Jerry Paquette; on keys with Kantu Blues Band
Jerry Paquette just went through the fight of his life. After contracting Legionnaire’s Disease, the legendary New England guitarist’s doctors didn’t think he was going to make it. “At one point they told my sister, ‘he’s in real bad shape and if he makes it through the next 24 hours he has a chance‘. I never want to go through it again, I’ll tell you that.”
His Legionnaire’s Disease came out of nowhere. It’s a form of pneumonia that he never dealt with before, though he was hospitalized in the past for general pneumonia “I don’t get sick. I’m fairly healthy,” he said.
“It took me close to a year to get my strength back but other than that everything is working,” Paquette said. “They took me to the VA (in Manchester, New Hampshire) first. I was unconscious. Then they took me from the VA to the Elliot (in Manchester), and I was there for four or five days. I was on life support for eight days. Then they airlifted me to Brigham And Women‘s (in Boston). I was in a coma there for 17 days. They put me in a coma. Then I had dialysis for thee weeks. I had to get enough strength up to walk and everything and do things before they let me leave there. I just finished my last visit with the nurses. I’m on my own now. I’ve got to keep doing everything that they were doing with me.”
Paquette’s ordeal began at the end of last August. He said that his health workers had asked him if he had been to Hampton Beach. He had, but he was in Hampton earlier in the summer on a bike ride where he came just for a few drinks while sitting outside. That ruled out his contracting the disease as several others in highly covered news stories did when staying at Hampton Beach resorts and using their hot tubs.
“I didn’t do any hot tubs,” he said. “They asked me also if I had been to Wal-Mart. I asked ‘Why Wal-Mart?’ They said those sprinklers that spray the vegetables down, if those aren’t kept continuously clean, that bacteria can grow and cause it. It also could have been from my air conditioner because I have a wall unit, not a removable unit. That’s where it all started to begin with.”
Paquette’s friends from the music scene, harmonica player Otis Doncaster and bass player Mickey Maguire and others, put together a fundraising benefit for him at Hillsboro American Legion Hall in Hillsboro, New Hampshire. The turn out of 300 people, who packed the hall, melted Paquette’s heart.
“The bartenders made out real well too,” Paquette quipped. “Needless to say, I got tanked. Everybody was buying me drinks. I was trying to give a little time to each person there because I appreciated them being there. But, I don’t think I got everybody because as time went on, everybody I stopped to talk to wanted to buy me a drink. That would have been three hundred drinks. I would’ve been dead. That would put the doctors out of business.”
Jerry Paquette
A lot of people call Paquette the reverend because he makes people feel like they are having a religious experience when he plays and or when he helps the downtrodden with their woes. One benefit organizer, bassist Mickey Maguire, explained Jerry Paquette’s popular appeal: “Jerry is real,” Maguire stated flatly. “He’s real in his music. If he’s not feeling it, he doesn’t play it. If the music isn’t playing right on stage, he walks off the stage because he feels it. He’s real. There’s nothing fake about Jerry Paquette. He has no filter because he is real. What is special about him? There’s a lot. Truly a reverend, he’s saved many people’s lives by being there for people and never judging anybody anywhere and finding people in their lows I asked him one time ‘You’re a reverend and you hang out in bars’ and he said ‘God’s work happens everywhere.’
Born to be a musician, Paquette started playing ukulele when he was four before receiving a plastic toy guitar a year later then receiving at age seven a big hollow body acoustic. “It was used,” he said “I got a picture of me playing it at seven years old. It was huge. It was bigger than me.” From there, Paquette had taught himself to play that guitar and then piano.
Paquette broke into the music scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts after moving there from Canada’s Prince Edward Island. A 12 year old Paquette met his friend and mentor Preacher Jack who had convinced him to play music professionally. Paquette’s older brother was already playing out and their mother had to go with them until he was 14 and his brother was 21.
“I (eventually) didn’t need my mother there. I had to have someone over 21 there,” Paquette said. “I played in Cambridge every Thursday night for quite a while at the Plough And Star. We were doing a duo there. There was a nice stage there too when it was there.”
Paquette first came to Cambridge in 1965 to visit his mother then came back to live in that city in 1966. In addition to Plough And Stars, Paquette also landed gigs at Jonathan Swift’s and at the Can-tab. In 1984, Paquette moved to New Hampshire where things went exceedingly well, playing three hundred plus gigs a year. He had created his legendary Kantu Blues Band which caught on like wildfire.
“Kantu has been together since,” he said. “I mean I use different players because you know in this business it’s hard to find responsible people. But, it’s still Kantu. The music is the same. I make it Kantu. I hire the players. Kantu started in 1984. In ‘82 we called it Crawford Street Boogie Band.”
Paquette said his biggest, proudest accomplishment has been hanging in there over the years and being generous with his ability to work benefits.
“I used to think about being famous and being recognized. I come to realize that we’re all put here for a reason. I think my reason was to use it for different things. Any time somebody was in need, and they were doing a benefit, I’d always get asked to play for the benefit. So, we did a lot of free shows to help people.”
His second biggest accomplishment is his ability to express whatever he feels in any given moment, in several different genres. Paquette grew up playing Scottish and Irish tunes in his native Prince Edward Island before learning country music, rockabilly, southern rock and then the blues. Once he was into the blues, he couldn’t get enough of it.
“It captured my soul. It’s like an addiction. I just crave it. I crave the music, the blues music,” he said. “I love boogie woogie too.” When Paquette’s name comes up among musicians, his friends often say “Jerry’s not perfect, but he’s a good guy at heart, and he’s a brilliant musician.” When asked why people make a point of saying he’s not perfect, Paquette was direct and honest.
“Well, I’ve had my run ins,” he said. “I still drink, but I don’t drink like I used to. I dabbled in drugs for a while too. So, that may be what they’re talking about because I wasn’t secretive about it. I don’t hide nothing. It’s better that way that people know up front. They don’t find it out and start talking behind your back. I’m away from all that shit now and I don’t miss it.”
Paquette is considered by many New England musicians to be as gifted as the greats like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, only he wasn’t lucky enough to be discovered by the right people. “I’m flattered,” Paquette said, “and I’ve heard a lot of talk about it from different players, and I’m really happy that they feel that way. I mean, I don’t know. If I had put more time into that and focused on that, maybe they’re right. I don’t feel that way. I’m just glad they do.”
Before his battle with Legionnaire’s Disease, Paquette was already out of commission as a guitarist for two years. He had hurt his left hand yet has still been able to play piano. “I’m getting back into guitar now because my hand is like still sensitive but I can still use it. I think I can overcome that.”
Asked where he would like to go from here with his health and his music career, Paquette said he only needs to continue his path.
“I’ve lived the blues so I’ve paid my dues and I’ve earned the title ‘blues man,’ so just keep plugging away at what I’ve been doing and collect it all (in a box set) when I’m dead. Maybe my kids can do something with it, if they’re interested in doing something with it.”
Anybody who can lend some support to Jerry Paquette during his need for medical supplies, medicine, physical therapy and any other costs, please visit: https://www.gofundme.com/jerry-paquette?fbclid=IwAR1qWwPUGQ8OxNs8zVkacwd7fr0h9Yb-7r9xiFtN1HeNO0hFpfrN8G_CQPE
