Terry Black Canada’s teen sensation in ’60s
Terry Black, who was once known as Canada's teen singing sensation, died Sunday.
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Updated: June 29, 2009 4:45 PM
For Pam Tedder — and many other music fans — it seems as if “all the stars are going to heaven now.”
Joining them is Tedder’s partner, Terry Black, who died Sunday at his Kamloops home.
He was 62 and had been diagnosed last year with multiple sclerosis.
“But I don’t want to make a big thing out of that,” Tedder said. “I want to celebrate who he was.”
Ottawa author Randy Ray, who wrote about Black in a book on Canadian musicians, said the North Vancouver singer became known as Canada’s first teen idol in the style of Bobby Vee.
Ray said Black was big in the U.S., appearing on Shindig and Hullabaloo, as well as that stalwart of music and teens, American Bandstand.
“I remember him,” Ray said “I still have Unless You Care. And I remember how he kept his singing voice. He never lost it.”
Black hit the big time almost immediately when, at the age of 15, he released Unless You Care — with relatively unknown studio musicians Glen Campbell and Leon Russell backing him.
That year, Black was named male vocalist of the year at the Maple Music Awards, the precursor to the Junos.
In 1969, Black joined the Toronto cast of Hair, where he met his first wife, Laurel Ward.
After Hair, the two of them joined the freeform jazz/R&B band Dr. Music.
They left in 1972 to perform as Black and Ward.
Black had been hosting The Sixties at Six on Radio ’NL for several years. In recent months he had been phoning in his participation because the MS had affected his mobility.
“In fact, last Tuesday [June 23] he finished up all the shows to run to the end of August,” Tedder said.
Black was a big part of the 1960s with singles including Only Sixteen, Kisses for My Baby, Say It Again and Baby’s Gone.
With Ward, he released songs in the 1970s including Goin’ Down (On the Road to L.A.) and Waves of Emotion.
A public funeral will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at St. Andrew’s on the Square, 159 Seymour St.
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