Dennis Skagen was a longtime guitarist
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Dennis Skagen was a lifelong musician who also produced albums featuring other talent.
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He passed away last Sunday at the Sault area hospital. Skagen was 75 years old.
A guitarist for over 60 years, Skagen played in talented dance groups including Bob Burns, Bill Haight, Joe Knight, Johnny Richards and his uncle, Charlie Skagen in his youth. More recently, Skagen has held old-fashioned country shows at his Goulais River home on Highway 552.
“We have talent here as good as anywhere in the world,” Skagen said in 2008.
Featured talent that year included Marty Frolick, Nick Porco, Ed Petri and Bill Wagner.
Skagen produced two albums for Haight, Back Porch Pickin and Old Tymes & Old Rhymes. He recruited guitarists from around the world to contribute to Dennis Skagen Presents The Superpickers to raise money for the Northern Ontario Country Music Hall of Fame.
“(The room) is a very good thing for Sault Ste. Marie,” Skagen told the Sault Star in 2006. “If we lose that, we lose a lot of our musical heritage.
Skagen assembled material from Leslie Cook, John McClenaghan, Len Nevin, Wayne Richardson 2007’s Simplicity of Dennis Skagen and Friends. He contributed to a tribute CD for longtime performers Ray and Evelyn Richards in 2011.
Skagen is survived by his wife, Beverly, four children, grandfather of 11 children and great-grandfather of six children.
A private family service will be held.