Bruce Guthro forged a successful career as a solo artist in Atlantic Canada, but he found fame overseas as the lead singer with Scottish Scottish Celtic-rock mainstay Runrig.Supplied
Simultaneously a beloved Cape Breton balladeer on this side of the Atlantic Ocean and a folk-rock superstar on the other, Bruce Guthro lived a double life in plain sight. And if his business savvy, prolific songwriting and scrappy perseverance built a career in Canada, his fame in Scotland owed a lot to happenstance.
In 1998, Mr. Guthro was a singer-songwriter on the rise, riding the East Coast folk music wave with a major label debut album, Of Your Son, that reached gold-selling status in Canada, thanks to singles Walk This Road (which reached the top of the country charts) and Falling.
At the same time, the Scottish Celtic-rock mainstay Runrig was desperately looking to fill its front-man vacancy after long-time lead singer Donnie Munro left the group to pursue a career in politics. The son of the band’s manager, visiting Canada because of his passion for huskies and sled racing, caught Mr. Guthro and fiddler Natalie MacMaster performing their song Fiddle & Bow on Montreal television.
Having looked at dozens of singers at that point to no success, Runrig and its manager had almost given up looking. Moreover, on the day Mr. Guthro was asked to audition, the band was distracted: Scotland was playing Brazil in the FIFA World Cup.
“We had half an eye on the football and half an eye on Bruce,” former Runrig keyboardist and current Scottish National Party member of the U.K. Parliament Pete Wishart said in an interview with the BBC.
Mr. Guthro’s supple, charismatic croon quickly grabbed the band’s full attention. “They were gung-ho,” said his manager at the time, Brookes Diamond. “A serious offer came almost immediately.”
It was conundrum for Mr. Guthro and the label to which he was signed, EMI Music Canada. At risk was the momentum Mr. Guthro had built as a solo artist, all for an opportunity with a legendary overseas band whose glory days appeared to be behind them. As well, some of the group’s proud anthems were sung in Gaelic, Scotland’s endangered heritage language, which was Greek to Mr. Guthro.
“Bruce had never even heard of Runrig,” Mr. Diamond told The Globe and Mail. “I was feeling a great sense of caution about the whole thing.”
But, at the encouragement of EMI president Deane Cameron – others at the label were against the move – Mr. Guthro joined Runrig and went on to enjoy a two-decade run with the band that called it quits in 2018 in front of 52,000 fans at Stirling Castle.
The decision to go transatlantic hurt his solo career in Canada, however. After a haul of five statuettes at the East Coast Music Awards in 1999 and a Juno nomination for Best New Solo Artist in 1999, Mr. Guthro lost the support of his label, EMI.
“They kind of washed their hands of him,” said Bob Mersereau, the Fredericton-based music writer and author of East Coast Music Book of Fame. “They released Bruce’s self-titled follow-up album in 2001, but they weren’t working it to radio.”
Still, Mr. Guthro forged an extremely successful regional career in Canada. The Bruce Guthro’s Songwriters Circle events he hosted at Casino Nova Scotia’s Schooner Showroom and other Maritimes venues were extremely popular. His Songwriters’ Circle specials on CBC, which gathered star songwriters in a circle to perform and talk about their music, won a Gemini Award
“He had no regrets at all about dividing his career between Scotland and Canada,” said Nova Scotia songwriter Dave Gunning. “He would have been a star no matter what.”
Bruce Guthro sings during a tribute to the late Ron Hynes at the 2016 East Coast Music Awards Gala in Sydney, N.S. on April 14.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Mr. Guthro, a big-hearted songsmith, devoted family man, generous mentor, shrewd businessman, impish jokester and true-blue troubadour from Sydney Mines, N.S., died in his Cape Breton home of cancer on Sept. 5. He was 62.
His principal contributions were sentimental story-songs earnestly delivered via nontaxing country melodies and folky song structures. With his lyrics, Mr. Guthro gently explored the bittersweet, romantic and redemptive varieties of life. The subjects of the songs were often common people in poignant crisis.
Falling is an affecting ballad about an absent father seeking a son’s forgiveness after two decades apart.
“I’m in touch with myself, that’s all,” he once said in reaction to the suggestion that his songs were mawkish at times. “Anyone who says they’re not sensitive, just ask them how they’re going to feel when their mother dies.”
His mother, Yvette Gouthro (Mr. Guthro changed the spelling of his name for professional reasons), died in 2021, at age 89. She and her coal mining husband had nine children, including eight sons, of whom the well-known musician was just one. Ms. Gouthro was credited with keeping him humble.
On the day a sign was erected in Sydney Mines that read “Home of The Barra MacNeils and Bruce Guthro,” a lady in a line-up at the bank tapped Ms. Gouthro on the shoulder and gushed, “You must be so proud of your son.” Without missing a beat, the mother of eight boys replied, “Which one, dear?”
Though Mr. Guthro was not considered a confessional songwriter, he had his reflective moments. With 2001′s The Songsmith, he spoke for an occupation and possibly himself: “That’s why he struggles with his pen, to try and leave us something to believe.”
Some of Mr. Guthro’s best work was done not on stage or in the recording studio, but on the golf course. There he pitched with the best of them – with or without a pitching wedge. At celebrity tournaments the savvy networker rubbed shoulders with corporate leaders and proposed deals for private concerts that were a big part of his livelihood.
“He’d tell me, ‘Listen, man, show these guys a good time,” Mr. Gunning recalled. “Get drunk with them, get them singing sea shanties, and I’ll see you at the bar.’”
This summer the public learned of the seriousness of Mr. Guthro’s illness when he posted a video on social media saying that he would not be able to perform at the annual Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, N.S.
On Sept. 14, more than 3,500 of his fans flocked to the Centre 200 arena in Sydney for a Celebration of Life concert paying tribute to the local boy done good. Among the performers at the four-and-a-half-hour event were Mr. Gunning, Alan Doyle, the Barra MacNeils, Gordie Sampson, Kim Dunn and Heather Rankin.
On a small candle-ringed stage in the centre of the arena, Mr. Guthro was represented by his acoustic guitar, a trilby hat atop a microphone stand, a bottle of whisky and an empty stool he used for his songwriter circles. Surrounding the stage were the Men of the Deeps, a male choral ensemble composed of former coal miners from Cape Breton. As they sang, they turned off their headlamps one by one.
He was born Bruce Gouthro on Aug. 31, 1961, in Sydney Mines, at the tip of Cape Breton Island. He was the third-youngest of nine children born to Ambrose and Yvette (née Boutilier) Gouthro.
Although neither his parents nor siblings were musically inclined, the working-class neighbourhood was otherwise rich with talent: Blues-rocker Matt Minglewood was a few blocks away; the Barra MacNeils (a Juno-winning Celtic group composed of Lucy MacNeil and her brothers) lived two streets over.
Mr. Guthro had a stint working the uranium mines of northern Saskatchewan. His first band was Small Town Heroes. After playing hometown pubs, he established a solo career in Halifax.
“He had a way of making people feel comfortable,” said Ms. MacNeil who as a child first encountered a teenaged Mr. Guthro singing at her family’s house over Christmas. “I love his voice, but he had a way of drawing you in whether he was singing or not.”
In the 1990s, East Coast music was booming. After watching Mr. Guthro perform the duet Fiddle & Bow with Natalie MacMaster at an East Coast Music Awards gala, EMI’s Mr. Cameron signed Mr. Guthro to the label that was already home to Kim Stockwood and Ron Hynes.
He did not align himself with the Atlantic Canada Celtic movement that boasted fiddlers Ashley MacIsaac and Ms. MacMaster. “I never really fit in with that clique, although growing up in Cape Breton, I was surrounded by it,” he told The Globe and Mail in 2001. But he did not deny the heritage: “I like the foundation my Cape Breton roots provide for the music.”
Of course, he was a member of the Loch Lomond-singing Scottish Celtic rock band Runrig, which formed on the Isle of Skye in 1973 and later enjoyed an extended run of mainstream success before Mr. Guthro joined in 1998. At that time, he was still oblivious to the group’s status.
Arriving at the airport with Runrig for his first concert with group, he noticed a Beatlemania-level crowd there. “There must be somebody famous on this plane,” he remarked. “No, Bruce,” he was told by his new bandmates, “that’s for us.”
In Canada, he became known for his Songwriter Circle concerts. After being exposed to “song pulls” in Nashville, he had imported the music-and-storytelling concept to Atlantic Canada. Mr. Guthro’s collegial affability and dry wit stood him in good stead as the host.
“As a promoter, I was experienced working with stand-up comics,” Mr. Diamond said. “Bruce absolutely could have been a professional comedian.”
Added Prince Edward Island songwriter Lennie Gallant, “He raised the songwriter circle to an art form.”
In addition to established artists such as Mr. Gallant, April Wine’s Myles Goodwyn and Great Big Sea’s Mr. Doyle, the concerts also included unknown and emerging artists. Mr. Guthro was a mentor to young songwriters.
“I wouldn’t be the person or the musician I am today without Bruce,” said Nova Scotia’s Aselin Debison, who began her singing career at age nine. Mr. Guthro co-wrote Ms. Debison’s first song, took her for joyrides in a convertible and decked out his basement with yuletide decorations in July because he was producing her Christmas album The Littlest Angel.
“He was also a great coach and a sounding board for my many musical ideas. As a teen and young adult, I always knew Bruce was just a call or text away when I needed someone to talk to.”
Over his career, Mr. Guthro received nine East Coast Music Awards and three Canadian Radio Music Awards. In 2019, he was recognized by Cape Breton University with a Doctor of Letters degree.
He recorded seven albums, and although he had not released an LP since 2012′s Bound for Bethlehem, he continued to write songs (including one about Vincent Coleman, the train dispatcher who died saving lives during the explosion at Halifax Harbour in 1917).
Mr. Guthro leaves his wife of 35 years, Kim Anderson-Guthro; children, Dylan Guthro and Jodi Guthro; sister, Linda McGean; and brothers Kenneth Gouthro, Paul Gouthro, Karl Gouthro, Stephen Gouthro and Michael Gouthro.