Jerry Gray, the leader of the folk-music group The Travellers, was recently awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL).
Jerry Gray of The Travellers
Gray, who founded The Travellers in Toronto in 1953, is the first Jewish winner of the prestigious award. He was honoured for his 60-year musical career and recognized for his significant contributions to the development of the arts in the labour movement.
“The Ontario award was a complete surprise for me,” Gray says. “I am delighted and honoured, firstly because I was nominated for the award by my own union, and secondly, it’s nice to be recognized in a field that I spent my life.”
Gray was nominated for the OFL award by Jim Boros, president of the Toronto Musician’s Association.
In his long musical career, Gray has been in the forefront of the fight for human and civil rights. In 1963, he joined with Harry Belafonte and Oscar Peterson to stage a benefit concert at the O’Keefe Centre (now the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts) in Toronto in support of Martin Luther King Jr., at which they sang We Shall Overcome.
Along with labour material, The Travellers perform for children and a variety of adult groups. Their repertoire includes traditional Canadian and American folk songs, First Nations songs and international music.
Last May, Gray and The Travellers hosted a tribute concert in Toronto to celebrate Pete Seeger’s life and songs. Seeger, 90, has been a prominent figure in the American folk-music scene for more than 70 years.
In 2001, the National Film Board produced a 90-minute documentary about The Travellers’ early years called The Travellers: This Land Is Your Land. It has been shown on television several times and at several film festivals.
Gray divides his time performing, either as a solo act or with The Travellers, and teaching at several Florida universities, where he is a professor of folk-music studies.
“I enjoy teaching very much because when I teach a historical song that people recognize, I teach them where the song was written and the circumstances under which it was written. My students’ appreciation is most gratifying,” he says.
In June 2010, Gray will be the first Canadian to win the Joe Hill Award, which is awarded annually by the Washington-based Labor Heritage Foundation American Federation of Labor/ Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL/CIO) to leaders and artists who have contributed to the integration of arts and culture in the labour movement.
Gray says that as the first Canadian to receive this award, he joins the “list of outstanding winners, including Pete Seeger and [labour activist] Cesar Chavez.”
