Classic RockProgressive Rock
Pye Dubois died on 15 September at his home in London, Ontario, at the age of 77. No cause has been given. The death was not known until the 23rd, when the Smith funeral home in Sarnia published the obituary, which calls him “a true Canadian icon” and “a gifted writer, artist, lyricist and poet”.
He was born Paul Phillip Woods on 6 October 1948 and grew up in Sarnia, where in 1972 he teamed up with Kim Mitchell. Max Webster came out of that partnership, a band whose every lyric Dubois wrote without ever setting foot on stage: the credits list him as a fifth, non-performing member, the formula that kept him inside the band and out of the photograph. He signed all five albums, from the first in 1976 to “Universal Juveniles” in 1980, and carried on with Mitchell solo on “Akimbo Alogo”, “Shakin’ Like a Human Being” and “Rockland”, the guitarist’s three platinum records, before coming back in 1994 with “Itch”.
He worked with Rush four times in fifteen years, always through Neil Peart, and one of those four is “Tom Sawyer”. It came from a lyric of his called “Louis the Lawyer” that Peart rewrote: the rebel millions of people have been singing since 1981 started out as a lawyer. “His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern-day rebel,” the drummer said, “a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful.” The other three are “Force Ten”, “Between Sun and Moon” and “Test for Echo”.
Mitchell said goodbye like this: “Rest in peace, lyricist/friend/writing partner Pye Dubois. You sure knew how to jam with the English language!” He has also said that Dubois would “jam with the English language in this amazing way, painting pictures”.
Max Webster drummer Gary McCracken died two days later, at 75. Dubois and Mitchell went into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame together in 2021, though only Mitchell turned up to the ceremony.
Text by Enric Vilaplana