Gord Downie

Inside and out of his job as frontman for one of Canada’s most revered rock bands, Gord Downie’s work was elevated by his moving poetry, an innate sense of storytelling, and a gift for mythologizing his home country. Born in Amherstview, ON, in 1964, Downie was raised nearby in Kingston, where he founded The Tragically Hip when he was 20. In 2001, after years of commercial and critical success, Downie released his eclectic, folk-leaning solo debut, Coke Machine Glow, exploring topics like domestic tension (“Vancouver Divorce”) and life’s disruptive tendencies (“Chancellor”). His 2003 album, Battle of the Nudes, with songs like the frenetic “Christmastime In Toronto,” rocks notably harder; and 2014’s And the Conquering Sun bares the Americana-tinged mark of collaborators The Sadies. In 2016, his work took on a more activist mission; in telling the true story of Chanie Wenjack, an Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 trying to walk home from a residential school, Secret Path served to highlight the ongoing plight of Indigenous peoples to mainstream Canadian audiences. Following his death from brain cancer in 2017, Downie’s solo discography continued to grow with posthumous releases like that year’s thoughtful Introduce Yerself, 2020’s genre-defying Away Is Mine, and an unearthed full-album collaboration with producer Bob Rock.