Talented friends of equally talented Amy Doolittle are holding a benefit concert for the singer-musician, who suffers from ALS
By MARK BONOKOSKI




As these words are being written, the crystal-clear voice of Amy Doolittle is heard singing in the background, her flute is heard soaring ... the melodic strum of her guitar, the complex melding of the keys of her piano -- all her phenomenal talents on display, all perfectly recorded on her last CD.

And it is heartbreaking to listen to that CD -- knowing that it is over.

Knowing that her music has effectively died.

And knowing that her own life will be next -- sooner rather than later -- but not without first travelling down one of fate's cruellest roads.

Lou Gehrig's, or ALS, is an evil disease. Its medical name -- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- sounds evil. It takes a person's body prisoner, and then it takes the person.



It has no early diagnosis because it masks so many ills. And it has no cure.

Amy Doolittle noticed something amiss in 2003 when she began stubbing her foot on virtually nothing.

"Being a musician, I knew right away that the rhythm of my walk had changed," she says. "Right then, I knew something was different, and it wasn't good."

CRUEL ROAD

A year later, after being tested for everything else, it came down to ALS.

Tonight, at the Rose Theatre in Brampton, beginning at 7 p.m., the talented friends of the talented Amy Doolittle are holding a benefit concert on her behalf, knowing that the cruellest of roads will also be an expensive one to travel -- with a home to renovate for wheelchair accessibility, all downhill from there, with medications not covered by insurance, with the ability to earn a living gone, and total incapacitation looming, and then nothing but death awaiting at the end of a relatively short cul-de-sac.

There is no good prognosis when it comes to ALS.

She has been given two years, she says, maybe five.

Entitled A Musical Life, the benefit will feature such notables as guitarist Rik Emmett of Triumph fame; my friend, singer-songwriter, David Leask; Corduroy Road; Robert Aitken; Bill Candy; the Chamber Music Society of Mississauga; Eileen Keown and Jennifer Tung; Joe Macerollo; the Jerry Stiff Band; the Cawthra Park Chamber Singers; and, performing a special tribute, Amy Doolittle's 16-year-old daughter, Carolyn Hyde.

The Rose Theatre will be the place to be, and the place to be needed.

"It is a special concert for a special person," says David Leask, an award-winning musician. "We met 10 years ago through the Mississauga Arts Council where Amy worked tirelessly to promote artists in her city. It is not difficult to become fast friends with her. She is charming, spunky, and truly one of life's great characters."

With her diagnosis of ALS made official in 2004, Amy Doolittle's voice is no longer crystal clear. Her breathing is shallow now, and forced. She can no longer sing, or play the flute which she had so magnificently mastered. Her hands no longer have strength or dexterity. Her piano cannot be played, the frets of her guitar cannot be manipulated.

"Losing my (range of) voice is perhaps the worst blow so far," she says. "My voice was so much a part of me -- as a singer, as a musician, as a teacher, as an organizer.

"When I could no longer walk, I still had both my hands. Then one went, then the other, and the instruments I played had to be set aside. But my voice? Well, when it went, it got real tough emotionally."

Married to award-winning, public-display sculptor Don Dickson, the 47-year-old Doolittle's artistic biography is extensive, all which makes it even more unfair that, of all the diseases in the world, it had to be ALS that stalked her, and then caught her.

She has a music degree from the University of Victoria, and a teacher's diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

She has had extensive training in dance, voice and drama, has studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts, and has been a featured performer with world-renowned flutists, including the aforementioned Robert Aitken.

She plays -- or she played -- a wide range of instruments, and she sang like a dream.

The CD playing in the background as this is being written is entitled Everything So Far, a collection of tracks that complement her talent and abilities, many of them her original recordings.

ALL-GIRL ROCK BAND

One of the tracks, however, belongs to her daughter, Carolyn Hyde, who, when not attending school, plays keyboards in an all-girl rock band called Euphoria.

At tonight's benefit, 16-year-old Carolyn will be performing a piece written specifically for the event.

"She has an incredible amount of talent and ability," says her mother, indicating that her daughter's main instrument is the sax.

As for the piece on the CD now playing in the background, it is a piano piece Carolyn wrote when she was all of 13. And it is extraordinarily incredible.

But, then again, she is her mother's child.

NOTE: Those who wish to donate to the Amy Doolittle Trust Fund can do so at TD Canada Trust Branch 159, Account #6408386.

http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAn...69985-sun.html