Windsor's Own Humble Success - Windsor Star (September 11th, 2006)

If I were lucky enough to have a song of mine played on public access radio, I'd shout it from the highest mountaintop. If I wrote music, that is. If there were mountains within 500 miles of Windsor, yes, I might even climb one and shout from it.

Ron Leary, with his recently released roots/folk album, The Road In Between, should be yelling from the top of anything above ground level for very good reason; he's a success. He has made me a proud Windsorite in past weeks, and not just because he creates music the way most of us create hot air.

With good news burning a hole in his guitar case, he somehow failed to let it slip out that he has recently had five songs from his new album selected to play on the new CBC Television drama, 11 Cameras (whose 22-episode season ended Thursday).

Leary's friend Dean Drouillard, another Windsor product and export, had the chance to hand a CBC producer his own new album, Harmony Motel, along with Ron's. The CBC producer loved the samples enough to select Leary and Drouillard's music. One of Drouillard's tunes was even chosen to be the show's theme song.

A fellow skilled musician, Lee Gaul, stopped Leary one evening and asked him if he had actually heard Leary's music on television. Had I personally not been within earshot, I'd still be clueless. "I'm not big on tootin' my own horn," Leary said plainly. Maybe it's compiling over 20 years of experience that keeps you from gloating when you have glaring commercial successes.

"I don't think of myself as commercial. I feel like I'm indie ... do it yourself," Leary said. Yes, fine, you're not commercial, but why didn't you tell anyone Ron? His simple, perfect response, "I put it on my website!" wobbled in the air around me, pointing to the lack of awareness on my part: on our part.

Leary has been noted as the "King of Open Mic" because he has hosted six different showcases in recent years. He has a microphone at his disposal several nights per week, and still doesn't bother to blabber about his newest gem. "I play every night in this city. I think enough people hear me," Leary said.

In this world full of eagerness to self-congratulate before anyone else has a chance, it was the clearest breath of fresh attitude I had experienced in years. Ron Leary and his cohorts are class acts, with talent beaming out in all directions. You won't hear it from them. That's why you're reading it here.

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