Myles Goodwyn, guitarist, vocalist, founder and central figure of Canadian rock icons April Wine, died on December 3, 2023, in Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada), in his 76th year. His death was confirmed by his publicist Eric Alper, though the cause of death isn’t known. Last December, Goodwyn announced that he was retiring from live shows, as he was reportedly suffering from diabetes-related health problems.
Goodwyn played his last show with April Wine on March 2, 2023, at the Roth Eastlink Community Centre in Truro (Nova Scotia, Canada).
Goodwyn founded April Wine in Waverley (Nova Scotia) in 1969, with guitarist David Henman, drummer Ritchie Henman and bassist Jim Henman on board at the start. Over 45 years of putting out records, Goodwyn racked up 16 studio albums and, with April Wine, sold over 10 million records.
The album “The Whole World’s Goin’ Crazy”, released in 1976, hit number 1 at home in Canada, where the band strung together a whopping 30 hit singles over their career. The band also made some inroads south of the border in the US, but April Wine never really broke through commercially on the old European continent, or in the United Kingdom either. Even though they played the very first Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington in 1980. And the UK tour that followed a year later didn’t help them there, either.
April Wine were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2010, and in 2003 Goodwyn received an ECMA award – a lifetime achievement award for the mark he left, which was essential to the development of Canadian music. In 2016, Goodwyn released his autobiography “Just Between You and Me”.
After that he put out two solo albums, the first “Myles Goodwyn And Friends Of The Blues” in 2018, followed by a sequel in 2019, which earned him a Juno Award for Blues Album of the Year in 2020.
