S4DAC
LINKS
Copyright 2003-05
Society for Disability Arts & Culture
S4DAC
LINKS
Copyright 2003-05
Society for Disability Arts & Culture
"I practiced a lot to get it together. And you know, over the years there was a lot of sweat equity that went into this; it didn’t happen overnight. I want to be singin’ til I’m eighty."
Joe Coughlin is an accomplished jazz singer with four CDs to his credit. He received the coveted Jazz Report Male Vocalist of the Year Award in 2000. Joe grew up surrounded by music, playing percussion in school bands as well as in a string of his own garage bands. In his mid-teens he switched from drums to lead vocals, and in the late seventies, after finishing high school, Joe was busy playing Ontario bars and clubs with his heavy metal band, White Heat. An incomplete quadriplegic since birth, Joe walked with crutches and often needed help to get into venues. He now uses a wheelchair.
“Our band had lots of hair. I remember having huge muttonchop sideburns and a nine-inch Afro. It was a fairly heavy kind of band, heavy metal rock – Deep Purple, Uriah Heep. Very loud. Lots of explosions and fog, and skintight satin pants and big high platform shoes – I could hardly stand up in the damn things.”
In 1977, Joe won a CBC Search for the Stars contest as a solo performer, and from that got his first record deal. Over the past twenty years, though not working as a musician full-time, Joe has continued to perform and to put out CDs. At the same time that Joe was playing in his rock band, he was also getting into television, hosting and playing for variety shows on CBC Television. He has anchored two television series: Challenge Journal and The Disability Network. Joe has been involved in issues regarding people with disabilities since the early seventies. He is currently working on a new CD for 2003.
“My father is no longer on the planet, but he was a very witty guy and he always had some gem to nail you with, if it was appropriate. So he said, ‘Joe, I think your problem was, you got a dose of the clap at a very early age.’ Now, he didn’t mean gonorrhea, he meant people applauding for me.”