Gilliat Blow's Through Japan
A Walnut Grove musician whose concert in Japan was
cancelled due to a typhoon retruned to Asia in October,
only to have nasty weather strike again.
Decades ago, Stormy Weather - the song - was a hit
for blues crooners Billie Holiday and Ella Fizgerald.
It now appears that stormy weather - the atmospheric
condition - is making a local musician big in Japan.
John Gilliat, a Walnut Grove acoustic guitarist who
performs rumba flamenco music, has had the dubious
honour of being caught not once, but twice, in a typhoon
in Japan.
Ironically, the last time he was swept up in a nasty
storm was when he travelled to Asia to play a typhoon
relief concert.
"The weather has really done a number on us,"
laughed Gilliat, once he was safe, warm, and dry at
home. "It became this real great deal, and became
a story about the Japanese trying to get this Canadian
musician to where he needed to go."
Gilliat's stormy relationship with Japan started
years ago, when he and his wife Teriva started taking
in foreign exchange students. The exchanges were arranged
by Machiko Osawa and her husband Robert.
It turned out that the couple shared Gilliat's interest
in music, and in 2001, Gilliat performed on one of
Machiko's recordings, which was produced by her son,
Daisuke Osawa, in the Lower Mainland.
Daisuke went on to produce Gilliat's second album
Peace, which was nominated for a 2002 West Coast Music
Award.
In the summer of 2002, Machiko asked Gilliat to come
to Japan to perform with her.
He returned the following year as well.
Due to the success of the concerts, a music company
approached Gilliat and asked him to record a CD for
distribution in Japan. The result is Beyond Boundaries,
which features the Japanese - inspired song Onishi.
The CD was released in July of this year, and Gilliat
returned to Japan to promote it through a number of
concerts, outdoor festivals, open train performances,
live radio broadcasts, and TV appearances.
"It was a great tour," said Gilliat, who
found himself the centre of attention from both media
and audiences.
However, a typhoon that ripped though the area on
July 31 caused his outdoor concert scheduled for Fujiyama
Koen Park to be moved indoors. It was performed for
volunteers at the Onishi Hall, while the vicious rain
poured down.
The concert was rescheduled for October, and last
month, Gilliat returned to Japan to play a "Revenge
of the Typhoon Concert," - only to find himself
the victim of wicked weather again.
"It was worse than the one before," said
Gilliat, who arrived to find roads washed out and
bridges destroyed, and was forced to fly to a different
city.
He also found that the area was not equipped with
an official communication network that could inform
peaople of road closures and evacuation notices.
Because Gilliat was in the company of Machiko and
Robert, who have their own radio show, the couple
began broadcasting what was happening, to keep listeners
apprised of the storm's progress.
"We were seeing it all firsthand," Gilliat
said of the live broadcast, which morphed into a story
on trying to get the visiting musician from Canada
where he needed to be in the midst of the storm.
"They don't have on-the-scene reporting, so
we had a huge listening audience."
"We were bridge-hopping between islands,"
he recalled. "It took 12 hours to do a normal
two-hour drive."
Gilliat said he wasn't scared, as he was in good
hands. Although he was stranded like everyone else,
"The Japanese people were getting me where I
needed to be."
Not deterred by the typhoons, Gilliat said he plans
to return to Japan this summer, and hopes to play
at Japan's Expo 2005 in Aichi.
by Erin McKay
The Langley Advance
