ill for about four and a half to five years. I wrote a couple and then during COVID times I had written a seven-book series so I was really busy doing that. And then when I was finished, I had to time to plant myself in the studio and finish the record so most of the songs were completed in the last two years.
antiMusic: Did the songs come in bunches or was it on a piece-by-piece basis?
Gino: Hard to say. It just happened on its own volition. You'd wake up some times and there would be an idea. Sometimes you'd have a few lines that were empty and you would be waiting for something to happen in your life and you'd know exactly what to say, almost like you'd hear it somewhere in the depths but it's just not speaking on the outside yet. Like the last line of "Stormy River". It just came out in the end when I knew it was coming to an end.
antiMusic: I was actually going to ask you about that one next. "Stormy River" is such a lovely song. What can you tell us about writing it?
Gino: I had started the song and then my mother died and I couldn't go see her because of the laws in Canada at the time, that Trudeau did, not allowing anybody in, which was a blasphemy. But in any case, that's the way it was. I had to watch them bury my mother on someone's iPhone and I immediately went into the studio and came up with the melody of "Stormy River" and the verses. And then later on, a year later, the more Tricia got sick I decided it was going to be about her and if she should go, my life would truly be a stormy river. And it was finished maybe months before she passed. I had so many versions of it. I wanted to capture something with the song that was broad yet quite deep. The melody lent itself to something profound but not specific. And sometimes they're the hardest songs to write. The way that Paul Simon wrote "Bridge Over Troubled Water", it was a very broad song but it still nonetheless cut deep.
antiMusic: The song "The Life I Got" is also the title of the record. Can you talk a bit about what this song means to you?
Gino: Oh, it's just an overwhelming feeling of gratitude of having such an incredible woman with me for so many years and that you just want to wake up with that person by your side. And the thought of not having her by your side is just overwhelmingly sorrowful and troubling. The song is just borne out of that. It's just an honest statement of what it was like to live with her.
antiMusic: "The Hero You See in Me" is possibly my favorite on the record and it had me reaching for the Kleenex. Was this a hard song to write?
Gino: Oh, well that was again a tribute to Tricia. She always thought I was the cat's meow and thought so much of me. I thought less of myself then she thought of me, that's for sure. She always kept bolstering me and telling me, "You're better than that" and so on and so forth. The song is really a confession that "I've never been as good to you as you claim. And now that you need me, I want to be there for you, the way that you've been for me." And that's what that song is about. It's really a return of comfort, you know?
But she would never allow me, in the beginning anyway, to comfort her in the way I wanted to because she didn't want to trouble me with her troubles. And that's why the song is asking her "Let me be the hero you see in me."
antiMusic: What made you want to take another stab at "Keep On Walking"?
Gino: It was just a fun thing. I was listening to it a couple of years ago and I was just remarking to myself that it was well-written at having written it at 22 years of age. I sometimes listen to my own material and wonder how I would treat the words and music now and that occurred to me while I was listening to it as it was playing. So I went to the piano and it's played in the original key and I just started playing this piano riff which ended up being a horn riff. I thought "That would be very cool. Let's see what we can make of it." I went into the studio and kind of demoed it and started going around with it. I got some other people to do some background vocals and some horns and I liked the way it came out. So much so that I thought it should be the first single.
antiMusic: Absolutely. It came out terrifically.
Gino: It did. And so did the video. I called my friend Ken who lives three doors down who is a car collector and said, "Hey. how about we use your garage for a video?" (laughs) Cuz he showed me his new mint-condition '52 Chevrolet. Everything was original. It was just amazing how much this was babied for 60-70 years. And it's only got 28,000 miles on it. I said, it's got to be in the video and so it was.
antiMusic: Considering the record was a tribute to your wife, did you have a hard time finishing it up? Did you want to keep adding to it...a little something more, another song...another embellishment?
Gino: Well, there were a few other songs but just the way that the record turned out, with it being very Tricia-centric and my love for her-centric... I had some other blues songs. One called "The Gathering Storm". Another called "Waiting For a Miracle" and they will be on the next record. I think there was one song maybe, "It's All Good Mama". I think I needed a little comedic relief after the density of what the album's all about.
And "It's All Good Mama" is actually a true story. At 18 years old, I was looking for food and I ended up in a gay bar and was taken by a very beautiful woman who noticed me and I thought I was some kind of hot sh*t and of course I later found out she was a man. I didn't really know how to deal with it and the song really describes that I didn't really deal with it very well.
antiMusic: You had reached a certain point in your career with Brother to Brother that I guess is like climbing a mountain and you've reached your first major plateau. You had been on a yearly schedule for album releases up to that point but it was three more years before we heard Nightwalker. Can you talk a bit about the massive success of Brother to Brother and were you feeling much pressure for the follow-up?
Gino: No, it wasn't really that. I wanted to stay with A&M and they were changing. Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss were going to leave the day-to-day business to another fellow by the name of Gil Friesen. Gil and I didn't really see eye to eye musically. He wanted me to do disco and things like that. In the late '70s and early '80s, that was the hottest thing. Even Rod Stewart was doing "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" But I didn't want to do that. So we had some trouble getting along.
So I started flirting with other record companies and I ended up being on Arista. So that's why it took a little time. Before that Herb & Jerry were in charge of the day to day and I got along with them very, very well and that's why we made an album a year. So suddenly they were like, "We're leaving and we won't be here every day so he's the guy you've got to deal with." So when he told me that he wanted us to be doing disco, I said I don't think I'm going to be staying here. And it caused a lot of problems. So it took a couple of years to iron it out.
antiMusic: Well speaking of that. You've been at odds with the suit and tie types from the record companies at times over the years. Did the harmonious relationship with Herb and Jerry kind of spoil you for some of the battles you had after that?
Gino: Well, I don't think it spoiled me. I should have known better at the time with Arista. They offered me a lot of money and Clive told me he loved what I did and he wanted to make me an even bigger star than what I was. It was flattery all the way. Well, it ended not being that way. So I wanted out but he wouldn't let me out so easily, so that was the problem.
That was the second problem. When Nightwalker came out, I had a pretty big hit with "Living Inside Myself.". Nightwalker was a gold record. I believe it was almost platinum in Canada. Then I recorded another record which was Black Cars and they just didn't hear it. And he made my life miserable.
antiMusic: That's amazing.
Gino: I know. It was a very commercial record. I wanted to do something a little more mainstream. A little more funky...electronic. And for some reason, Clive and I just didn't see eye to eye. So I had to leave them and I went to Europe first cuz American record companies would have a hard time to sue another record company in Europe and they didn't. So it came out in Europe first and then in Canada and it came out in the States but it didn't come all the way out because of the trouble with Arista. It was a really frustrating thing because all the countries that it did come in, it was a platinum record. It was a double platinum record in Canada.
antiMusic: I know. I was working in the record stores at the time when it came out and it was just all over the place. I don't know how they wouldn't go for it in the States.
Gino: I know. But Clive was a very aggressive kind of guy and he had his preferences in every way. And when you didn't fall in line with those preferences, he would secretly bear grudges. And you could tell. At the time he put out the word to all the American record companies that if they signed me, he would sue them. So it was a real mess. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't approach it legally but more importantly I wouldn't have signed with him. So not that Herb and Jerry spoiled me, I should have known better. I was told by various people, he could be very dangerous. And that's exactly what happened. Even though you have an iron-clad contract, it doesn't mean anything.
antiMusic: Speaking of Herb and Jerry, isn't it true that a couple of times they had some concerns about some of the material, like side two of The Gist of the Gemini, "War Suite" and side two of A Pauper in Paradise?
Gino: Well, there were differences, of course. But they were more of a debate than a command. And it never rose more than a heated debate. But in the end, it was not that they ordered me to do what they wanted. It was that they allowed me, come hell or high water. And they always came back to me and said, "It did okay so you're cool." In this business, as long as you succeed and people make money, they'll allow you to be as crazy as you want. As soon as they start losing money....well....then all the blame is cast. That's how it works and I've accepted that. That's just how it goes.
Record companies don't have the power they once had. But artists have to be willing to live or die by their own decisions. And, also, you can't expect to have the same numbers that once took place in the '70s and '80s. It's different things these days. And if you're ready for that, then you're okay. You're ready to live in this music world. But if you're not and you expect the millions of platinum records and all that kind of stuff... First of all, nobody buys records anymore. Not even CDs. It's all streaming.
So people are judged by things other than what we used to judge. It's hard to say exactly what we're judged by. All I know is that I hear back from Sony that "OK, you've got 100,000 streams on the new record and blah blah blah." And, of course, the royalties are not the same because Spotify and all those platforms don't pay anything so you have to really love it to be in it. And I do and that's why I'm still in it. I love the touring part of it but not too much. I don't do it too much but I like playing in front of an audience. And I'm coming back to Montreal to do five concerts with the Quebec Philharmonic Orchestra. I think Alex Da Costa is a great conductor and the last one we did was very successful and I liked it a lot.
antiMusic: In 1973 when you released Crazy Life, aside from Chicago and Lighthouse who had major horn arrangements, the music on the charts was full of material like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Delta Dawn". Where were you hoping your music would be heard considering songs like the title track and "Granny Goodbye" were miles away from anything on CHOM-FM?
Gino: Oh I know. Well, the first thing you have to understand is that when I recorded Crazy Life, I was 21 years old. I can't remember what was on my mind at 21 years old. So within one year, the progress I made in thinking of music and how to record it was a lot by the time I got to Powerful People one year later. There are some songs on the first record that were good songs but I think one of the clashes I had was that I came more from the world of loving Abbey Road and those kind of records and recording that way. Whereas Herb, who produced that record, came from a late '50s, early '60s kind of thing and he would just kind of let the band play and not build it and analyze tracks and do it the way we do it now. That's the way people do it now. They build tracks. So there was a little bit of clash that way. It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it. I think some of the demoes were better.
antiMusic: I guess a follow-up to that would be, how did growing up in Montreal affect your early days in music, if at all, and it's pure speculation of course but do you think things might have turned out any differently if you grew up in Toronto or Vancouver?
Gino: No. Well...everything contributes of course. But I was going to do it no matter where I was. I had this burning thing inside of me. I moved to New York when I wasn't quite 18 and was there for a year and a half. I slept on park benches. I slept on porches. I slept in ratty apartments in Harlem at the time. I would have done anything. I'm sure it affected me, culturally maybe. Language. Who knows? But I think that would just be the periphery.
antiMusic: For the last few records, you've gone it alone playing all the instruments. I know you write the songs and arrangements but did you feel it was just more satisfying to pour yourself into the whole project or just quicker to implement your own ideas rather than have them interpreted by someone else?
Gino: Well, they both have merit. Sometimes it's so clear as to what I hear and how it should be that I just do it myself, and I like the way it turns out. Sometimes I try to do it all myself and it's too unilateral, it's too much of the same thing and I like to bring in another influence. I have my favorite musicians that I'll ask to do some work for me. For instance, on this record, the background vocals on "Keep On Walking" are done by Peter Fil from Athens, Greece. The guitar solo on "It's All Good Mama" is done by Allen Hinds. On a lot of the songs, I used some Montreal girls, Marie Claire Linteau and Annie Roy. Both are really good singers and they're both students of mine. They're really good singers on their own and I love to use them on my music. And they understand me so well.
antiMusic: The arrangements to your songs create such a mature, elevated polish to your songs. I think of songs like "Where Am I Going". Do you write the song and then go back and try to build a better mouse-trap to see how you make it not so linear or do you hear these musical detours as you're creating?
Gino: It all depends. "Where Am I Going" I wrote on the piano. I had an idea of where I wanted it to go. We were in the garage with a five-piece band and it was like "Let's start." So I'll tell the drummer, I hear it this way. But I'll give them a go-point. And then people will start adding their own little things and I'll go, "Yes, that really works." So we start building it that way and then within maybe four or five hours, we've built the structure of the song.
Now it's a little bit different. I do a lot of the mock-ups myself in the studio and I'll hand it to the band and say "Here's the basic structure and the basic thrust of the song." And they'll bring something of their own to the song. But after all these years of arranging and playing with bands...live concerts since I was 10-12 years old, I kind of know what I want. That's why I really like the Pro Software approach with the technology that we have these days. Because it makes it so I can just hop in the studio and in a day record a song and say. "I like it. Let me do a vocal to it."
antiMusic: Well, we're out of time and although I wish I could talk to you longer, it's time to go. I wish you all the success with this record, Gino. It's terrific
Gino: Well, thank you Morley. I really appreciate that.
Morley and antiMusic thank Gino for taking the time to do this interview.
Pre-order The Life I Got (To my most beloved) here
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