Greg Ball was born and raised in the picturesque southwestern Ontario community of St. Marys, near London. At summer camp as a teen, he experienced one of those ‘life changing’ moments that many adolescents endure, but it’s one that has made his life richer.
“It was when a camp counsellor stole the heart of one girl away from me. We were about to make out and he brought out a guitar and sang a song around a camp fire and she fell in love with him. He was counsellor so nothing happened, but it totally turned her off me. I witnessed first-hand the power that music could have. I was like, holy crap; I need to get a guitar. I asked my mom for a guitar and my folks have always been totally supportive so I got a guitar and a chord chart and started plugging away.”
After playing around the southwestern Ontario region for a while, he moved to Vancouver to follow his musical dreams, before eventually finding his way to Kingston in the early 2000s, where he has become an integral part of the vibrant local music scene. Early in his tenure in the Limestone City, he came into the orbit of Paul Langlois (The Tragically Hip) who was in the process of setting up his indie label, Ching Music, and who saw promise in the scruffy newcomer and his unique creative take on the world.
Ball and Langlois have developed both a musical and personal friendship over the last few years – Langlois has produced (and sung on) Ball’s last 3 albums and Ball sang back-ups on 2 songs on Langlois’ second solo effort, Not Guilty (Common Ground and Not Guilty).
They also play regularly in a side project of theirs with 2 other musical friends (Jim Tidman + Joe Carscallen) in The Campfire Liar’s Club, an acoustic songwriter’s circle type-thing.
With 2018 planted firmly in the rearview mirror, it’s time for Kingstonist to take a look back at the year in local music.
Our thriving local music scene continued to provide great new music for us to hear. There were new releases in 201...
For physical events that happen at a specific time. For example a concert, or dance performance. If there are multiple shows, you can still duplicate your event to cover them all.
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
