Paul Philip Hann

Paul Philip Hann passed away peacefully on October 30^th, 2025, in Victoria, BC, after a courageous battle with Parkinson’s with Lewy body.

Born in West Wickham, England, on July 7, 1948, to Anne and Philip, Paul taught himself the 12-string guitar as a teenager. At 18 years old, he moved to Canada looking for “a bit of adventure,” with a plan to work as a lumberjack or an oil rigger. Instead, he ended up working in a department store in Edmonton and playing music for fun in coffee houses and pubs.

Within a few years, he’d built a thriving music career and become known as the ‘Cockney Cowboy.’ He released five studio albums, mostly via Stony Plain Records, with his first, A Fine White Thread, earning him a Juno nomination for most promising male artist in 1974.

In 1976, he met Cathy Crump. Two years later, they got married and they went on to have two children. Now a father, Paul noticed an untapped market for children’s music while out on tour and started writing hits like Snyder the Spider, Brand New Boogaloo Zoo and Bartholomew the Bat. Paul had found his calling. He went on to record 8 children’s albums, earning another Juno nomination in the process. He starred in eight seasons of his TV show ‘Paul Hann & Friends,’ produced for CFRN in Edmonton and aired nationally on CTV and YTV, and performed with symphonies across Canada.

Paul eschewed the norms of the day with a cheeky sense of humour.

“A lot of kids’ songs say, get up with a smile today/make your bed and brush your teeth/talk nicely to your parents/oh look at the sun it’s so lovely shining in your room,” he told the Edmonton Journal in 1984. “I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to stand up there and tell them how to behave.”

Paul was more than just a star up on stage though. He also worked directly with thousands of children, running songwriting workshops as an artist-in-residence in B.C. and Alberta schools. “There’s nothing finer than the sound of children’s laughter,” Paul once told a newspaper reporter.

If writing and performing children’s music was his professional calling, being a father was his personal one. Paul tested out his songs on his beloved children, Michael and Emily, and they made guest appearances on his TV show, album covers and even live on stage with him. He taught them to sing, sail and how to play guitar, but most of all how to live life on their own terms.

Paul built himself a life doing the things he loved with people he loved. He was generous, gregarious and always up for an adventure. While living in Edmonton, he earned his pilot’s licence. After moving to Victoria in 1985, Paul took up sailing, joined the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and sailed up and down Vancouver Island regularly. After he sold his boat, Paul got into cycling and would crank out 70-kilometre rides in his sixties. In 2015, Paul travelled to Antarctica with his son Michael and completed a true polar plunge.

Paul played his final show at the Calgary Folk Club on April 15, 2017, alongside his son Michael. The following spring he received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease with Lewy body, a degenerative brain disease that quickly robbed him of his ability to play guitar. Paul fought back with all his might, taking up boxing and weightlifting to slow the progression of the disease.

Paul held his first grandchild last Christmas and was surrounded by her laughter in his final days. Paul is survived by his brother Jonathan, sister Elizabeth, children Michael (Emma) and Emily (Sean) and granddaughter Mollie.

A Celebration of Life will be held in Victoria in the spring. If you are interested in attending, please fill out this form, where you can also share memories with his family.

The family wish to thank the loving friends, doctors, nurses and care aids who cared for Paul over the last several years, especially Dr. Joshua Budlovsky.

In lieu of flowers, go outside and take a deep breath of the fresh air, crank your favourite Paul Hann tune, hug your loved ones and set out on an adventure. And always remember, Life Is A Bowl Of Strawberries.

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