New festival honours great guy, great musician (14 photos)

Just a few days before he passed away from colon cancer last year, dedicated musician and teacher Mike Case was still giving music lessons.

Case had struggled for eight years with the disease before finally succumbing, but his positive attitude and dedication to spreading the love of music lasted right to the end.

“Because he persevered so much longer than anyone expected, he’d tell us that he felt he actually beat the cancer,” said Case’s son, TJ Case.

Besides starting up Case’s Music and being in the successful Sault-area band White Stallion, Case was known as one of the Sault’s most prolific music teachers.

Often as a way of giving students a taste of what its like to be in a professional band, Case would get his students to join and perform live in bands he’d make up like the MC Angels, the MC Rockers, and the Mike Case Junior All Stars, a group that featured students as young as five years old.

Many of his old students, as well as Case’s family and friends, showed up at the Laird Fairgrounds on Saturday for the first annual Mike Case Country Music Festival, a musical tribute and charity event in his honour.

His close friend, Country 104.3 radio personality Jeff McNeice, said that throughout Case’s battle with cancer his fun and affable nature, as well as his dedication to music, came out.

“I think he had 53 chemotherapy treatments. He would plan each treatment and his recovery time around the next gig. He had it down to the day. Sometimes he might not actually be good enough to play but he’d do it anyways because the music and the crowd drove him," said McNeice.

McNeice said his positive attitude did wonders for his fellow patients in the cancer ward.

“He encouraged a lot of people. He was like a one man cheering section for them.”

At the festival, those who knew Case could not talk enough about his friendliness, upbeat attitude, and sense of humour.

“My dad was great guy. He loved everyone and would do anything for anyone. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He never had a negative thing to say about anyone and no one had a negative thing to say about him,” said TJ Case.

Tyson Hanes took guitar lessons from Case while in high school and then in his early twenties moved down to Nashville to become a professional singer-songwriter.

Hanes said Case treated him like a son, taking him under his wing and teaching him a lot about the professional music industry, especially the cutthroat world of Nashville.

“Mike had been to Nashville when he was younger and he gave me a heads up about a lot of stuff. He warned me about the scammers – people down there who will offer you the world, take your money, and never give you anything,” said Hanes.

Hanes also spoke to the quality of Mike Case as a musician.

“Mike was a wild all-around musician; he could play anything from chicken-picker electric guitar, to violin, to banjo, or even the drums. He was the best all around Sault area musician that I've known,” he said.

Case’s ex-wife and former band mate Paula Case said that he was “a guitar virtuoso” and a musician who was “just beyond…the best of the best.”

“If you went up to him and said 'I want to play something in the key of G', he’d just ask you to hum a few notes and then he could play whatever it is you wanted, and he’d make your song sound exciting and just really great,” she said.

One of the event organizers, Christine Irvine-O’hara, said she wanted to put on the festival after the success of a ‘life celebration’ and jam-out they held for Case last year and as “a way of giving back” to the community.

Saturday’s event featured performances by Asylum Country, White Stallion, MC Angels, and more.

Some of the event proceeds will go to the Laird County Fair and the Sault Cancer Clinic.