Jeff White to be remembered at wake Sun. May 17 at Grossman’s
It is very difficult to accept that the life force of the animated, fun-loving and very funny man, bass player/songwriter/guitarist Jeffrey John McGregor White (J.J. or T-Bone to his friends) has been stilled forever. Yet with Jeff’s passing at 55 years of age during the second week of May, that sad reality is thrust upon us.
I first met Jeff shortly after starting this magazine in 1992 when he was part of the infamous band The Bonerz, headed by Andy Carruthers, who died far before his time in 1993. I’ll never forget how one snowy night in early ‘93, when things were very desperate for me and I was feeling very down and out and discouraged, J.J., who I didn’t know really all that well at the time, lent me $20 —and bought me a beer to boot— to help cheer me up.
Jeff was always encouraging and friendly like that and had a way of making me and many others relax and not take life too seriously. He had the aura of a mystic seer about him and while his visions and pronouncements didn’t always make a lot of sense to me, it somehow made me feel uplifted and inspired to hear them. He had a way of diverging onto a tangent that to him seemed to go to the heart of the matter that was charming, perplexing and endearing. He was also, of course, a true party animal who drank and engaged in other pleasures with the same fierce commitment that he’d brought to his days of playing Junior hockey with the Toronto Marlboros.
As a bass player with Jerome Godboo’s self-titled and Deep Down bands, as an adjunct with One Monkey, as the accompanist to Ruth “Onca Ray” Taylor in a couple of different bands and as a songwriter-performer who loved the music he made, and did so superbly, Jeff will remain an icon to many performers and fans for many years to come.
On Sun., May 17, many of them will gather at Grossman's for Brian Cober’s Sunday jam to hoist a brew and play some tunes in his honour. -17
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