The Word - Vol 2

THE WORD - VOL 2

Over this past Christmas season, Tom Harrison died.

Tom was the music critic for the Vancouver Province and the Georgia Straight newspapers back in the day.  

I knew Tom from my days at the Vancouver Show, on what was then CKVU-TV and is now CITY TV.  The Vancouver Show was a news magazine-type show, 2 hours of live television Monday thru Friday from 7 - 9 pm.  It was a show that was designed to mirror what was happening in the city of Vancouver.  We covered it all,  politicians, musicians, authors, inventors, comedians, local controversies, if it moved and breathed, or even if it didn’t, it was on the show!  Book it.

One of the more popular segments of the show was a music segment featuring Tom Harrison.  At the time, he handled the music beat for the Vancouver Province newspaper.  He would cover local artists and bands, and also give his take on what was happening in the music world in the city, the country, and around the world.  We would have Tom on the show to give a television version of his newspaper column or anything he would like to comment on relating to music.

I was interviewing Tom on the show, on December 8, 1980,  when the studio floor director slipped me a piece of paper from the news wire.  I glanced down and in amazement read a dateline New York City ... "John Lennon has been shot.”  Well, whatever Tom and I were discussing was thrown out the window, and Tom started discussing the life and music of John Lennon.  With this breaking news, who better to have on the show at that very minute than Tom Harrison.  And if memory serves, while we were talking about John Lennon, I was slipped another piece of wire copy that reported John Lennon had died.
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​Every year on the anniversary of that tragic day, Tom and I would remember exactly where we were when the news came in that “John Lennon has been shot.”  Hard to forget. Tom Harrison was one of the good guys, a highly respected journalist, and highly respected by everyone he covered in the music world.  He will be missed. John Mackie wrote a wonderful tribute to Tom in the Vancouver Sun, on December 29/2022 -  please have a read.

Until next week ...

- Wayne

Vancouver resident, Ezra Kwizera, a star in his native Rwanda, performed a concert to fund students of a music program he is building there. This is one of the last articles that Tom Harrison wrote for the Vancouver Sun/Province before he retired in 2017.

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Baby, it’s cold outside ... but the shows are HOT!