Fight the good fight

Country singers always tend to project a tough image, so it’s nice to see their vulnerable side.

This week out of the blue, the St. Albert Gazette received a call from singer-songwriter Sean Hogan. The British Columbia based musician had booked a few spring concerts in Alberta. But he wanted to give his mini-tour meaning.

So Hogan contacted Morinville’s Rednex Bar and Grill to book an additional benefit concert – a fundraiser for cancer.

Rednex was enthusiastic and the inaugural Country Kicks Cancer Concert was pencilled in for Wednesday, April 8.

Hogan pulled together a guitar quartet with Alberta country boy Craig Moritz and Ontario country-rock singer Colin Amey. The final member is seven-time CCMA award winner Thomas Wade, whose career received a boost when Celine Dion recorded his song Come to Me on her 2004 album Miracle.

For Hogan, this event is far more than a charity benefit concert. It’s personal.

He is a stage-four cancer survivor. Now cancer-free for three years, Hogan was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer in the throat just behind the mouth.

“It started when I was sick all the time and they thought I had tonsillitis. They gave me antibiotics that didn’t help. The tonsillitis masked the cancer until the summer of 2011 when I was tested for cancer.”

“I had a lump in my throat. It was an egg size tumour below the jaw line.”

Doctors scraped his esophagus, and after 35 rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, he was pronounced cancer free.

“I never smoked in my life, but I grew up in Sarnia, a city with a high chemicals. They take Alberta crude and refine and the compounds in the atmosphere work against your immune system. And I worked in bars thick with cigarette smoke. You were singing deep and sucking it in.”

Cancer’s effect of facing your own mortality changed Hogan’s perspective of life. Since April is daffodil month, he would like to spread the word.

“I was reading some of your Alberta Health statistics. Did you know one in two men get cancer and one in three women come down with it? With odds like you have in Alberta, it behooves people to look around.”

This is not Hogan’s first kick at organizing benefit concerts. In 2004 he created the ongoing Canadian Country Christmas that raised more than $145,000 for community charities, food banks, service groups and hospital foundations.

“I’ve been singing for over 21 years and it wouldn’t be as meaningful if I couldn’t tie it into a benevolent event.”

He invites music fans to join the guitar quartet for some good live music and “fight the good fight.”