Juno-award-winning folksinger Willie P. Bennett dies at age 56
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Published Sunday February 17th, 2008
Juno-award - winning folksinger Willie P. Bennett has died at his home in Peterborough, Ont.
His website says he died peacefully Friday at age 56. No cause of death is given but Bennett had suffered a heart attack last year.
Bennett won the Juno award for the Best Solo Roots and Traditional Album for 1998's "Heartstrings," his first solo recording in nine years. Among the musicans who participated in the sessions were Bruce Cockburn, Melanie Doane, Stephen Fearing, Graham Townsend and members of Prairie Oyster.
William Patrick Bennett was born in Toronto on Oct. 26, 1951, emerging as a songwriter and performer in the late 1960s at the city's Rochdale College. He played at universities, clubs and coffee houses throughout southern Ontario in the 1970s and 1980s.
His songwriting career began in 1969 with "White Line," recorded four years later by singer David Wiffen. Several U.S. artists, including Jonathan Edwards and Pure Prairie League, also recorded "White Line." Bennett also co-wrote the song "Goodbye, So Long, Hello" with Russell deCarle of Prairie Oyster, which was named the 1990 Canadian Country Music Association's song of the year.
In 1996, a tribute album of 14 of his songs titled "High or Hurtin" was released by Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, a group put together by singer-songwriters Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson.