{"id":12189,"date":"2013-05-06T06:21:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T11:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=12189"},"modified":"2013-05-06T06:21:13","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T11:21:13","slug":"the-stars-greg-quill-was-an-example-of-how-practical-insight-is-essential-in-a-good-critic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/05\/06\/the-stars-greg-quill-was-an-example-of-how-practical-insight-is-essential-in-a-good-critic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Star’s Greg Quill was an example of how practical insight is essential in a good critic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Lucas<\/a>
(Lucas Oleniuk\/Toronto Star photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

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

You can read a nice obituary in today’s<\/a> Star<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was his departmental colleague for 11 years — and one of his editors for about half that time.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n