knew who Sneezy Waters (Peter Hodgson) was. As he says, “I went to the college of Le Hibou”, honing his craft in front of small but appreciative audiences. He even helped form a folk-rock
band called The Children, along with Neville, Bruce Cockburn, Sandy Crawly and Chris Anderson. Bill Hawkins teamed with Cockburn to write the band’s original music. Recently, True North records
re-issued their material on “The Children – Time Capsule: The Unreleased 1960s Masters”. Sneezy played in a duo called
A Rosewood Daydream that toured Eastern Canada and then East Asia, before coming home to set up shop in the Byward Market as “Ottawa’s first street musician”. Ironically, playing for nickels and
dimes outside Irving Rivers store turned out to be a turning point in his career. The first record Sneezy can
remember getting as a kid was a box set of Hank Williams 45s. He was
only about eight years old, but there was something in the dark, lonely music that struck a chord. “Because it was my only record,
I played the hell out of it,” says Sneezy. So it’s no surprise there were a couple of Hank tunes in his street repertoire the fateful day a writer named Maynard Collins heard him play. “He saw me singing in the Market
outside the Irving Rivers store. He approached me and showed me a script he’d been working on about the last night in a country singer’s life.” Sneezy liked it and Maynard
liked Sneezy. Together they decided to adapt the story to the life of Hank Williams, and “Hank Williams: The Show he Never Gave” was born. The night the curtain was to rise
on the first performance, all involved were obviously nervous. The venue was the Beacon Arms Hotel in downtown Ottawa, the same place Elvis stayed when he played Ottawa. Taking a break before the doors
opened that first night, Sneezy and his
creative partners stepped out onto the balcony to see if anyone was coming. Sneezy remembers “The lineup went around the block”. The show was a hit! A lot of credit has to go to the
love of the artist and music that was reflected in every aspect of the production. “The amps were like amps from
the time. The guitars were all period guitars. Old, old Vintage mics. The play had a very compelling way to bring people into it,” Sneezy recalls. “We touched a lot of people.” After the Beacon Arms stint,
it was off for a run at the famous Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, a perfect setting. That, too, was a smash. The next three years became a whirlwind of dates across Canada and the U.S., and then in 1981, a movie version that still pops up on Bravo from time to time. In 1984 Sneezy, the leading man,
won the Best Actor Award in the 3e Festival International du Film
contiinued on page 46
www.bounder.ca
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