“In the days we started to play live
music, gigs were six nights a week. There was live music all the time. If you wanted to develop you really could.” The bedrock of their sound was
the Blues, but slowly it was the new rhythms from Jamaica that became their trademark. This was before Bob Marley became an international star. Vince says, “When we started
playing reggae they weren’t even calling it Reggae yet. They were calling it Rock Steady, or something else. It took Ottawa a couple of years to become more familiar with what we were doing”. From 1969−1980, Heaven’s Radio
was the best known “underground” band in Ottawa, thanks in part to massive radio support from CHEZ- FM, which signed on in 1977. “Good Time Station” was CHEZ’s unofficial anthem in 1977 from the first HR album “Active”, recorded live at the venerable Black Swan on Rideau Street. The Second album came in 1979, named for the Max Romeo rude
boy classic “Uptown Babies”. Both albums were repackaged under the title “Rendezvous” in 2007. With their growing popularity
and radio play, highly visible opening gigs for Jimmy Cliff, Manfred Mann, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield and others followed. And there was the outdoor gig at Camp Fortune, opening for reggae legend Peter Tosh. “We were told not to do reggae, but
we snuck one in anyway,” remembers Terry with a smile. Another fond memory for Terry
was a show they did at Carleton University. “We were into the groove and the
crowd has really getting into it. We were in the middle of a song and our sound guy, John Reid, whispered in my ear, ‘We’ve got them now. They’re howling like dogs.’ ” Heaven’s Radio never really broke
up, but by the early 80s some members had drifted off and other projects had stalled the momentum. Vince and Terry have always stayed in touch, reuniting under the HR banner from time to time,
doing the duo thing when the gigs come up. As a solo act, Terry Gillespie and
his wife made a commitment five years ago to dive back into the music business full time, and since then Terry has done solo gigs from New Orleans to Owen Sound, “and everywhere in between”, and recently won the prestigious Ottawa Blues Society “Road To Memphis” competition. Vince Halfhide remains married to
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www.bounder.ca BOUNDER MAGAZINE 61
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