Don Cherry (Donald Eugene Cherry, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, November 18, 193… Read Full Bio ↴Don Cherry (Donald Eugene Cherry, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, November 18, 1936 - October 19, 1995) was an American jazz trumpeter. Don Cherry gained notoriety in the late 1950s through legendary Ornette Coleman recordings featuring Cherry's cornet and trumpet playing (sometimes featuring his playing of novel horns); including The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) and Free Jazz (1961), the latter of which bred an entirely new sub-genre of jazz itself. After leaving Coleman and playing with John Coltrane on The Avant-Garde (1961), he signed a deal with Blue Note records to release three albums. The first and most famous of these recordings, Complete Communion (1965), proved Cherry's worth and originality as a composer by developing several different themes within each twenty minute piece and blurring the distinction between composition and improvisation. Don Cherry added during the late 1960s and beyond various world music elements to his work. He constantly traveled and implemented different ethnic elements, including the shenai (an oboe-like instrument) until his death in Malaga, Spain in 1995.
# 2 Donald Ross Cherry (January 11, 1924 – April 4, 2018) was an American traditional pop music and big band singer and former amateur and professional golfer. In music, he is best known for his 1955 hit "Band of Gold".
Cherry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He started as a big band singer in the orchestras of Jan Garber and Victor Young. In 1951 he recorded his first solo hits, "Thinking of You" and "Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle". In 1955 came his biggest hit, "Band of Gold", which reached #5 on the Billboard chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The track peaked at #6 in the UK Singles Chart. He had three more hits in 1956 ("Wild Cherry", "Ghost Town" and "Namely You"), all backed by orchestra leader Ray Conniff. He was also the voice of the Mr. Clean commercials during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Cherry published his biography, Cherry's Jubilee, with co-writer Neil Daniels He is a good friend of Willie Nelson and has collaborated on three albums with him, Augusta (1995), The Eyes of Texas (2002), and It's Magic (2007). Cherry was married four times, once to 1956 Miss America Sharon Ritchie, before wedding his present wife, Francine Bond Smith, in 1993. They live in Las Vegas, Nevada. His son, Stephen, was a casualty of the 9/11 attacks when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. Stephen left behind four sons.
#1 Don Cherry Biography from the Musician Guide website:
Born November 18, 1936, in Oklahoma City, OK; father was a bartender/club manager and trumpet player; wife's name, Moki (an artist); children: Eagle-Eye (son), Nenah (stepdaughter). Education: Attended School of Jazz, Lenox, MA, 1959. Played in Samuel Brown's jazz band, Los Angeles, 1951; led the Jazz Messiahs, c. 1952; toured West Coast and Canada with James Clay; played with Ornette Coleman, beginning in 1953; performed at Five Spot Cafe, New York City, 1959-61; played with Sonny Rollins, 1961; co-founded New York Contemporary Five, c. 1962; toured Europe, 1963; co-led band with Gato Barbieri, 1964-66; member of quartet Old and New Dreams Band, beginning in the late 1970s; formed Codona, 1978; performed in jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings, Hamburg, West Germany, 1989; toured with quartet MultiKulti, beginning in 1990; performed with Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, early 1990s. Teacher at Dartmouth College, 1970. Addresses: Home-- San Francisco, CA. Management-- The Brad Simon Organization, Inc., 122 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022.
By the late 1980s, through the efforts of pop stars like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, and David Byrne, the musical expressions of peoples as far-flung as South Africa, Brazil, and Bulgaria had begun to meld with Western styles to create what has become known as "world music" or "world beat." But jazz trumpeter and cornet player Don Cherry had become immersed in these unusual outpourings almost two decades earlier, traversing the planet in search of ever more exotic sounds, pursuing what he has called "the fun of endless learning." In fact, the nomadic Cherry is regularly referred to as "the musical Marco Polo."
As a trumpeter and veteran of jazz's front lines, Cherry has lent his personal sound and lyricism to groundbreaking work by musicians as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, and Lou Reed. As a teacher, Cherry's students have included, according to his press biography, "Dartmouth [College] upperclassmen, Middle Eastern goatherders, teenagers at a Swedish music camp, and grammar-school children at the Storefront School in [New York City's] Harlem." The trumpet innovator has studied music in Morocco, India, Eastern Europe, and Sweden. And his "acoustic expeditions" throughout the underdeveloped quarters of the Earth are renowned.
Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on November 18, 1936, the grandson of a Choctaw Indian. He moved with his parents to the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1940, when he was four years old. Back in Oklahoma, Cherry's father, a trumpet player, had overseen the Cherry Blossom Jazz Club; in Los Angeles, the elder Cherry continued to play the trumpet and became involved with the then-flourishing Central Avenue jazz scene. His son was also enchanted by music and took piano lessons before starting trumpet in junior high school.
Cherry's high school music teacher and private tutor was Samuel Brown, who also instructed saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Wardell Gray, trumpeter Art Farmer, and pianist Hampton Hawes. Cherry would skip school to absorb the wisdom of radio tastemaker Johnny Otis and to catch performances by jazz greats Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Los Angeles native Dexter Gordon when they were playing nearby. At the age of 15, his truancy in full flower, Cherry began playing with an impressive jazz band led by Brown at neighboring Jefferson High School. At one point during high school, he led his own group, the Jazz Messiahs. Cherry even gigged with local professionals, including Gordon on occasion; by then he was proficient on the trumpet and piano and could compose as well.
As his high-school career progressed, Cherry's musical instincts began to develop and became more eclectic; he loved bebop, the early rock and roll of the Platters, and the Afro-Cuban sounds brought back to Los Angeles from south of the border by the merchant marine. It was during this seminal time in Cherry's development that he was introduced to saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
Cherry had just returned from a tour of the West Coast and Canada with Texas saxophonist James Clay. At the age of 17, he met Coleman, with whom he would have a long and fruitful association, in a Watts record store. Coleman had been generating quite a bit of controversy with his decidedly different approach to jazz improvisation. Cherry's preferred instrument at the time was a high-pitched pocket cornet. The young player's inclusive, experimental approach to his craft enabled him to enthusiastically embrace the style becoming known as free-form jazz.
In 1959 he spent a summer with Coleman at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts; later Coleman's quartet, with Cherry on board, began its legendary engagement at New York City's Five Spot Cafe, which brought international attention and interest to the band. Releasing improvisation from the established chordal specifications of bebop, the quartet would ultimately exert a profound influence on the contemporary music that followed. In those early years of the "free-jazz" movement, Cherry's strong, wiry tone and rhythmically elastic phrasing rendered him an apt foil for Coleman. He developed an assortment of vocalized sounds, producing expressive squeals and split notes on both cornet and pocket trumpet.
After appearing on Coleman's first seven records, Cherry left the visionary saxman's group in 1961. He spent the following eight months playing with saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Over the next few years, Cherry worked with John Coltrane, Steve Lacy, and George Russell. He also co-founded a group called the New York Contemporary Five with saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Tchicai. In 1963, Cherry toured Europe with Albert Ayler and Shepp and met Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri. Soon he was recording with Barbieri.
The full emergence of Cherry from Ornette Coleman's shadow was evidenced in 1965 on his collabortion with Barbieri on Blue Note Records' Complete Communion. Cherry's compositions are continuous, multithematic pieces reflecting a versatile, assertive, and creative improviser. From 1964 to 1966, Cherry co-led a European band with Barbieri.
In the late 1960s, Cherry began to explore the music of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Indonesia. On 1968's Eternal Rhythm, Cherry played native wind and percussion instruments to create novel sounds. His direction was a marked departure from the free-jazz of that era.
After teaching at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College in 1970, Cherry and his family--he is the father of rap-soul artist Neneh Cherry and an actor-drummer son named Eagle-Eye--lived in Sweden until 1975, residing in an art school he had purchased there. After leaving Scandinavia, the family explored Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, traveling by camper. All the while Cherry gave casual concerts and jammed with the locals. "I didn't have any jobs lined up when I went," he revealed in his press biography, "I just went, and that's the way to do it if you're going to meet all the musicians and learn melodies and rhythms--if you're going to see all there is to see."
In the late 1970s, Cherry reunited with three former Coleman sidemen--Dewey Redman, Ed Blackwell, and Charlie Haden--to form the Old and New Dreams Band. The quartet labored to preserve and perpetuate the musical vision of their august former leader. Cherry formed an ensemble called Codona in 1978 with multi-instrumentalists Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos. Codona specialized in a kaleidoscope of ethnic musics. Cherry sang and played piano, organ, melodica, wooden flutes, and a Malian hunter's guitar called the doussn'gouni. He continued to canvass the vast horizon of global music throughout the 1980s. His interests led him to compose extraordinary pieces, many of a solemn and ritualistic complexion.
In 1989, in Hamburg, West Germany, Cherry participated in the premiere production of avant-garde theater impresario Robert Wilson's jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings. Also that year, Rolling Stone named Cherry's Art Deco record of the year. In 1991, the artist received two San Francisco Bay Area Music Awards for his album MultiKulti, its title a play on the word multicultural. By then Cherry had become a Bay Area resident. According to his press bio, Cherry was also honored when New York City's jazz station WKCR-FM aired his work for an entire week, broadcasting over 100 hours of recordings, interviews, and commentary dating from 1959.
In 1990, Cherry hit the road with another quartet, also called MultiKulti, bringing his unique "gumbo" to, and undoubtedly borrowing from, locales from Spain to Japan. He was also performing then with his Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, which had lent a hand to the MultiKulti sessions. "It's a great time in music right now," Cherry told Detroit Free Press contributor W. Kim Heron at the time, "whether they call it global music, world music, world beat, whatever. I just call it multikulti." Of the trumpet player's universal oeuvre Heron wrote, "Cherry's albums have been like so many postcards mailed home from an incredible musical journey."
Don Cherry's Career and Awards
Bay Area Music awards for outstanding jazz album, for MultiKulti, and outstanding reeds/brass player, both 1991.
Don Cherry's Discography
* Selective Works
* The Shape of Jazz to Come Atlantic, 1961.
* Free Jazz Atlantic, 1962.
* Complete Communion Blue Note, 1965.
* Symphony for Improvisers Blue Note, 1966.
* Where Is Brooklyn? Blue Note, 1966.
* Eternal Rhythm BASF, 1968.
* Human Music Flying Dutchman, 1970.
* Old and New Dreams ECM, 1970.
* Codona ECM, 1979.
* Art Deco A&M, 1989.
* MultiKulti A&M, 1991.
* Complete Blue Note Recordings of Don Cherry Mosaic, 1993.
Further Reading and Sources
* Boston Globe, March 16, 1990.
* CMJ New Music Report, November 9, 1990.
* Detroit Free Press, August 17, 1990.
* Downbeat, December 1990; February 1993.
* News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 26, 1991.
* New Statesman, October 16, 1987.
* Newsweek, August 28, 1989.
* People, January 22, 1990.
* Rolling Stone, December 14, 1989; May 2, 1991.
* Stereo Review, February 1990.
* Windplayer, Volume 9, Number 3.
* Wire, September 1990.
* Additional information for this profile was provided by a Brad Simon Organization press biography, 1991.
* --B. Kimberly Taylor
see website
# 2 Donald Ross Cherry (January 11, 1924 – April 4, 2018) was an American traditional pop music and big band singer and former amateur and professional golfer. In music, he is best known for his 1955 hit "Band of Gold".
Cherry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He started as a big band singer in the orchestras of Jan Garber and Victor Young. In 1951 he recorded his first solo hits, "Thinking of You" and "Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle". In 1955 came his biggest hit, "Band of Gold", which reached #5 on the Billboard chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The track peaked at #6 in the UK Singles Chart. He had three more hits in 1956 ("Wild Cherry", "Ghost Town" and "Namely You"), all backed by orchestra leader Ray Conniff. He was also the voice of the Mr. Clean commercials during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Cherry published his biography, Cherry's Jubilee, with co-writer Neil Daniels He is a good friend of Willie Nelson and has collaborated on three albums with him, Augusta (1995), The Eyes of Texas (2002), and It's Magic (2007). Cherry was married four times, once to 1956 Miss America Sharon Ritchie, before wedding his present wife, Francine Bond Smith, in 1993. They live in Las Vegas, Nevada. His son, Stephen, was a casualty of the 9/11 attacks when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. Stephen left behind four sons.
#1 Don Cherry Biography from the Musician Guide website:
Born November 18, 1936, in Oklahoma City, OK; father was a bartender/club manager and trumpet player; wife's name, Moki (an artist); children: Eagle-Eye (son), Nenah (stepdaughter). Education: Attended School of Jazz, Lenox, MA, 1959. Played in Samuel Brown's jazz band, Los Angeles, 1951; led the Jazz Messiahs, c. 1952; toured West Coast and Canada with James Clay; played with Ornette Coleman, beginning in 1953; performed at Five Spot Cafe, New York City, 1959-61; played with Sonny Rollins, 1961; co-founded New York Contemporary Five, c. 1962; toured Europe, 1963; co-led band with Gato Barbieri, 1964-66; member of quartet Old and New Dreams Band, beginning in the late 1970s; formed Codona, 1978; performed in jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings, Hamburg, West Germany, 1989; toured with quartet MultiKulti, beginning in 1990; performed with Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, early 1990s. Teacher at Dartmouth College, 1970. Addresses: Home-- San Francisco, CA. Management-- The Brad Simon Organization, Inc., 122 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022.
By the late 1980s, through the efforts of pop stars like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, and David Byrne, the musical expressions of peoples as far-flung as South Africa, Brazil, and Bulgaria had begun to meld with Western styles to create what has become known as "world music" or "world beat." But jazz trumpeter and cornet player Don Cherry had become immersed in these unusual outpourings almost two decades earlier, traversing the planet in search of ever more exotic sounds, pursuing what he has called "the fun of endless learning." In fact, the nomadic Cherry is regularly referred to as "the musical Marco Polo."
As a trumpeter and veteran of jazz's front lines, Cherry has lent his personal sound and lyricism to groundbreaking work by musicians as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, and Lou Reed. As a teacher, Cherry's students have included, according to his press biography, "Dartmouth [College] upperclassmen, Middle Eastern goatherders, teenagers at a Swedish music camp, and grammar-school children at the Storefront School in [New York City's] Harlem." The trumpet innovator has studied music in Morocco, India, Eastern Europe, and Sweden. And his "acoustic expeditions" throughout the underdeveloped quarters of the Earth are renowned.
Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on November 18, 1936, the grandson of a Choctaw Indian. He moved with his parents to the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1940, when he was four years old. Back in Oklahoma, Cherry's father, a trumpet player, had overseen the Cherry Blossom Jazz Club; in Los Angeles, the elder Cherry continued to play the trumpet and became involved with the then-flourishing Central Avenue jazz scene. His son was also enchanted by music and took piano lessons before starting trumpet in junior high school.
Cherry's high school music teacher and private tutor was Samuel Brown, who also instructed saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Wardell Gray, trumpeter Art Farmer, and pianist Hampton Hawes. Cherry would skip school to absorb the wisdom of radio tastemaker Johnny Otis and to catch performances by jazz greats Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Los Angeles native Dexter Gordon when they were playing nearby. At the age of 15, his truancy in full flower, Cherry began playing with an impressive jazz band led by Brown at neighboring Jefferson High School. At one point during high school, he led his own group, the Jazz Messiahs. Cherry even gigged with local professionals, including Gordon on occasion; by then he was proficient on the trumpet and piano and could compose as well.
As his high-school career progressed, Cherry's musical instincts began to develop and became more eclectic; he loved bebop, the early rock and roll of the Platters, and the Afro-Cuban sounds brought back to Los Angeles from south of the border by the merchant marine. It was during this seminal time in Cherry's development that he was introduced to saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
Cherry had just returned from a tour of the West Coast and Canada with Texas saxophonist James Clay. At the age of 17, he met Coleman, with whom he would have a long and fruitful association, in a Watts record store. Coleman had been generating quite a bit of controversy with his decidedly different approach to jazz improvisation. Cherry's preferred instrument at the time was a high-pitched pocket cornet. The young player's inclusive, experimental approach to his craft enabled him to enthusiastically embrace the style becoming known as free-form jazz.
In 1959 he spent a summer with Coleman at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts; later Coleman's quartet, with Cherry on board, began its legendary engagement at New York City's Five Spot Cafe, which brought international attention and interest to the band. Releasing improvisation from the established chordal specifications of bebop, the quartet would ultimately exert a profound influence on the contemporary music that followed. In those early years of the "free-jazz" movement, Cherry's strong, wiry tone and rhythmically elastic phrasing rendered him an apt foil for Coleman. He developed an assortment of vocalized sounds, producing expressive squeals and split notes on both cornet and pocket trumpet.
After appearing on Coleman's first seven records, Cherry left the visionary saxman's group in 1961. He spent the following eight months playing with saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Over the next few years, Cherry worked with John Coltrane, Steve Lacy, and George Russell. He also co-founded a group called the New York Contemporary Five with saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Tchicai. In 1963, Cherry toured Europe with Albert Ayler and Shepp and met Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri. Soon he was recording with Barbieri.
The full emergence of Cherry from Ornette Coleman's shadow was evidenced in 1965 on his collabortion with Barbieri on Blue Note Records' Complete Communion. Cherry's compositions are continuous, multithematic pieces reflecting a versatile, assertive, and creative improviser. From 1964 to 1966, Cherry co-led a European band with Barbieri.
In the late 1960s, Cherry began to explore the music of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Indonesia. On 1968's Eternal Rhythm, Cherry played native wind and percussion instruments to create novel sounds. His direction was a marked departure from the free-jazz of that era.
After teaching at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College in 1970, Cherry and his family--he is the father of rap-soul artist Neneh Cherry and an actor-drummer son named Eagle-Eye--lived in Sweden until 1975, residing in an art school he had purchased there. After leaving Scandinavia, the family explored Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, traveling by camper. All the while Cherry gave casual concerts and jammed with the locals. "I didn't have any jobs lined up when I went," he revealed in his press biography, "I just went, and that's the way to do it if you're going to meet all the musicians and learn melodies and rhythms--if you're going to see all there is to see."
In the late 1970s, Cherry reunited with three former Coleman sidemen--Dewey Redman, Ed Blackwell, and Charlie Haden--to form the Old and New Dreams Band. The quartet labored to preserve and perpetuate the musical vision of their august former leader. Cherry formed an ensemble called Codona in 1978 with multi-instrumentalists Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos. Codona specialized in a kaleidoscope of ethnic musics. Cherry sang and played piano, organ, melodica, wooden flutes, and a Malian hunter's guitar called the doussn'gouni. He continued to canvass the vast horizon of global music throughout the 1980s. His interests led him to compose extraordinary pieces, many of a solemn and ritualistic complexion.
In 1989, in Hamburg, West Germany, Cherry participated in the premiere production of avant-garde theater impresario Robert Wilson's jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings. Also that year, Rolling Stone named Cherry's Art Deco record of the year. In 1991, the artist received two San Francisco Bay Area Music Awards for his album MultiKulti, its title a play on the word multicultural. By then Cherry had become a Bay Area resident. According to his press bio, Cherry was also honored when New York City's jazz station WKCR-FM aired his work for an entire week, broadcasting over 100 hours of recordings, interviews, and commentary dating from 1959.
In 1990, Cherry hit the road with another quartet, also called MultiKulti, bringing his unique "gumbo" to, and undoubtedly borrowing from, locales from Spain to Japan. He was also performing then with his Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, which had lent a hand to the MultiKulti sessions. "It's a great time in music right now," Cherry told Detroit Free Press contributor W. Kim Heron at the time, "whether they call it global music, world music, world beat, whatever. I just call it multikulti." Of the trumpet player's universal oeuvre Heron wrote, "Cherry's albums have been like so many postcards mailed home from an incredible musical journey."
Don Cherry's Career and Awards
Bay Area Music awards for outstanding jazz album, for MultiKulti, and outstanding reeds/brass player, both 1991.
Don Cherry's Discography
* Selective Works
* The Shape of Jazz to Come Atlantic, 1961.
* Free Jazz Atlantic, 1962.
* Complete Communion Blue Note, 1965.
* Symphony for Improvisers Blue Note, 1966.
* Where Is Brooklyn? Blue Note, 1966.
* Eternal Rhythm BASF, 1968.
* Human Music Flying Dutchman, 1970.
* Old and New Dreams ECM, 1970.
* Codona ECM, 1979.
* Art Deco A&M, 1989.
* MultiKulti A&M, 1991.
* Complete Blue Note Recordings of Don Cherry Mosaic, 1993.
Further Reading and Sources
* Boston Globe, March 16, 1990.
* CMJ New Music Report, November 9, 1990.
* Detroit Free Press, August 17, 1990.
* Downbeat, December 1990; February 1993.
* News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 26, 1991.
* New Statesman, October 16, 1987.
* Newsweek, August 28, 1989.
* People, January 22, 1990.
* Rolling Stone, December 14, 1989; May 2, 1991.
* Stereo Review, February 1990.
* Windplayer, Volume 9, Number 3.
* Wire, September 1990.
* Additional information for this profile was provided by a Brad Simon Organization press biography, 1991.
* --B. Kimberly Taylor
see website
What Reason Could I Give
Don Cherry Lyrics
We have lyrics for 'What Reason Could I Give' by these artists:
Neneh Cherry & The Thing Nae nuni neoreul boado Neoneun bol sugaeobtgo Nae ibi neoreu…
We have lyrics for these tracks by Don Cherry:
Band of Gold I've never wanted wealth untold My life has one design A sim…
Body And Soul My heart is sad and lonely For you I sigh, for…
For You I love you for sentimental reasons I hope you do believe…
Ghost Town When I walk up Main Street It isn't the same street To…
Give Me More I don't believe in frettin' and grievin' Why mess around wit…
I I don't ever care to rise to power I would rather…
I Know Love I love you for sentimental reasons I hope you do believe…
I'll Be Around I'll be around no matter how You treat me now I'll be…
I'm Still a King to You Everytime my castles tumble Everytime I'm feeling blue You t…
It Isn't Fair It isn't fair for you to taunt me How can you…
Love Is Just Around the Corner Beautiful miracle, pardon my lyrical rhapsody, But can't yo…
Maybe You'll Be There Each time I see a crowd of people Just like a…
Melodica Hubo una vez donde en tiempos naufragué casi perdido en un m…
My Future Just Passed There goes the girl I dreamed all through school about,…
Namely You You deserve a boy who's willing Namely me One who'd love to…
Sleepy Time Gal Wouldn't it be a change for you and me to…
That Lucky Old Sun Up in the mornin' out on the job, work like…
The Third Man Theme When a zither starts to play You'll remember yesterday In …
Wild Cherry Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry Living high and, oh, so…
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
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Larry Dvorkin
Rogers, you owe Don Cherry an opportunity to be recognized for his outstanding achievements. By firing him you have shown your lack of respect for his contribution to Canadians. Everybody has an opinion & Don Cherry was able to communicate to Canadians soberly over the years that free speech in Canada is alive and well. Ron Maclean & Don Cherry built a band, Hockey Night in Canada. People tuned in just for their commentary, I didn't watch every game however I always listened & looked forward to the coaches Corner. Coach's Corner wasn't always about Hockey sometimes it was about life & what was going on in the conscious minds of people from all walks of life. For years Don Cherry spoke of our veterans giving them a form so they would not be forgotten. Wars still happen in the world however Don Cherry gave recognition to Men & Women who gave Canada their lives to protect the Canadian way of life.
The point is that today's youth are tomorrow's leaders & Hockey is one venue that creates the character & ability to participate on a team to achieve common objectives. That's what soldiers learn & sometimes give their lives so that the goal can be achieved.
By throwing Don Cherry under the bus Sports Net / Rodgers has weakened the fabric & meaning of being Canadian & being fortunate enough to live in Canada. Hockey is only a small part of the Canadian way & is declining because of the enormous cost to participate. Don Cherry spoke to the youth, he spoke to athletes from all sports & most important he gave a voice to those who gave their lives for this great Country.
Sports Net / Rogers this is your business to run as you see fit & do what you deem necessary to create a market for your product. Your contribution to the sports is state of the art and you deal with the phycological improvement of society with the great programming you provide is fundamental as well as quintessential in society. For this congratulation & continued success.
Now to the main point of my rant, Don Cherry, Ron Maclean ie. Coach's Corner has made a sufficient contribution to your programming. Perhaps you have made a choice to replace Coach's Corner, of course, that is your business. My comment is Sports Net / Rogers by throwing Don Cherry under the bus the way you have by firing him you have damaged the reputation of a man who has given his LIFE not only to Hockey but to his country to promote the values of Canada.
I strongly suggest that you give Mr. Don Cherry what he has earned & is due. That being the respect as well as the consideration for his contribution to Canadians & this great country of Canada.
Don Cherry is getting on in years & perhaps Sports Net has a better idea for coaches corner, I just want to remind you that Studebaker had a great idea for a better automobile, guess what they don't make Studebaker cars anymore. In my opinion, if it isn't broke you don't have to fix it.
This Saturday let Don Cherry announce that he is retiring & how grateful & wonderful it has been to be part of Coaches Corner as well as how the achievements have meant to so many Canadians over the years.
Canadians expect nothing less than respect for this great Canadian Don Cherry.
EJ Cash
Yesterday, I was listening to CJAD 800 in Montreal and the radio talk
show host recalled an incident of a French Speaking Radio personality
making an even worse and disparaging remark on two South Korean baseball
players. This radio talk show host was working for the Montreal Expos
in 2002, the year the Expos traded Cliff Floyd to the Boston Red Sox for
Seung Song and Sun-Woo Kim. He was working for the Expos PR
department and rushed into a French language radio show to announce the
news. This French broadcaster whose name is unknown (the radio show host
would not reveal it during the show) made a breaking news announcement
on air that the Expos traded Cliff Floyd for 2 Egg Rolls! Here's the
astonishing fact, this French radio host did not get fired and today is
still working and makes public appearances. Yet, Don Cherry gets the axe
for something less repugnant. The Hypocrisy in Canada never ceases to amaze me.
knight_yyz
Ron Mclean, you are a weasel. You nodded your head the through his whole rant and the next day you throw him under the bus... Welcome to Canada, where we hold hockey commentators more accountable then the prime minister
Paul Brennan
Dear Knight_yyz: I agree with you completely I never did like this Mamma's boy from day one. I wish they would bring back Dave Hodge.
Kyle Thompson
I'm sure Mclean wanted him gone 25 years ago
The History
@sylzy sylzerz he should go back to red river
Wil
Stop saying me and don.... your not on his level...
Tony P
Yeah he's probably a weasel.. Then again Don cherry should just be sticking to hockey...So it's Don's fault
Melanie Renshaw
My heart goes out to Don Cherry. I feel so bad for him. He's 85 years old and being treated so terribly. Sportsnet should be ashamed of firing him for no good reason. Someone obviously wanted him gone and used it as an excuse to get rid of him.
Tony P
How are they treating him bad when they allowed him to say whatever? Also he was getting paid millions to be on tv for like 5 min a week. This is hockey. Just talk about the games in the nhl. Why does he even have to bring up this poppy thing? It's bad enough they waste 20 min of our time singing the Canadian & American national anthems for each game even though you got players from Europe & Asia. So should we start singing national anthems for each country they represent?...Just stick to hockey.
Paul Deutsch
As an immigrant myself, I cannot see anything wrong with D. Cherry telling us to honor Canadian traditions. We immigrated here to find peace and prosperity which was built by last five generations, not in last fifteen or so years. These generations built here society which no one around the world was able or willing to build. Let's remember that and honor it at least by supporting 'poppy' tradition.
gd3369
@M whats the colour of your skin have to do with it .. Vets should be supported ... they scarified so much for the freedom that we all have in Canada ... and if you wont buy a poppy ... shame on you ... i will by the damn poppy for you ...