It’s a weekly tradition in Montreal that usually flies below the entertainment radar so-to-speak. However, for a relatively close-knit group of country music fans in the city, this coming Monday night will be a big night indeed, and yes the local media will definitely be there to cover the occasion with cameras and reporters.
That’s when fans of the old-time country and western songs will crowd into a small room in the basement of a nondescript office building a couple of kilometers west of the downtown area. The basement houses a little bar and is called the Wheel Club. For the past many years it’s been the home for “Hillbilly night” every Monday night, where people can come to sing and play old time country music.
But this coming Monday night marks the 50th anniversary of the event.
Jeannie Arsenault is one the long-time “members” and a driving force behind the tradition.
The event was started back in 1966 by musician Bob Fuller.
He had been performing the old country and western songs at a bar in downtown Montreal called the Blue Angel, (of course back then they weren’t necessarily that old).
He had noticed that on Monday nights there were often very few patrons, so he allowed other musicians and singers to join in and sing a few of the old tunes.
Soon Monday nights became known as Hillbilly Night, and became the place to be for anyone who loved the old country songs and could scratch a guitar or fiddle, banjo, mandolin, pluck a double bass, and sing a bit.
When the Blue Angel closed, Fuller’s event moved briefly to another bar, but continued as the word got around where it was located.
Eventually it found it’s now long-time home at the Wheel Club.
Every Monday, anywhere from 50 to 100 people, with a core group of “regulars” drop in for an evening’s entertainment. Occasionally guests in the city who may come from anywhere across Canada, or other countries, hear about the event and drop by as well, some to listen, but some to take the opportunity to get up and perform.
This big Monday night event will be somewhat different though as a very much larger group is expected to squeeze into the club for the anniversary, made even more of a squeeze by the media crews also showing up.
While the crowd tends to be of a certain age, there is a sprinkling of university students. They may be there to perform, or to take notes as a local university music professor, and musician, Craig Morrison has assigned a lesson for them at the club.
Great fun for sure and greatly appreciated!
As long as they are not horribly bad, anyone has a chance to get up and sing to the backing of a small group of amateur musicians who form an ad-hoc backup band.
There are only a couple of rules, nobody sings more than two songs at a time, (to give more people a chance) and the songs have to be “old time” country music, that is before 1965. After ’65, Bob felt that country music had changed, becoming louder, faster, and less heartfelt. The old songs were no longer being played on the radio, so he wanted a place where the old traditional acoustic sound could still be heard, and played, by people who appreciated it.
While founder Bob Fuller is now in a wheelchair, he still gets hold of a microphone and sings along to one or two songs, and this Monday anniversary is set to be not only an major anniversary for this Montreal musical tradition, but also certainly a heartfelt tribute to Bob Fuller, the man who has enabled so many years of enjoyment for so many.
Additional information
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.