Guitar-player  Johnny MacCaskill will be sharing the stage with Uncle George and Roger Hamelin on Sunday, December 4 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Windsor Tavern in Vankleek Hill. He will have his new CD: “After 40 years” for sale and looks forward to meeting some of his fans.
Johnny MacCaskill began his musical career in the early 1960s playing at church socials and accompanying Donald Ian MacLeod and the Glen Orchestra at local halls and gathering throughout North Glengarry and Prescott County.
“I thought I had hit the big times when I was asked to be part of the grandstand show at the Vankleek Hill Fair with Dougie Trineer and his band backing me onstage,” says MacCaskill.
He had played in many local bars in Quebec and also in Alexandria and the area. In the early 1970s, MacCaskill and a few other musicians formed a group in Ottawa and played concerts and engagements in that city.
It was around this time that MacCaskill says he stepped back from the music scene and began raising his family, building a house, doing renovations and building custom kitchens and then later, auctioneering for about 15 years while working full-time with a civil engineering team.

It was not until after retirement that MacCaskill returned to music. He began performing at festivals in the area.
But a few years ago, a chance meeting at a campground brought the opportunity to play at a fundraising weekend in Quyon, Quebec and that lead him to the Shawville Jamboree and then, the Greely Jamboree.

MacCaskill says it was family and friends who persuaded him to produce his own CD.
“We named it ‘After 40 years’ because it was truly 40 years since I had stepped away from the music scene,” says MacCaskill.
During the three years it took to produce the CD, MacCaskill says that one New Year’s Eve, he found himself in the Ottawa Heart Institute and underwent open-heart surgery.
“Because of that, I felt it was appropriate that all profits from the sale of the CD would go to the Ottawa Heart Institute,” MacCaskill says.
“I have been overwhelmed by the response and comments about our CD and I hope that everyone enjoys it as much as I have enjoyed making it,” MacCaskill said.