How Myles Goodwyn Saved Illinois' First Lady In Distress

By David Farrell

Myles Goodwyn brings his blues revue to Hugh’s Room Live in Toronto Monday night. He arrives in the city fresh from a short run of dates with April Wine that included a stop in Chicago where State Governor Jay Robert "J. B." Pritzker and First Lady Mary Kathryn "M. K." Muenster inexplicably asked for an audience with the band following the show. A bit flummoxed, Goodwyn shook their hands “and, as a joke, just to lighten things up, I asked if they called their kids A, B and C? I mean he’s called J.B., and she’s M.K.”

Continuing, the longtime frontman and bandleader, explains: “It turns out, maybe around ’81, we played a show somewhere in the Midwest that M.K. attended with her older brother who was a big fan. Somehow they became separated and, after everyone had left, she was left standing alone in the concert hall, not knowing how she was going to get home. She was 13-years-old at the time. I don’t recall any of this, but she says we brought her backstage, calmed her down and drove her home where her father was anxiously waiting.

“So, a few weeks back, Mary heard we were coming to the city and wanted to meet and thank us for being so kind to her all those years ago. We didn’t really know them at all, but they seemed like a nice couple. After they left, we Googled him and found out he wasn’t only state governor, but he also has a personal fortune estimated at $3.2-billion.

“I had second thoughts about having given them a couple of CDs for free after finding that out,” Goodwyn laughs, adding that “it’s funny how good things from the past can come and tap you on the shoulder.”

Goodwyn received the SOCAN National Achievement Award in 2002, the East Coast Music Lifetime Achievement Award in ’08 and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 2016 he released his memoir named after one of his biggest hits – Just Between You and Me, a collaboration with longstanding friend and writer/author Martin Melhuish. It went on to become a best-seller on the Globe and Mail`s Non-Fiction List, and, two years later, he self-published the fictional work, Elvis and Tiger.

In 2018, he released Myles Goodwyn and Friends of the Blues (Linus/IDLA/Universal), an all-star celebration that won a Juno award in the Blues category last year.

Monday evening at Hugh’s Room Live, he will be playing material from that album, along with newer songs from his just-released (Linus Ent.) album, Myles Goodwyn, Friends of the Blues 2 that, again, features an arsenal of talent. Among them, celebrated Maple Blues award-winning singer, Angel Forrest. Expect some heavy talent to join him on the stage, and a few shared stories that will both amuse and inform his many longstanding fans.

Below, the latest single from Goodwyn's new album, Myles Goodwyn and Friends of the Blues 2, courtesy of Linus Entertainment.