It’s sad to hear that my former Toronto Star colleague Greg Quill died at home in Hamilton yesterday. He was only 66.

• Author
• Recent Posts

John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

Latest posts by John Terauds (see all)

• Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
• Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
• CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019

Born in Australia, Quill began his adult life as a roots musician and ended it as a wire-story rewriter on the Star‘s Entertainment desk.

You can read a nice obituary in today’s Star.

I was his departmental colleague for 11 years — and one of his editors for about half that time.

Greg had been around the block a few times musically as well as journalistically. And, because of that, he could get really cranky. He could smell bullshit immediately, be it from his managers, co-workers or the PR people that would bombard us all day long every day of the week.

But when he wrote, he wrote as someone who cared deeply — be it as the paper’s official roots and rock music critic through my time as editor, or as an all-purpose entertainment columnist.

What helped make him a good critic was the fact that he had worked both sides of the microphone. He was no armchair word-slinger; he could actually practise what he wrote about.

Greg, a lifelong smoker, hadn’t been in the best of health for the last few years — a situation no doubt made worse by the stresses of coping with a workplace that was changing faster than many of us could figure out.

I hope that he and his like will continue to inspire other musicians to try their hand at criticism, because I think that is the best reality check any of us can get in a world full of marketing and PR spin.

Here, for fun is Greg Quill singing one of his early hits, “Gypsy Queen,” with his Country Radio bandmates (Kerryn Tolhurst – mandolin, lapsteel, guitar; John Bois – bass; Tony Bolton – drums; Chris Blanchflower – harmonica; John A. Bird – piano) in Australia, followed by a solo turn at Toronto’s Black Swan tavern four years ago:

John Terauds

• Author
• Recent Posts

John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

Latest posts by John Terauds (see all)

• Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
• Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
• CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019