Gene MacLellan

Born on 2 February 1938 in Val-d’Or, Quebec, and raised in Toronto after his family relocated, Gene MacLellan took up guitar and vocals while performing with the rock outfit Little Caesar And The Consuls. In the mid-1960s he settled on Prince Edward Island for several years, where he began appearing regularly on radio and television, notably including segments on Don Messer’s Jubilee and Singalong Jubilee. It was during the latter program that he first encountered Anne Murray, whose 1970 recording of his song “Snowbird” earned MacLellan a Juno Award for Composer of the Year. The same composition was later cut by Chet Atkins, Perry Como, Loretta Lynn and Hank Snow. Another of his numbers, “Put Your Hand In The Hand,” reached listeners in 1971 via the Canadian group Ocean and subsequently found more than a hundred additional interpreters, among them Joan Baez, Bing Crosby and Elvis Presley. Further MacLellan titles that gained attention include “The Call,” “Continental Blues,” “Thorn In My Shoe” and “Death Of The Black Donnellys.”

After stepping away from music in the early 1970s, he resurfaced in 1977 with the album If It’s Alright With You and followed it with a collection of gospel material recorded alongside Marty Reno. Recognition arrived again in 1987 when PRO Canada presented him with the Wm Harold Moon Award for International Achievement. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he preferred intimate venues—churches, prisons and retirement homes—over larger stages. Early in the decade he joined Murray on stage for her Juno Hall of Fame induction and appeared at a separate event at which the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada designated “Snowbird,” “The Call” and “Put Your Hand In The Hand” as Canadian classics.

Following his death on 19 January 1995 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, MacLellan received posthumous induction into the Canadian Country Music Association’s Hall of Honour along with several additional honors.