Spirit of Rasputin's

Terry Gillespie & Vince Halfhide

Saturday, September 26 at 8:00 pm
Westboro Masonic Hall,
430 Churchill Ave.N., Ottawa

Tickets: $25

Last week we caught up with the music of Vince Halfhide, guitarist extraordinaire. This week, let’s find out a bit about Terry Gillespie, aka Mr. Groove.

Terry is a singer-songwriter best known for his love of rhythm, his musical intensity and his unique soulful voice. To ensure he keeps his groove on, Terry lives and plays for half of each year in Jamaica where groove was born.  

Terry cut his musical teeth in Michigan in the 60s, playing with some of what have become the blues legends of our time, people like Howlin’ Wolf and Junior Wells. Gillespie’s voice is frequently compared to Van Morrison and Bob Dylan while his guitar playing is reminiscent of Mark Knopfler. Richard Ludmerer, VP,  NYC  Blues and Jazz Society says of Gillespie: “Terry Gillespie possesses a magic that seems to occur right in the middle of each song. It causes the hairs to rise on the back of your neck.”

I recently interviewed Terry in preparation for our September 26 concert and he described his approach to the gig this way. “The way we play is…we play live. We don’t really rehearse. Well, that’s not exactly true. We get together and play each tune a couple of times but we don’t plan the order of what we’re going to play. We play free! We play open! That means we have to play well or it doesn’t work.”

I asked Terry what music he loved playing and what we should expect at our concert. “It’s simple! I play the blues. I play country. I play reggae. When I walk into the room and I start playin’ with my people, we make a mood and that mood is the blues and that is what really interests me. That’s the real roots. These days I’m startin’ to play reggae inside of blues tunes and that’s the real inside stuff.”

This is going to be be an awesome concert. I urge you to get your tickets early and prepare for a groovin’, moving’ good time on September 26 at the Westboro Masonic Hall.