From the ashes: humour, generosity Festival hosting fundraiser after bluesman Billy Joe Green loses home, most possessions, in Main Street fire By: Alan Small Posted: 6:05 PM CST Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024

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This article was published 03/01/2024 (990 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Billy Joe Green had every right to sing the blues after a Main Street fire left him and his roommate homeless on Dec. 13.

Instead, the blues vocalist and guitarist told old jokes to a reporter who asked how he was doing after he and Joanne Millard fled flames that damaged much of their loft apartment at 611 Main St., as well as the Edge Gallery and Urban Art Centre on the building’s main floor.

All Green and Millard had were the clothes on their backs and a few of his guitars firefighters saved from the flames.

“You know what you call a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless,” he joked on Dec. 13, only a few hours after the blaze that cost Green and Millard most of their possessions was extinguished.

“I heard that one somewhere, so it’s apropos for my situation.”

Winnipeg’s music community is pitching in to make sure Green won’t be homeless for long.

The Sakihiwe Festival and radio station NCI-FM have teamed up to host a fundraiser Friday night at the West End Cultural Centre for the three-time Juno Award nominee and residential-school survivor.

“We believe that our main job is to make the world a better place, so we reached out to Billy Joe shortly after we heard the news,” says Alan Greyeyes, the director of the non-profit festival that, along with its annual June event, helps Indigenous artists build their careers.

“Fortunately we were in a position to offer Billy Joe a performance fee along with all of the ticket revenue and we’re hoping to raise at least $6,000 for him.”

Errol Ranville and Ernest Monias, two of Green’s friends with whom he has shared a stage many times over the years, will perform at the fundraiser.

Country singer Desiree Dorion, Métis fiddler Morgan Grace, blues artist Tim Butler, singer-songwriter Scott Nolan and the group Neejagon are also on the bill that will feature Green’s red-hot blues licks.

Green learned how to play the guitar at the Cecilia Jeffrey residential school, where the Shoal Lake 40 First Nation member was taken to as a child. It’s where he met Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibwa boy whose death in 1966 while trying to escape from the school inspired Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie to create the Secret Path album in 2016.

Green began performing in 1968 and earned Juno nominations for 2000’s My Ojibway Experience: Strength & Hope, the 2004 album Muskrat of the Blues and Rock & Roll and 2008’s First Law of the Land.

He released a single, Endangered Man, in 2023 that is to be part of an upcoming new album mixing studio and live recordings.

Greyeyes, who has worked with Manitoba Music, been a judge for the Junos and is on the Mayor’s Indigenous Advisory Circle for the City of Winnipeg, first met Green at the 2005 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards.

“He was one of the performers and I really didn’t have a lot of experience, but he still treated me with a lot of respect and I’ve been trying my best to return the favour ever since,” Greyeyes says.

The fire was caused by an arson that started outside the building, according to the Edge Gallery’s website.

Insurance will help the gallery, which specialized in pottery and other ceramic arts, pay for the damage, which will include replacing the building’s electrical panel.

It won’t cover the loss in revenue the gallery receives from hosting classes and workshops or renting studio and gallery space, so it has launched a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $23,000 toward a $75,000 goal.

Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), which shares the main floor with the Edge Gallery, was undamaged by the blaze, but can’t reopen without electricity. MAWA’s gallery and office space is closed until further notice.

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall