Roy Charles Forbes (born February 13, 1953) is a Canadian

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

singer-songwriter, whose music bears heavy influences from classic American genres of

acoustic blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

and traditional

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...

. Forbes is known for his high soulful voice and percussive guitar playing.

Early life and education

Forbes was born and grew up in

Dawson Creek, British Columbia Dawson Creek is a city in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The municipality of had a population of 12,978 in 2016. Dawson Creek derives its name from the creek of the same name that runs through the community. The creek was named after G ...

. He learned to play guitar at age 14,"Roy Forbes"
''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', Durrell Bowman, April 9, 2013 and had the childhood nickname, "Bim".

Career

Forbes, calling himself "Bim," began his musical career in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

in 1971 after winning a "Battle of the Bands" competition in Dawson Creek. Initially, he appeared as the opening act for such groups as

Supertramp Supertramp were a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Marked by the individual songwriting of founders Roger Hodgson (vocals, keyboards and guitars) and Rick Davies (vocals and keyboards), the group were distinguished for blending p ...

and

Santana Santana may refer to: Transportation * Volkswagen Santana, an automobile * Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles * Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer * Sailboat designs by W. D. Schock Corp ** Santana 20 ** Santan ...

, but soon came to headline and sell out his own shows. His song "Can't Catch Me", from his first LP ''Kid Full of Dreams'', was released as a single and hit the Top 10 in several major Canadian markets. His third LP "Thistles" was produced by

Emitt Rhodes Emitt Lynn Rhodes (February 25, 1950 – July 19, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer. At the age of 14, Rhodes began his career in musical ensembles the Palace Guard as the group's drummer bef ...

and featured Mac Cridlin,

David Foster David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian record producer, composer, arranger, and musician. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His career began as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark in the early 1970s befor ...

Bob Glaub Bob Glaub (born May 10, 1952)Hageman, William (April 29, 2005)."The aces of bass: Five giants of an overshadowed instrument", Knight Ridder Tribune News Service. is an American bass player and session musician. He has played with such artists an ...

, Penny Nichols,

Jeff Porcaro Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer. He is best known for being the co-founder and drummer of the rock band Toto, but is also one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundr ...

Ron Tutt Ronald Ellis Tutt (March 12, 1938 – October 16, 2021) was an American drummer who was the principal drummer for Elvis Presley, the Carpenters, Roy Orbison, Neil Diamond, and Jerry Garcia. He was also a session drummer who recorded with some of ...

Blue Williams Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The term ''blue'' generally descr ...

and

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. Forbes has appeared as a headliner in most of Canada's major folk music festivals. In 1984, he toured in the US with fellow Canadian

Ferron Ferron Foisy (born Deborah Foisy on 1 June 1952; known professionally as Ferron) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and poet. In addition to gaining fame as one of Canada's most respected songwriters, Ferron, who is openly lesbian, became one of t ...

, with whom he performed a duet on the song "Proud Crowd/Pride Cried" for her album, ''

Shadows on a Dime ''Shadows on a Dime'' is a folk-rock album by the Canadian singer-songwriter Ferron. It was originally released in 1984 on the independent label Lucy Records; subsequently it has been re-released on LP, CD and cassette by Redwood Records and Cherr ...

''. In 1987, he began performing and recording as Roy Forbes. He is also a member of the supergroup

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

, together with

Shari Ulrich Sharon "Shari" Ulrich (born 17 October 1951) is a Canadian/American musician and songwriter. She has also worked as a television host, actress, film composer, and educator. A multi-instrumentalist, she plays Violin, Mandolin, guitar, piano, and Du ...

and Bill Henderson. Songs written by Forbes have been recorded by

Sylvia Tyson Sylvia Tyson, (''née'' Fricker; born 19 September 1940) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician and broadcaster. She is best known as part of the folk duo Ian & Sylvia, with Ian Tyson. Since 1993, she has been a member of the all-female folk ...

Garnet Rogers Garnet Rogers (born May 1955) is a Canadian folk musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario with Maritime roots. Early life Rogers was born in Hamilton, Ontario to Nathan Allison Rogers and Valerie (née Bushell) ...

Valdy Paul Valdemar Horsdal, (born 1 September 1945), commonly known as Valdy, is a Canadian folk and country musician whose solo career began in the early 1970s. He is known for "Rock and Roll Song", his first mainstream single. Valdy is the winner o ...

, and

Susan Jacks Susan Jacks ( Pesklevits; 19 August 1948 – 25 April 2022) was a Canadian singer-songwriter and record producer. Career Susan Pesklevits was born on 19 August 1948 to a family of eight children in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her family moved to ...

. Since 2006, Forbes has hosted a weekly radio program called "Roy's Record Room" on the

CKUA Radio Network CKUA Radio is a Canadian donor-funded community radio station based in Edmonton, Alberta. Originally located on the campus of the University of Alberta in Edmonton (hence the UA of the call letters), it was the first public broadcaster in Canada ...

in Alberta. He previously hosted a program known as "Snap Crackle Pop" on

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

across Canada from 1996 to 2009. Both programs feature songs taken from his extensive collection of vintage records.

Discography

as Bim

* ''Kid Full of Dreams'' (1975) (#72 Canada) * ''Raincheck on Misery'' (1976) (#59 Canada) * ''Thistles'' (1978) * ''Anything You Want'' (1982) * ''New Songs for an Old Celebration'' with

Connie Kaldor Connie Isabelle Kaldor, (born 9 May 1953) is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. She is the recipient of three Juno awards. Early life and education Kaldor was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. She graduated from Campbell Collegiate in Regina in 19 ...

(1985)

as Roy Forbes

* ''Love Turns to Ice'' (1987) * ''The Human Kind'' (1992) * ''Almost Overnight'' (1995) * ''Crazy Old Moon'' (1998) * ''Some Tunes For That Mother Of Mine'' (2006) * ''Strikin' Matches – LIVE!'' (2014) * ''Edge of Blue'' (2020)

with UHF

* ''UHF'' (1990)"Artist: Forbes, Roy (aka Bim)"
''The Canadian Pop Encyclopedia''. * ''UHF II'' (1994)

References

External links

Roy Forbes
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Forbes, Roy 1953 births Canadian folk singer-songwriters Canadian male singer-songwriters Singers from British Columbia Living people People from Dawson Creek 20th-century Canadian male singers 21st-century Canadian male singers 20th-century Canadian singer-songwriters 21st-century Canadian singer-songwriters