Decades after Fly at Night, Bill Henderson of Chilliwack enters Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame
Chilliwack frontman was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame
In his decades-long career, Bill Henderson has received his fair share of accolades. The Vancouver-born rocker was among the first inductees into the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame. His band Chilliwack entered the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in November 2019.
Henderson also won a 1982 Juno for producer of the year with Brian MacLeod even as they knew Chilliwack was breaking up.
On Monday, Henderson was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for his body of work that includes Chilliwack, The Collectors and UHF.
"Bill Henderson is the reason why Chilliwack is one of Canada's most enduring bands. He has been the constant driving force and the heart and soul of the group, through various incarnations," Hall of Fame chairman Stan Meissner said in a statement.
Speaking to CBC's The Early Edition, Henderson said he used his induction speech to share his thoughts on the craft he feels so passionately about.
"I wanted to actually talk about songwriting and how it comes from deep inside," he said. "The good ones generally come from there."
That night he also performed Fly At Night, a 1977 hit that has had remarkable staying power, he says.
The song, he says, came out of a melodic phrase he had been tinkering with. It grew into a description of what it feels like being in a band that loves to play in "big wide spaces" to a "sea of faces."
He adds that the song has taken on a life of its own.
"It's grown over the years," he said.
"It's really something. People come to our shows and now we end with Fly at Night because that's the big one. They want to sing it with us and stuff. It's pretty cool."
How Chilliwack became Chilliwack
Henderson's career stretches back to the 1960s when he was part of The Collectors, a psychedelic band that performed regularly on the CBC program Let's Go!, which was part of a series of music programs across Canada known as Music Hop.
Henderson later formed Chilliwack, scoring hits with Fly at Night, Lonesome Mary, My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) and Watcha Gonna Do, among others.
The band garnered attention across Canada and abroad, but its name is firmly rooted in B.C.
Henderson says he's never had much interest in band names. It was bandmate Ross Turney, who one day on the road said, "Why don't we call ourselves Chilliwack?"
"We went, 'Why would we?'" recalls Henderson.
Turney replied that "it's got a nice sound."
Henderson responded that it's the name of a city an hour's drive east of Vancouver.
"Yeah, but nobody in the rest of the world knows that," Turney replied.
Turney told him Chilliwack means "valley of many streams," an idea that Henderson liked since he was influenced by different genres of music.
Years later, Henderson says he met with a hereditary chief from the region, who told him the name translates to "as far as your canoe can go."
The City of Chilliwack's website cites elder Albert Louie, who said the name derives from a word in Halq'eméylem, the traditional language of the Stó:lō, that means "going as far as you can go upriver" by canoe on the Chilliwack River.
The 78-year-old Henderson says it's a definition that resonates with him.
"We look at it like our canoes are still afloat so it can't be too bad," he says. "I guess it goes quite a ways."
Chilliwack will be performing in Maple Ridge, about 44 kilometres east of Vancouver, and Saskatoon in August.