For a great many musicians, a fond memory of youth is spending hours wandering through one of those wonderful, small music stores with guitars hanging everywhere, getting lost in dreams of a guitar you’ll own one day, if you work and practice hard enough.
For thousands of Peterborough musicians, that memory conjures up one name: Bud Monahan.
The Peterborough music scene and the name Bud Monahan have been synonymous for over 50 years. Few have exercised such an influence over musicians in the Kawartha region. For nearly all his life, music played an integral part.
In early days, Bud played with many legendary names in Peterborough music, such as Paul Konkle, Del Crary and Freddie Coupland. Teaching music at such memorable establishments as Rawson’s and Musicland led to opening Bud Monahan’s House of Guitars. For over 40 years, Bud supplied instruments and taught the rudiments to literally thousands of aspiring musicians. In many instances, Bud taught multiple members of the same family, employing many former students as teachers.
For Bud, music supplied an extended family and a generational rite of passage. Good musicians will tell you it’s in the sharing of same that music affords the greatest satisfaction – and it’s in playing, teaching and sharing by which Bud Monahan personified the greatest gift of music.
- photo courtesy Clifford Skarstedt, The Peterborough Examiner