Ozzy Osbourne, legendary heavy metal singer and Black Sabbath frontman, dies at 76
'It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning,' read a statement signed by the singer's wife, Sharon, and children, Aimee, Kelly, Jack and Louis. 'He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
When artists die, they leave gifts to us
Opinion Ozzy Osbourne and Aganetha Dyck were very different people who made very different art — and probably have never been included in the same sentence — but I think we can agree that both were pioneers with a rebellious streak. The former was the larger-than-life frontman of the English band Black Sabbath, which basically invented heavy metal. The latter was a fearlessly experimental Manitoba artist who thought to put everything from football helmets to Barbie dolls in beehives to create fantastical honeycomb and wax sculptures and elevated the domestic processes of homemaking into high art, which is also extremely metal. Aganetha Dyck Both died within days of each other. Osbourne died on Monday, and I heard the news while I was doing interviews for a piece about Dyck, who died late last week. I've seen Ozzy in concert three times: at a solo show with one of my best friends when we were in our teens, and then Ozzy with Black Sabbath twice in the 2010s. As for so many others, his music was formative for us. I immediately texted her: she had been dealing with some anticipatory grief over Ozzy since his final concert with Black Sabbath in his hometown of Birmingham, England earlier this month. In between messages with her about Ozzy, I interviewed loved ones about Aganetha. And so, it's been a week of bearing witness to grief, but it's also been a week about art because that's what's left: the art. And we'll always have the art. I wrote this of the Tragically Hip when Gord Downie died in 2017, but I think it's true here, too: Black Sabbath will always be someone's favourite band. Dyck's art will continue to be shown and talked about and exhibited. She will continue to loom large as an influence to all those living artists she mentored, but also all the artists to come who will discover her through her work. The art is the tangible gift they gave us. And what a gift that is. I've written many obits and memorial columns for the newspaper, and it's always a bit strange, because in most cases, these are people I didn't know. Some of them are celebrities; some of them are Manitobans who we have featured in Saturday's A Life's Story feature. Either way, there's an art to these pieces. It's an enormous challenge — and responsibility — to capture a subject without actually interviewing them. It can also be an intrusion, especially if the subject is a newsworthy person whose death has only just happened. (It can also be a complicated assignment because people are complicated, as we've seen with remembrances about Hulk Hogan, who also died this week.) I never got the opportunity to meet Aganetha, but spending time with her this week, in this way, with her friends, family and people she touched with her art, was so special. That's how we're able to bring colour to the black-and-white biographical facts of someone's life: with stories and anecdotes and remembrances. And how she was remembered – her laugh, her fearlessness, her openness — was moving as well. Thinking about a band that was so part of my musical awakening — and so embedded in an important friendship — was also special. Wednesdays What's next in arts, life and pop culture. Writing these kinds of stories inevitably makes you think about how you might be remembered, because no one gets out of this thing alive. You can't control that, of course, but my subjects never fail to inspire me to live better in some way. (Also, you should tell people what they mean to you and what you appreciate about them, and you should do so often.) Sometimes people ask me if these are bummer assignments because we're writing about people who have died. But we're not writing about death. We're writing about life. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Canada-Mexico arrangement perfect fit for Pony Corral musician José 'Pepê' Cortes
'I usually do this one later on in the night but since I just had a request for it, here we go, off to Mexico!' It's Saturday evening at the Pony Corral Restaurant & Bar on Pembina Highway. Entertainer José 'Pepê' Cortes launches into a rollicking version of La Bamba, diners on the eatery's spacious riverside patio put down their forks and knives to clap along to the Ritchie Valens hit, which Cortes performs on guitar with the assistance of a pre-recorded backing track. Given his high-spirited delivery, one would never guess that Cortes, a summertime fixture at the Fort Garry hotspot since the mid-2000s, has sung the crowd-pleaser 'oh, about a million times,' over the years. Jose (Pepe) Cortes, who is a one-man show, performs on the riverside patio at the Pony Corral Restaurant & Bar three nights a week. 'The thing I try to remind myself is that there's always going to be somebody here for the first time who has never heard me do La Bamba, which, I suppose because I'm from Mexico, people kind of expect,' Cortes remarks later, during a break between sets. That's fine with him, he continues. His job, he feels, is to make guests forget about whatever might be troubling them, if only for an hour or two. So when he spots somebody beaming and raising their glass during La Bamba or Besamé Mucho, another Mexican standard that's part of his act, he tells himself, 'mission accomplished.' Cortes, 66, was born in Mexico City, the second eldest of five siblings. Growing up, he was a big fan of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he says, casually dressed in sandals, grey shorts and a pale-blue short-sleeve dress shirt . By the time he was 11, he was teaching himself to play popular songs he heard on the radio, on an acoustic guitar borrowed from a relative. Not that he always understood what he was singing about. 'We did take English in school but no, there were lots of times I didn't have a clue what the lyrics meant, I was mostly just pretending,' he says, mentioning he has answered to the nickname Pepê — even his mother calls him that — for as long as he can remember. Before long his older brother Eduardo, Lalo for short, began accompanying him on drums. Cortes guesses he was 12 or 13 when a sign went up in their neighbourhood, advertising for bands to volunteer their services for an outdoor music festival. After talking a pair of classmates into joining them, the foursome made its official debut as El Dilema, covering rock tunes by American groups such as Grand Funk Railroad, with Cortes handling lead vocals. El Dilema was well-received. Before long the group was getting booked for community dances around town, now billed as Children owing to how young they were. The band eventually expanded to seven members and by the mid-1970s, Children had become a popular nightclub draw, not just in Mexico City but in more touristy destinations, as well. Cortes was 21 in 1979 when Children was booked for a weeklong engagement at the Princess Hotel in Acapulco. Also appearing there was a band called Zig Zag, which got its start in Mexico before relocating to Minneapolis. Following one of Children's performances, the members of Zig Zag told Cortes they were impressed with his voice, especially when he sang falsetto on Bee Gees numbers. Also, would he be interested in going with them when they headed back to the States? It seemed like a great opportunity and after discussing it with his bandmates, he made the difficult decision to leave Mexico. Supplied José 'Pepe' Cortes in Mexico with the band Children 'Zig Zag mostly did classic rock — Boston, Kansas, that kind of stuff — and we used to get standing ovations for our version of Bohemian Rhapsody,' Cortes says with a laugh, adding besides the Twin Cities, they were also getting booked for shows in North and South Dakota, and, later on, in Canada. In August 1984 Zig Zag was hired for a social being held at the Canadian Forces Base in Shilo. In attendance was a pharmaceuticals rep originally from Deloraine who had relocated to Brandon. Cortes struck up a conversation with her between sets. Within a year, they were married and living in Winnipeg. Cortes continued his musical career after moving to the city. He started off with a country-rock outfit called Raven before being introduced in 1987 to Wayne Hlady, founder of the Beatles tribute act Free Ride. For the next 18 years, Cortes-as-George Harrison played guitar and sang with Free Ride. It was a lucrative gig, he says, but because the band was often booked as many as six nights a week, it caused a strain in his marriage. 'We had two kids, a boy and girl. I was Mr. Mom during the day, cooking the meals and seeing them off to school, but the minute my wife got home, I'd be out the door,' he says. Free Ride definitely helped pay the bills, he goes on, but still, his wife desired a normal life, one that would enable them to socialize with family and friends on the weekend, instead of him always appearing at this bar or that. He understood her point — he even tried his hand at a 'real' job working for a local landscaping firm — but in the end they had grown too far apart. Following his divorce in 2005, Cortes made the decision to part ways with Free Ride. For a while he'd been writing songs of his own, but because Free Ride was all-Beatles, all-the-time, he knew there would never be an opportunity for him to perform his compositions in front of a live audience. One of the first places that hired him after he struck out on his own was the Pembina Highway Pony Corral. There he was encouraged to mix in original tunes alongside time-tested favourites such as Under the Boardwalk, Imagine and Brown Eyed Girl. He also returned to his roots, by sprinkling in Spanish-style songs popularized by the likes of the Gipsy Kings and Santana. By 2011, Cortes, who did three sets a night, Wednesday through Saturday, had developed a loyal following. That summer he was on Facebook when he spotted a message from a person he'd gone to school with in Mexico City. He remembered she used to be pals with his first girlfriend. Out of curiousity he asked if the two of them were still in touch. They were, she replied. SUPPLIED Free Ride as The Rolling Stones. Jose 'Pepe' Cortes is Keith Richards,, front Five minutes later, he received a second message, this time from his ex, a woman named Gabriela. 'She was like 'hi, how are you.' She told me she was living in Tequisquiapan, about three hours from Mexico City. After messaging back and forth a bit more, she said I should come for a visit, which I ended up doing that winter.' Cortes fell in love with both Gabriela and the town, notable for its quaint cobblestone streets and rustic houses. On the flight back to Winnipeg he thought if he could land a gig there, he'd probably move. Four years later he was preparing to do just that. Ahead of his imminent departure, Peter Ginakes, owner of the Pony Corral, proposed they stage a 'Farewell Pepê' concert in his honour, on the patio. That night the place was jam-packed, with lineups stretching into the parking lot. As Cortes was putting away his guitar for what he thought would be the last time at that locale, Ginakes approached him to say, 'You know, there isn't any reason we can't do this every summer.' Cortes, who has dual citizenship, refers to his current situation, which sees him living and performing in Tequisquiapan for nine months of the years, and spending June through August in Lorette with his daughter Sam and her husband, as the 'best of both worlds.' Not only does he get to see his two adult children as well as a pair of grandchildren, ages five and nine, when he's here he holds down a Las Vegas-style residency at the Pony Corral three nights a week, Thursday to Saturday. Added bonus: his son Matthew occasionally supports him on bongo drums. 'It's funny because couples who used to come see me at the Pony 20 years ago, back when they were dating, now show up with their kids to catch the show,' he says. 'The other night my own grandkids were here and the oldest one spent the whole time in one of the Tiki huts, banging away on the table like he was playing drums.' Cortes, who has recorded four CDs of original material, figures he currently has close to 150 songs in his repertoire, including what he refers to as the calypso medley, which he put the finishing touches to in Mexico, this past winter. Jose (Pepe) Cortes on the patio at the riverside Pony Corral Restaurant & Bar (Pier7) at 1700 Pembina Hwy. 'For that one, I kick off things off with Lionel Richie's All Night Long, then switch to Kokomo by the Beach Boys, September by Earth, Wind and Fire and finally Hot Hot Hot (by Buster Poindexter). If that doesn't get people tapping their toes, nothing will.' And although Gabriela has only come with him to Winnipeg once — she found it too chilly, even in June, he says with a wink — he intends to make the annual trip north for as long as Ginakes and the Pony Corral will have him. 'The only tough part is I'm not as young as I used to be,' he says, polishing off the last of his coffee. 'Lots of times customers will go, 'Pepê, it's so good to see you,' and offer to buy me a drink. I have to tell them thanks, but no thanks… or at least to wait till Saturday night, when I don't have to work the next day.' Monthly What you need to know now about gardening in Winnipeg. An email with advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing. David Sanderson Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don't hold that against him. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Narcissist' novelist not a great mom
Once you get past the dishy first third of this Mommy Dearest-style memoir, you can be forgiven for starting to skim. Like any skilled journalist would do, New York author Molly Jong-Fast loads her best material into the first pages. After that she loses steam, and her already-slender book begins to feel repetitive and scattered. Thanks to its chatty style and gossipy content, How to Lose Your Mother received lots of attention when it came out in early June. How to Lose Your Mother Jong-Fast is the only child of the once-notorious novelist Erica Jong. In 1973, at age 31, Jong published her racy novel Fear of Flying, which broke the news to the English-speaking world that men were not the only gender who enjoyed casual sex. Jong became a cultural sensation. Although she published more than 20 books in the intervening years, she never again did anything as momentous. Molly says here that mom was 'a world-class narcissist' interested in her work, her famous friends and herself. Oh, yes, and in drinking wine. Lots of wine. 'She would always say that I was everything to her,' writes Molly, 46, a U.S. TV political analyst, podcaster and author of two novels and two other memoirs. 'She would always tell anyone who listened that I was her greatest accomplishment. I always knew that wasn't the truth.' Molly's father, by the way, was Jong's third husband Jonathan Fast. That marriage broke up when Molly was a young child. Husband No. 2 had been Chinese-American psychiatrist Allan Jong, whose surname Erica (neé Mann) kept. Molly goes easy on dad here. Even though he moved to California and had a second family, she saves her vitriol for mom. A typically catty judgment: 'She always had trouble getting along with people who were not men she wanted to seduce.' In later years, Molly writes, she and her biological father bonded over the fact that they were both the children of 'same-sex narcissists.' Molly's paternal grandfather was the prolific McCarthy-era novelist and Communist Howard Fast, best known for the 1960 movie adaptation of his novel Spartacus. 'I never knew my mother or grandfather at the height of their respective fames,' she notes, 'but I did know them at the end, when they were desperately trying to claw fame back.' To the degree that this memoir has a structure, it is a narrative of Molly's 'annus horribilis,' 2023. Coming out of the pandemic, she had to move her mother, suffering from dementia, into a nursing home and deal with the decline and death of her stepfather Kenneth Burrows, Jong's longtime hubby No. 4. Moreover, Molly's own husband (15 years her senior and father to their three children) was treated for a form of pancreatic cancer. At the end of the book, touch wood, he is OK. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. But the book is primarily an excuse for Molly to exorcise her demons over feeling unloved and ignored as a child. Mom was an alcoholic who let her be raised by her nanny. No surprise, Molly overdid the drugs and booze as a teenager. Miraculously, she got sober after a stint in rehab at age 19, and goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to this day. Aside from the amusing celebrity name-dropping — both mom and daughter move in predominantly Jewish circles of New York media and culture — there is not much else to tell. Although she does tell it, over and over again. Retired Free Press editor and writer Morley Walker admits he has never read Fear of Flying.
