David Rea
David Rea Tributes By Friends and Fans
This page will include a sampling of the many kind and loving tributes that were sent to me, or for which I have permission to republish, if they have appeared elsewhere. If you'd like your tribute posted here, please send it to me. I have also included my own tribute, originally published on my Gordon Lightfoot Fan Site. There are also many wonderful tributes posted at the Oregon Music News Website: OregonMusicNews.com. (If the article doesn't come up, place your mouse pointer in your browser's location window and click Enter again).
Mike Regenstreif
David Rea 1946-2011
"David Rea passed away Thursday in Portland, Oregon. He had just turned 65 the day before. Apparently, he’d been ill for several months.
I brought David to play in Montreal a lot in the 1970s. Mostly at the Golem, but he was also on a Pollack Hall concert I produced in 1976 that also included Bruce “Utah” Phillips, Kate & Anna McGarrigle with the Mountain City Four, Erik Frandsen, and the White River Bluegrass Band. David was a sweet guy, an amazing guitarist, a fine songwriter and a great performer.
It was as a guitarist that David first made his mark. Gordon Lightfoot hired David as his lead guitarist when he was just 17. After Lightfoot, he played for several years with Ian & Sylvia and did live and session work with artists ranging from Mike Seeger to Joni Mitchell. He played guitar on Jesse Winchester’s first album.
David made three early LPs with backing from members of bands like Mountain (David co-wrote their hit, “Mississippi Queen”) and the Grateful Dead. But, I think he surpassed those albums with three excellent CDs that were released between 1993 and 2000.
I had a chance to catch up with David at the 2001 Folk Alliance Conference in Vancouver. It was the first time we’d seen each other in 20 or more years. He was as good as I've ever seen him at a couple of too-short showcases I saw him do there.
David was a great musician and – for many years – a great presence in the folk music world. He is missed."
--Mike Regenstreif,published October 30th on his blog here: Folk Roots/Folk Branches Blog
Ned Treanor
"Thank you for passing on the sad news re:David Rea! Ironically, his passing came only a week after I celebrated my 73rd! We were the 1st club [the "Living End", in Detroit] to bring Gord, [accompanied by David & John Stockfish] to the U.S., not long before our friend, Chuck Mitchell, also a Detroiter, went to Canada ... met Roberta Joan Anderson ... & returned with new bride, Joni Mitchell! We were able to get Joni affiliated with Elliott Roberts & David Geffen, but Joni had found a "kindred spirit" in David Rea & worked with him whenever possible!"
--Ned Treanor in an email to me.
Terry Tufts
"Last of the great Travis pickers. I met David three or four times when touring and he always had wonderful stories to tell and he was always generous with his knowledge of the guitar. Little bit of the devil in every note. God needed someone to put music to Charlie's sunsets."
--Terry Tufts in a comment posted at You Tube.
Valerie Magee
David Rea, "First" Lead Guitar Player for Lightfoot, Passes Away
"This is very difficult for me to write because I knew David; in fact, I developed a web site for him and it was only when I called him back in June to say that I was ready to launch, that I learned he had just been hospitalized. He had been ill throughout the summer, and passed away on Thursday, October 27th, the day after his 65th birthday.
From lead guitar player for Gordon Lightfoot, Ian & Sylvia, Joni Mitchell and others, to a singer/songwriter in his own right, David had had a long and rich career in music. He even had a hit song, having co-written Mississippi Queen, a hit for Mountain. Joni Mitchell literally sang his praises; she wrote and recorded a song about him called, "Play Little David".
David played lead guitar on Lightfoot's debut album, "Lightfoot!"; everyone recognizes his distinctive intro riff to For Lovin' Me. He played some live shows with Lightfoot in the early years (1964/1965), before Lightfoot could afford fulltime sidemen - and he entertained me repeatedly with his funny stories about those days.
Gord would call him up and ask him if he could come do a gig with him, sometimes with no money for expenses, and they would crash on somebody's couch. David told me funny anecdotes that relate to those occasional shows that he did with Gord. Unfortunately, although I asked him about that time (and David remembered only anecdotes and actually couldn't say when he last played with Gord but thought it was probably 1965, as I had guessed), I didn't write anything down thinking that I would do a formal interview with David about Gord at some point in the future.
When Lightfoot! was finally released in 1966, and Gord was in a position to hire his first "band", David had already taken a full time job with Ian & Sylvia. In an interview with Richie Unterberger for the liner notes to the Ian & Sylvia Lovin' Sound/Full Circle reissue, Sylvia jokes,"'I don't know if Gordon's ever forgiven us for that."
Though I never met him in person, I feel that I knew him well; a phone call with him would go on for hours. Literally. He was a storyteller in his soul, and all his friends and fans benefited from that.
I will write more in the coming days. Please visit his new web site which I have just launched in his honor: David Rea Music."
--Valerie Magee, published October 29th on my Gordon Lightfoot fan site
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