Merv Bales, a Whitehorse father, husband and lead guitar player, passed away May 14 at the age of 74.

"He was just a great, nice guy; I don't think he ever had an enemy,” musician Hank Karr, a friend and former band mate, told the Star this week.

"He was easy to approach and loved to laugh. Everybody loved him.”

Bales was born on June 25, 1937 in Manitoba and raised in a family of musicians.

His grandfather, a farmer in Teulon, Man., played six instruments and taught his 10 children to play music.

As a child, Bales' parents played in a travelling dance band, touring throughout Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the summer and performing on Winnipeg radio come fall.

His mother played the E-flat alto sax, the clarinet and piano, and would learn the accordion later in life. His aunt on his father's side played the drums and his uncle played several instruments as well.

Bales' father was a bare knuckle boxer and would call the dances and remove anyone who was causing trouble.

Years later, the family, with Bales included, would be featured in a book called The Musical Ghosts of Manitoba, by Owen Clark.

Bales' early days were spent in the home of his father's parents, who looked after him while his family was on the road.

Despite his mother's best intentions, he never took to the piano and discovered the guitar at the age of seven after a friend of the family left one laying around his home after a house party.

It would be a lifelong passion for Bales.

He took lessons and practised the licks he picked up from the radio, particularly those of guitar virtuoso Les Paul.

Bales would later see Paul perform with Mary Ford at a Winnipeg car show, watching the whole show through a set of binoculars his parents purchased him with his tickets.

He began performing with a band as a teenager.

Bales started alongside his uncle, armed with a special liquor permit so he could play in bars.

At the age of 15, Bales began playing with Lenny Breau, another guitar player and future educator, just a few years older than himself. Breau would remain a lifelong influence for Bales.

He also played with a band called the Len Cariou Quartet, a jazz group, who though all underage, were among the more popular quartets in the region. Cariou was a big Broadway star.

He was never, strictly a career musician.

Bales began his career working with the Canadian National Railway as a chief clerk at the switchboards.

He married his childhood sweetheart, Dorothy Walsh, and moved to Whitehorse in 1985.

An outdoors lover, Bales fished throughout the Yukon and Alaska and was known for his fireside stories.

He worked at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre and drove a Brinks truck during retirement.

Bales took a break from music after his two children were born, but one day saw an ad in the newspaper for a country lead guitar player and thought the extra money could help the family.

That's when he took up country music.

Locally, Bales was known for his work with Hank Karr and Company, as well as with fiddler Joe Loutchan, a staple of fiddle night at the '98 Hotel.

"He could play anything, from Hank Snow to Buck Owens, and some of the new guys as well,” said Karr. "He had a big synth too, where he would play different sounds from piano to string sections to the tin whistle.”

Bales loved bluegrass, but his country style was influenced by musicians like Merle Travis and Chet Atkins, and he also "meddled with the country banjo,” said Karr.

A talented lead player, Bales was also a skilled accompanist.

"He understood the kind of stuff I was doing, the songs I was playing; I think he knew the sound I wanted. He could make me sing,” said Karr.

"He was a good friend, a fantastic guy and I am going to miss the hell right out of him.”

Before Bales died, he wrote a few words about his life, found later in his filing cabinet.

In it, he wrote about performing in the 2003 Beluga Days in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., when Loutchan played the Red River jig for 65 minutes straight, and his first show with Karr and the Canucks at the Yukon Arts Centre.

He also wrote about his community:

‘I love the Yukon and all of my friends here,” he said. "Of all the places in Canada a person could live, the Yukon is the friendliest.”