The life and death of this award-winning Canadian musician is a story you can't make up.
Now, a Guelph-based documentary filmmaker – a longtime student and friend of the late piano player Scott Cushnie – is looking to take his story to the world.
But she needs financial help to get it off the ground.
"It was pretty traumatic to be searching for him, but I am happy that it is allowing for more people to pay attention to his story," Andrea Reid told GuelphToday.
Cushnie, also known as Professor Piano, led a prolific life in the music world and had a six decade career.
He earned a gold and platinum record for contributing on piano on Aerosmith's 1975 album Toys in the Attic.
He played with such greats as Order of Canada recipient Ronnie Hawkins and guitarist Robbie Robertson. Robertson may be best known as the lead guitarist for the Band in the late 1950s, whose farewell concert in San Francisco in 1976 was chronicled in the Martin Scorsese doc The Last Waltz two years later.
"I was fascinated by Scott from the moment I met him," Reid said.
She first connected with him ahead of his 70th birthday, and became a student of his at age 27 while living in Toronto.
Cushnie would tell stories to her while playing piano, and she was able to get them up on a YouTube page. Through it all, Reid thought Cushnie would make a great subject for a documentary.
"I basically filmed with him for a decade, and in that process, became closer to him," she said. "It became very much less about making the film, and more about just making sure he was doing well."
The two got so close, Reid said Cushnie referred to her as his manager, which developed into more of a caregiver role.
Fast forward about 10 years, to the summer of 2018. Reid said she couldn't reach the then 80-year-old Cushnie for a couple weeks.
She got into his apartment with help from the superintendent. His wallet was there, with his identification, but Cushnie was not.
Reid filed a missing persons report that day, on Aug. 29, 2018.
It began a six-week search, which ended under shocking circumstances and generated national and international headlines.
Turns out, Cushnie fell at a Toronto street corner, was rushed to hospital, where he was declared brain dead and later died.
But in a shocking twist, another family – who was looking for a missing relative at the same time – was brought in and mistakenly identified Cushnie as their own, held a funeral and buried him.
A few weeks later, the person thought to be buried turned up alive at the family business.
Reid got notified of this by officers, while ironically standing on the very same corner Cushnie fell.
When she and Cushnie's family went to the police station, Reid knew immediately because the police had his keys, complete with the electronic key fob to get into his apartment, last used Aug. 7.
"It meant the world to me to know that somebody had taken care of him," Reid said. "And that even though they buried him mistakenly, this family absolutely did everything that honoured him in their way."
The assumption and the fear was something else happened to him when a big storm hit Toronto three weeks earlier. But that wasn't the case.
"I don't put any blame on this other family, I think the whole (coroner's) system has a lot of flaws that allowed this to happen," she said, adding there should have been dental records or something else to identify him properly.
But as Reid detailed, the story of his death seemed somewhat perfect for his personality.
"Everyone I told it to. His family, his friends, there wasn't really a single person who didn't say 'oh my gosh, this could only happen to Scott,'" she said.
"He was such a storyteller … he knew every interesting story to know about any other musician.
"For him to have a legendary story of his own was very appropriate."
And to tell this story, Reid said she is "going to absolutely source all the traditional funding grants and tax credits," which she referred to as the "bread and butter" of this.
But feeling discouraged by the grant application process, she went the online fundraising route.
The IndieGoGo campaign wraps up Dec. 21, and has raised over $18,000 as of Friday afternoon.
The money will go toward filming interviews with key people in Cushnie's career, clearance to use some archived footage and pay a small percentage to those working on the film already.
Reid said anyone looking for more information, or to contribute to the efforts, can reach out on the Professor Piano website or through Facebook, even after the campaign ends.
"Even what we raise, we don't have to raise it all, it's a wonderful start, it really is," she said. "It lets me get things moving. It's so much faster, and then continue on with all the traditional ways of funding with things. But more than anything, it also starts building up a great base."
Reid, who moved to Guelph early on in the pandemic with her husband and two young children, is hoping to have the finished product featured everywhere, including film festivals in Guelph, TIFF, and all the way up to Sundance and beyond.
