NDG Wheel Club's future in limbo as longtime owner retires
'I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,' says Dickie Hearn, who's owned the club for 37 years
Editor's note: As of Feb. 4, the Wheel Club is under new management — at least for now. Three NDG residents will run the bar for the rest of the winter and decide in April if they'll take it over. Meantime, Hillbilly Night continues on Mondays, and the new managers will hold their first Open Mic night on Saturday, Feb. 9.
Dickie Hearn bought the Wheel Club about 37 years ago.
He had come to Montreal in 1957 from Newfoundland to find a job. Now at 82, he's about to retire.
"I'm getting a little long in the tooth."
The club is located in basement of an office building on Cavendish Blvd. in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and over the decades he's turned the tiny space into an anchor for Montreal's country scene.
The final curtain?
It's a Monday evening in January, and Hearn is about to host what may be the last Hillbilly Night at the Wheel Club.
The weekly night of country music has been drawing crowds for more than 50 years — it first started in 1966 in another location before settling at the Wheel Club in NDG in the mid-1990s. Now if the club closes, Hillbilly Night will need to find a new home.
"I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst."
Hearn says he's frantically trying to find somebody to take over the lease. There is a prospective buyer, but Hearn says they're having difficulty reaching an agreement with the owner of the building.
"If they don't figure it out, I'm afraid the Wheel Club is bye-bye."
He's says if the club closes, he'll need to sell everything inside.
"It's upsetting for everybody, especially for … Hillbilly Night."
Jeannie Arsenault is one of the organizers of Hillbilly Night. She took over from Bob Fuller, who created the event. He died earlier this year.
One of her roles is to enforce the longstanding rule that all the country songs performed predate 1965. There is, however, an exception for blue grass, because it's acoustic.
"Bob Fuller didn't want drums, horns and all that stuff. Nothing that shouldn't be in country music," she says.
Arsenault says the rule will be broken every once in a while by people who don't know better. If this happens, she'll stop the music — as was the case for a woman who once tried to play the Dolly Parton song, Jolene.
"She started to sing it, and I went in front of the stage and said, 'Stop, stop, stop.'"
She believes the success of Hillbilly Night, which just celebrated its 53rd anniversary, comes down to love and friendship.
"It's a love of music and a love of friends. We made a lot friends here."
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