TORONTO — On stage, there are moments your forget John Mann’s plight. The Spirit of the West frontman can still belt out a tune and the power of his voice is still there on hits “Home for a Rest” and “If Venice is Sinking.”
But there are moments where you can see he panic in his eyes as he loses his place, unsure of either the lyrics or the tune he’s sung countless times before. That’s when you see the signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Nowadays, his wife Jill Daum told Global News, music is his means of communication.
“It’s how he communicates,” said Daum. “Because he can’t have a conversation.”
“He can listen and follow, but he can’t answer your question.”
Mann, now 53, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s three years ago. His bandmates were the first to notice it, wondering why and how he was so lost on stage.
When they finally did get a definitive diagnosis, they weren’t surprised.
Mann recently took the stage in Toronto to support the Alzheimer Society’s iPod music program. The idea is to fill an iPod with the soundtrack of people’s lives. It does wonders for people suffering from dementia — including Mann.
READ MORE: John Mann, Spirit of the West lead singer, to perform at Alzheimer’s benefit concert
For a while, Mann could still play music — to a point.
He had to put his guitar away and devise a way to remember his lyrics.
Frank said the band tried positioning pieces of Bristol board with the lyrics written out at the front of the stage, but that didn’t work. “It was a great big mess,” he said. “It was horrible.”
So, he researched programs for the iPad and found one that he could control with a kick pedal. But as the disease progressed even that proved too arduous.
This past April, Spirit of the West performed its last shows as a band, at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom.
Earlier this year, Mann and Daum sought out any sort of treatment that would improve his condition.
But despite being in one of the top Canadian bands of the 1980s and 90s, they were short of funds.
So they crowdsourced, raising enough money to go to mexico for stem cell therapy.
“He could feel the stem cells when they went in his lumbar region,” said Daum. “He’d go like, ‘This feels fantastic, I feel really good.’ So we kept going, but it didn’t change the Alzheimers.”
Daum said despite his deteriorated condition, music is still very much a part of Mann’s life.
“It’s just that he’s John when he plays music,” she said.
When he took the stage at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern June 2, Mann left the small crowd of fans with a very personal message. With tears in his eyes, Mann sang “Power to Forget”, a song about his life with Alzheimer’s and one of the last songs he ever put to paper.
Comments