It’s been a long time running: the Hip’s legacy lives on

Every country has their soundtrack. England has the Beatles, Ireland has U2. For Canada, the Tragically Hip will always be its most closely-guarded treasure.

For more than three decades, the Tragically Hip — or simply “the Hip” to fans — was the pulse of Canadian rock. From small-town bars to national broadcasts, the Hip had become more than a band; they were a mirror held up to the country. 

When the band’s frontman, Gord Downie, lost his long-fought battle with brain cancer in 2017, it felt as though Canada itself lost its voice — one that sang the country’s stories, scars and soul. 

On the seventh anniversary of Canada saying goodbye to Downie, Halifax said hello to the Hip’s discography again. 

On Nov. 17, Prince Edward Island’s the Fabulously Rich brought the Hip back to life at the Marquee Ballroom, giving a generation the chance to hit rewind on the soundtrack of their youth. 

The lead singer of the Fabulously Rich, Dennis Ellsworth, had the privilege of knowing Downie personally. Dressed head-to-toe in typical Downie fashion — a vibrant shirt, wide-brimmed hat and fluorescent scarf — Ellsworth stepped up to the mic to honour his friend, a Canadian legend. 

“He was a poet to me,” Ellsworth says. 

Having performed over 200 tribute shows around the Maritimes, Ellsworth revels in the beauty of it all. 

“During the show, I can see how fucking happy people are,” he says. “They don’t get to hear this music live anymore.” 

Ellsworth was introduced to the Hip at 13-years-old. Sitting in his friend’s basement, he discovered “38 Years Old,” “New Orleans is Sinking” and other classic Hip albums that would shape his music career. 

In high school, Ellsworth and three friends formed a band called Adam’s Eve. Together, the group got hooked on what Ellsworth calls “music that had no limits.” They rehearsed “Courage,” “An Inch an Hour” and “Blow at High Dough” like their success depended on it — which it did. 

“We were just a shitty high school garage band, but we played a lot of Tragically Hip songs,” Ellsworth says. “It was hard in the 90s; you couldn’t get gigs if you didn’t play other people’s songs.” 

Now, decades later, he laughs at his old album collection. “My copy of Trouble at the Henhouse looks like somebody tried to eat it.”

During the Hip’s Day for Night Tour in 1995, Ellsworth managed to get backstage at the Halifax show. In typical rock ’n’ roll fashion, almost immediately, the 17-year-old was handed a beer by the band’s guitarist, Rob Baker, and a cigarette by Downie himself.

“I really wanted a smoke,” Ellsworth says. “So I went over and sat down beside him and talked for probably an hour and a half.”

That tobacco-infused conversation became the first of many to follow. 

In 2012, Ellsworth was deep into his own music career when a mutual friend suggested he record an album at the Bathouse Recording Studio, owned by the Hip. Searching for inspiration through his writer’s block, he turned to Downie’s first solo album and collection of poems, “Coke Machine Glow.”

“I started reading it, and all of a sudden, a melody appeared,” Ellsworth says. “I wanted to flesh out the story. What’s this poem about?” 

Half-joking at the time, he asked his friend, “What do you think Gord would say about this?” 

“Why don’t we just ask him?” his friend responded.

Just like that, Downie fell into Ellsworth’s life — this time in his inbox. 

“He was blown away by somebody even wanting to try and do this. Then, over the course of a bunch of emails, we worked out the lyrics to make something we both liked,” he says. 

It was the quiet beginning of an extraordinary collaboration and lasting friendship. 

After Ellsworth produced his own song, also called “Coke Machine Glow,” Downie kept him high on his list of people to see on the road, hang out with on tour and spontaneously check-in on just because. In the world of rock ’n’ roll, Ellsworth says Downie was different.  

The country knew the electric frontman and restless poet who commanded every stage he set foot on, but those who really knew Downie off-stage, like Ellsworth did, remember that, among other things, he was “funny, humble and very modest.” 

“He didn’t really ever want to talk about himself; he wanted to know about you,” says Ellsworth. “He wasn’t like a rock star guy; he didn’t have that in him. He was just a regular dude with good jokes.”

In 2016, when the Hip announced Downie’s glioblastoma diagnosis, Ellsworth’s reaction was immediate. He knew exactly what he had to do: call his high school band. 

“I suggested that we learn 30 Tragically Hip songs and do one show in Charlottetown to raise money for the Chanie Wenjack Fund,” Ellsworth says — Downie’s charity promoting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. 

In the small quarters of Hunter’s Ale House in downtown Charlottetown, the turnout was better than expected — and they raised $5,000. 

“It was fucking awesome,” Ellsworth says. 

“At that point, we thought that was probably it,” he says. “We had no ambition for where we’re at now.”

And so they became the Fabulously Rich, their name a reference to the Hip’s lyrics from “Grace Too.”

In the first five years of their nine-year tenure, they donated a sixth of every show’s profits to the Chanie Wenjack Fund. 

“We probably sent that organization 30 grand or more,” says Ellsworth. “Gord knew before he died that was part of what we were doing.”

At the band’s recent sold-out show in Halifax, the audience, decked out in Hip band tees, passionately sang along to “Wheat Kings” and “Bobcaygeon,” as if the Hip never left. Among the 700 fans packed into the Marquee was Adrian Morgan, a lifelong Hip devotee. 

Sometime in 1991, Morgan wandered into Dalhousie University’s student bar for the promise of cheap booze and live music. That’s when the five-piece of oddballs from Kingston, Ont. took the stage. What Morgan and the other students packed into the then-Grawood didn’t realize was that they were witnessing what would become Canada’s greatest rock band.

They were “raw, loud and unapologetically authentic,” he says. 

“I could’ve closed my eyes Friday night and thought I was at the Hip,” says Morgan. “I don’t know if anybody could hit the mark like they did. It’s hard to recreate the Gord Downie sound and persona, but man, if you show me somebody that can do it as well as Dennis. Well, then I guess I’m wrong.”

“They got a gig that’s going to be just as timeless and endless as the Tragically Hip.”

That swell of emotion in the crowd is what fuels Ellsworth and the rest of the band. 

“It makes us feel like we should keep doing it,” he says. “It’s easy to feel like it’s not our music. But we’ve kind of taken ownership of it. And people trust us. As long as all of us want to do it, I have no ambition to stop.”

And while the Fabulously Rich may be keeping the Hip’s music alive onstage, Ellsworth is certain their music will never go out of style. 

“At least not in this country,” he says.