Five Bucks On By-Tor

Goodbye

2009-05-05T23:22:00.003-04:00

All things, good and bad, must come to an end. And today, after three and a half years and exactly 350 posts, it's this blog's turn to take a bow and ride off into the electronic sunset. I will continue to collect Canadian records and contribute to It Came From Canada, and I'm hoping to at some point host a DJ night at a bar featuring the music I posted here, but this is almost certainly the last of Five Bucks On By-Tor.

I'd like to thank everyone who took an interest in FBOBT over the years; I set up an account at StatCounter in December of 2006, and since then this blog had over 80,000 visitors, which wasn't half-bad for a site I got the idea for while drinking in my living room one night. The best thing about running Five Bucks was listening to all of the fantastic music I was lucky enough to dig up, but the second-best thing was hearing from music enthusiasts, Canadiana freaks and family members of artists I featured (and occasionally the actual musicians themselves), all of whom provided me with a wealth of information, feedback and motivation. It was deeply gratifying to learn that this music, which was usually out of print and/or otherwise forgotten by the culture at large, could still strike a chord with people in this day and age.

And so...thanks again, and farewell. If you're ever in a Toronto thrift store or record shop and see a guy with a red backpack and a stack of Canadian records set aside, say hello.

Gene MacLellan

2009-05-03T08:25:00.007-04:00

Country singer Gene MacLellan made his first appearance on this site way back in April of 2006. Shortly thereafter I somehow misplaced that LP, but was recently fortunate enough to find a cheap copy of this one, entitled Street Corner Preacher, on eBay. Since then I've learned a bit more about the melancholy troubadour's life and times, and as it turns out MacLellan fought a lifelong battle against depression, a battle he lost in January of 1995 when he took his own life. The liner notes on this album state that at various points in his life he worked as an apple picker, potato harvester, dishwasher and mental hospital attendant in addition to his musical career, which included stints as a gospel singer and rock band guitarist. Still best-known as the guy who wrote "Snowbird" (a massive hit for Anne Murray and many others), his plaintive take on '70s-style country is long-overdue for a rediscovery.

Street Corner Preacher was produced and arranged by Brian and Trish Ahern, and recorded at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville and Eastern Sound in Toronto. Every song on the LP was written by MacLellan. The title track is a funky defense of those guys you see ranting about the end times on street corners, and Gene's take on "Isle Of St. Jean" is slower and groovier than The Rhythm Pals' sweeping version, but it's pretty good, too. "Face In The Mirror" is the lament of a drinker seeing his own face, alone, staring back from the mirror behind the bar at closing time, and "Hard As I Try" is a weepy lost-love ballad.

Street Corner Preacher
Isle Of St. Jean
Face In The Mirror
Hard As I Try

Allan J. Ryan

2009-04-29T09:16:00.004-04:00

There isn't much about folk singer Allan J. Ryan on the internet, aside from his personal website, but these days he holds a chair in Aboriginal Art and Culture at Carleton University. His personal site includes a collection of newspaper concert reviews, and it would appear as though he was a campus favourite at Canadian universities during the late '60s.

For You To Know Me (released on Columbia in 1970) was recorded by producers Mike Berniker and John Williams, with arrangements by George Andrews, at CBS New York and Toronto Sound Studios. Ryan, who also played guitar, was backed up by an impressive assemblage of studio talent; Ray Berliner, Elliot Randall, Hugh McCracken and Eric Weissberg on guitar, John Miller and Joe Mack on bass and Buddy Saltzman on drums. The overall sound is a sort of lush folk-rock, with strings and other instruments such as flute filling out the mix. The title track is a sweeping, I'm-a-sensitive-guy epic, while "Crawfish" (credited to Fred Wise and Ben Weisman, the only song here not written by Ryan) is a lighthearted throwaway about the correct preparation and consumption of, you guessed it, crawfish. "Haggada - Testament," a fairly conventional folk number, obliquely tells the story of a Jewish religious text, and "Harlequin Haven" is a long, country-ish number with a pronounced Dylan influence.

For You To Know Me
Crawfish
Haggada - Testament
Harlequin Haven

The Jury Krytiuk Orchestra & Chorus

2009-04-24T08:55:00.003-04:00

Jury Krytiuk was probably best-known as the manager of Canuck country music icon Stompin' Tom Connors, but he was also a record producer and the owner of Boot and Cynda Records. Krytiuk originally started up Boot Records in 1971 as an outlet for Stompin' Tom's records, having tried and failed to persuade a number of Canadian labels to release them, and soon added other Canadian country artists to the roster, including Con Archer, The Emeralds, Humphrey and The Dumptrucks, Sharon Lowness, Dick Nolan, Stevedore Steve and Ted Wesley. Throughout the rest of the decade and into the '80s, Boot and Cynda (Boot's budget label) expanded beyond country and bluegrass, releasing LPs by artists of a variety of ethnic backgrounds, as well as classical music by musicians such as guitarist Liona Boyd and pianist Monica Gaylord. Beyond that I don't know much about Mr. Krytiuk, but in 1972 he did produce and release this Burt Bacharach tribute LP under his own name.

A Portrait of Burt Bacharach consists of 12 pretty faithful versions of some of Bacharach's best-known compositions. The album is almost entirely instrumental, with backup singers adding some "ba-ba-ba"'s and "do-do-do"'s here and there. Unfortunately, none of the musicians are identified and, apart from identifying Krytiuk as the producer, there isn't any information about the recording of the LP. All four of the songs I've posted here are light and breezy but highly enjoyable takes on the classic Bacharach sound.

As Long As There's An Apple Tree
I Say A Little Prayer
Nikki
Walkin' Backwards Down The Road

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ranee Lee

2009-04-19T12:39:00.002-04:00

Ranee Lee was born in Brooklyn, but moved to Montreal in 1970 at the age of 18 and worked as a dancer and played drums and tenor sax in jazz bands before beginning her career as a singer. Over the years she's recorded over ten albums, toured throughout North America and the rest of the world, written a children's book, contributed to the soundtrack of a short film named Black Soul, won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for playing Billy Holiday in Lady Day, taught at McGill University and been named to The Order of Canada. These days she's still very active as a recording artist and live performer, both as a singer and actress.

In 1980 she also recorded All Grown Up, a disco album produced by Alain J. Leroux at Experience Studio in Montreal. By the look of the liner notes pretty much every session musician in Montreal played on it, including Yaron Gershovsky on keyboards, Richard Ring on guitar and Michael Farquharson on bass. The LP isn't terribly innovative but Lee is, of course, a great singer and the playing and production are top-notch, so if you're into late-'70s disco you should find "Dancin'" (the album's first track) and "Disco Man" to your liking.

Dancin'
Disco Man

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Dr. Music

2009-04-14T10:40:00.002-04:00

Dr. Music (who contributed one song to the Canadian Mint compilation I posted last year) were a jazzy r&b collective masterminded by Doug "Dr. Music" Riley (see also: the From Canada With Love LP). Riley, who passed away in 2007, cast a huge shadow across the Canadian popular music scene of the '60s, '70s and '80s in his multiple roles as a composer, arranger, pianist, organist and producer. Born in Toronto in 1945, he studied at many of Canada's most prestigious classical music academies before being bitten by the jazz and rock 'n' roll bugs as a teenager. By the time he turned 20 he was playing in a Toronto r&b group named The Silhouettes and writing advertising jingles to make some cash on the side. Throughout the '70s he worked constantly as a musical director for television shows, record producer, songwriter, sideman in pop, classical and jazz groups, arranger (his first big break was working on Ray Charles' 1969 album Doing His Thing) and erstwhile leader of Dr. Music, which is where he gained the nickname. By the time the '90s rolled around Riley had shifted his focus to live performances, and by the end of the decade he'd semi-retired, but as late as 2006 he was still playing jazz festivals and touring occasionally.

As the the other members of Dr. Music...well, there were literally dozens over the years, and you're crazy if you think I'm going to list them all here, but some of the more prominent were bassist Don Thompson, singer Dianne Brooks, drummer Terry Clarke, singer/guitarist Doug Mallory, singer/saxophonist Steve Kennedy (who was also in Motherlode) and multi-instrumentalist Keith Jollimore. The group itself was originally put together in 1969 by Riley in order to perform on CTV's "The Ray Stevens Show," and went on to record three albums for GRT between 1972 and 1974 (plus a best-of in '75) before everybody went their separate ways, although did Riley resurrect the Dr. Music moniker long enough to record one last album in 1984.

Dr. Music's self-titled debut LP was recorded throughout 1971 and 1972 at Toronto Sound Studios, with production and arrangements by Riley and Kennedy, and engineering handled by Peter Houston (who recorded the original Hockey Night In Canada theme song) and Terry Brown. It's got a very early-'70s sound, with jazz, rock, funk and r&b fighting it out for space, often within the same song. "Rollin' Home," the first track on the album, is a funky number with a few Native touches sprinkled throughout and a nice extended guitar solo. "Try A Little Harder" is an Elton John-inspired stomper, while "Dreams" is a ballad with a definite cabaret flavour and some unexpected proggy touches. The manic workout "Don't Wait Too Long," is back towards the r&b side of the group's sound, and the album's closer, "Road To Love," is an epic soft rock ballad.

Rollin' Home
Try A Little Harder
Dreams
Don't Wait Too Long
Road To Love

The Majestics

2009-04-09T10:00:00.002-04:00

The (mostly) instrumental r&b band known as The Majestics made their first appearance on this site a couple of years ago. A mainstay of the Toronto area's dance club scene, they were possibly Canada's foremost r&b band throughout the '60s.

This instrumental tribute LP to Otis Redding contains ten songs that the soul giant wrote and/or (in the case of "Satisfaction") recorded. It was recorded at Bay Studios in Toronto (home to many other Arc albums) by producer Tony DiMaria (who also recorded the first Majestics LP I posted), with arrangements by Eric N. Robertson. All four of the tracks I've posted here are first-rate funky r&b, but my favourite of the bunch is probably the cover of "Satisfaction," which features some pretty great drum breaks.

Mr. Pitiful
Satisfaction
Respect
Security

Pete Magadini, Don Menza, Wray Downes & Dave Young

2009-04-04T10:11:00.004-04:00

Drummer Pete Magadini has been featured on this site a few times before, once as part of a trio, on Bobby Edwards' LP, and on the Toronto: what other city calls its main street Yonge? album. Magadini was born in Massachusetts and played in jazz ensembles across the United States before moving to Canada, where he made his home throughout most of the '70s, recorded frequently for Sackville, and worked as a music teacher.

Pianist Wray Downes was born in Toronto and as a young man studied classical music in France and England on scholarship. During the '50s he got into jazz and played throughout Europe with musicians including Sidney Bechet, Buck Clayton, and Bill Coleman. After moving back to Canada he frequently played with Peter Appleyard, studied further with Oscar Peterson and worked as the house pianist at The Town Tavern and other jazz clubs in Toronto, where he backed up legends like Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster.

Don Menza, a saxophonist, flautist, composer and arranger, was, like Magadini, born in the U.S., but never called Canada home. He started his musical career during the '60s as a member of Maynard Ferguson's orchestra before playing with Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, the Charlie Parker tribute group Supersax, Elvin Jones and many others before settling in Los Angeles, where he gained renown as a jazz educator.

Winnipeg-born bassist Dave Young split his career between jazz and classical work with the Hamilton and Toronto Symphony Orchestras. In his capacity as a jazz bassist he was a longtime member of Oscar Peterson's touring band, played in clubs with Peter Appleyard, Ed Bickert, Barney Kessel, Red Norvo, Milt Jackson and many others, and often performed as a duo with Wray Downes.

Bones Blues (Sackville 4004) was recorded in 1977 at United Media Studio and produced by Magadini and Young, with mixing at Thunder Sound by Magadini, Phil Sheridan and Sackville co-founder Bill Smith. "Solar" is a cover of a bop-era Miles Davis number originally recorded for his LP Walkin', "Old Devil Moon" is a version of a pop song written for the musical Finian's Rainbow, and "Bones Blues" is a swingin' original written by Menza.

Solar
Old Devil Moon
Bones Blues

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

John Boland and Beothuck

2009-03-30T09:03:00.003-04:00

The country music party band John Boland and Beothuck (named after an extinct Newfoundland native tribe) was formed in Cambridge, Ontario in 1974 when Boland decided to get a few friends together to play dances. The group consisted of Boland (lead guitar), John Babb (rhyhthm guitar), Mac Babb (singer, bass), Fred O'Quinn (lead guitar) and John Rankin (drums), all of whom save Rankin (who was born in Hamilton) hailed from Bell Island, Newfoundland. Over the course of their career they backed up a wide range of Canadian artists, including Dick Nolan, Roy Payne, Michael T. Wall, Joan Morrissey and Harry Hibbs, and Mac Babb and O'Quinn also played on The Brazda Brothers' album. That's the full extent of my knowledge of John Boland and Beothuck, but I suspect that Boland is a real estate agent in Cambridge these days.

This self-titled LP was recorded at Eastern Sound Studio in Toronto by producer Bobby Munro and engineer Kevin Evans, and released in 1976 on Boot Records. Despite the group's Newfoundland roots, its sound, at least when playing on its own, stuck to country and rock and didn't really include any overt Celtic influences. "Words" is a cover of a soft-rock Bee Gees ballad, while Boland original "The Bottle" is a plaintive country number about the evils of alcohol. "Love Me, Love Me, Love," my favourite track here, is a cover of a minor hit by Canadian pianist Frank Mills (best known for the instrumental "Music Box Dancer"). The story of an old organ grinder and his pet monkey, it's as maudlin as the day is long, but the band really gets behind the song and I dig it anyway. And "That's How I Got To Memphis" is another cover, this time of a Tom T. Hall country number about following a wayward woman to the ends of the earth...or, at least, southwest Tennessee.

Words
The Bottle
Love Me, Love Me, Love
That's How I Got To Memphis

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jackie Washington

2009-03-25T00:45:00.004-04:00

Singer, guitarist and pianist Jackie Washington was featured on this site last October, when I posted his contribution to the Mariposa 1976 soundtrack. Born in Hamilton in 1919, Washington was performing in public with one of his older brothers by the age of five, and eventually he and all of his brothers (dubbed The Four Washington Brothers) were entertaining at concerts, dances and churches. In 1941 he was drafted into the army, having previously quit the music business and worked as a porter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. After the war he got a job at a can company in Hamilton, where he played piano on his lunch break for spare change, then moved to Guelph, where he started to play around town a bit in between shifts at a buzz saw factory. In 1948 he started a five-year run as the host of The Jackie Washington Show on CHML in Hamilton, but by the mid-'50s he was working at a tavern as a washroom attendant, then at a shoe shine stand at a racetrack in Fort Erie, although he did sit in on gigs now and again.

By the early '60s, married to his second wife with a young son, he'd pretty much retired from music again, but in '64 he was introduced to the owner of a Yorkville coffee house. This led to a mid-career revival which saw him play with almost every big name in the Toronto music scene at the time, perform at festivals across the country and make several appearances on television and radio. By the early '70s he was back to playing beer joints in and around Hamilton, but in 1976 he recorded the LP I'm posting here and throughout the '80s and '90s he released several more CDs, was inducted into the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humanities by McMaster University. He was still performing as recently as last August, at the age of 89!

Blues & Sentimental, a private press LP released by The Knight II (which I believe was a bar in Hamilton), was produced by Dave Essig and engineered by Bob and Daniel Lanois in March of 1976 at MSR Productions in Ancaster, Ontario. The musical line-up was Washington on guitar, vocals and piano, Tom Evans on clarinet and tenor sax, Michael Gardner on acoustic bass, Bobby Washington on electric bass, Chris Whiteley on trumpet, coronet and harmonica, Ken Whiteley on guitar and piano, and Essig on slide guitar. The album is comprised of bluesy, old-fashioned vocal jazz, distinguished by Washington's distinctive, high-pitched voice and the high quality of the playing throughout. His style always encompassed lighthearted pop as well as jazz and blues, so the four songs here are perhaps more jocular in nature than the usual traditionalist take on those genres.

Ain't That Gravy Good
Miss Otis Regrets
One Foot In The Gutter
Goin' To Chicago

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

On The Log

2009-03-15T14:26:00.003-04:00

The other day I was interviewed by podcaster John Meadows for his site On The Log. If you're interested in having a listen to our conversation about Five Bucks on By-Tor and It Came From Canada, click here.

Privilege

2009-03-11T23:16:00.002-04:00

The Edmonton rock group Privilege started out in the '60s known as The Lords. After changing their name to Privilege they released four singles on Capitol and MCA between 1969 and 1972, but as the article linked to above puts it, "fame was not immediately forthcoming and the group struggled." In '73 they recorded the LP I'm posting today (Cantata Canada), which was based on a stage production dramatizing Canada's history. At this point, the group's lineup was Andy Krawchuk (guitar), Harry Krawchuk (bass), Mel Degen (vocals), Gerry Dere (organ), Al McGee (piano) and Whitey Glan (drums), but throughout the '70s Privilege went through many more incarnations, one of which included Steve Perry, the future lead singer of Journey. One more LP followed in '78 (It's Been A Privilege), but that was pretty much it for the group aside from a reunion concert in 1989.

Cantata Canada (optimistically subtitled "Part One") was recorded at Studio 3 Productions in Vancouver and Century II Studios in Edmonton by producer Doug Hutton, with orchestrations by Gerry Dere and Al McGee. The LP is attractively packaged as a libretto, with pencil drawings accompanying the lyrics for each song. Privilege's sound is fairly standard '70s rock with a few progressive touches here and there, but they tailor each track's style to suit its historical subject matter. "Overture/In The Dawning" (lyrics by Will Wuttunee, music by Gerry Dere) is about the lives of the natives before the arrival of Europeans in North America, while "Beware Of The Heavy Hand" (lyrics and music by Graeme Card) details the first contact between the two societies. "Klondike" (lyrics by Carol Zazula, music by Mel Degan) is, of course, about the gold rush of 1896, and "Bookends For A Nation" (lyrics and music by Marc Jordan) is written from the viewpoint of a European immigrant moving across Canada during the early 20th century.

Overture/In The Dawning
Beware Of The Heavy Hand
Klondike
Bookends For A Nation

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Doppler Brothers

2009-03-06T09:50:00.001-05:00

I can't find anything online about the satirical rock group The Doppler Brothers, but fortunately the liner notes (pictured below; is that a great band photo or what?) identify the band members; Bill Bryans (drums), Bruce Barron (guitar, bass on "The Wreck of The Eaton Centre" and piano on "Leaving Home") and Gary Hynes (synthesizer, all other bass and piano). Lyrically the Dopplers were pretty punk rock, but musically the record has more in common with Stage Fright-era The Band or The Rheostatics (who didn't exist when it was released, but still).

This EP, named Totally Impractical, was recorded in 1978 at The Sounding Board in Toronto (apparently the band's personal studio) and released by Bend It Straight Music. The singers were Sean Pigot ("Leaving Home"), Les Clackett ("The Wreck of The Eaton Centre, "Welcome To Canada" and "I Wanna Write For The Muzak Man") and Simon Leblovik ("Big Time Tragedy"), with Dyan Firth, Marion Tobin and Ilene Tobin doing backup duty on "Canada" and "Muzak." "The Wreck Of The Eaton Centre" is, of course, a parody of the Gordon Lightfoot standard "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", while "Welcome To Canada" is a dig at the idealized vision of Canada as a haven for immigrants ("We're always glad to help somebody who's down down down on their luck/We'd surely bring the whole world over if we thought we'd make a buck"). "I Want To Write For The Muzak Man" takes on the easy-listening industry, and "Leaving Home" is a chilling satire of romantic ballads written from the viewpoint of a wife beater.

The Wreck Of The Eaton Centre
Welcome To Canada
I Wanna Write For The Muzak Man
Leaving Home

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Paupers

2009-03-02T10:43:00.004-05:00

The Paupers, originally a British Invasion-style crew named The Spats, were a part of the '60s Yorkville folk scene. After their original lead singer left they changed their name, dropped the overt Beatles influence, hired a new manager (Bernie Finkelstein, who also managed Kensington Market) and moved to New York City, where they landed gigs opening for bands like Jefferson Airplane. At this point, The Paupers consisted of Dennis Gerrard (bass), Adam Mitchell (rhythm guitar, vocals), Skip Prokop (drums, vocals) and Chuck Beal (lead guitar). They quickly attracted praise from critics and the attention of super-manager Albert Grossman (who also represented Bob Dylan at this point), who landed them a recording contract with Verve. After recording their first single for Verve ("If I Call You By Some Name," which was a minor hit) they released an LP (Magic People) in '67 and set out on a yearlong tour which included high-profile gigs at Whisky a Go Go and Fillmore West. However, the grind of constant touring led to tension within the band, and Gerrard left before the release of their second album (1968's Ellis Island), followed shortly thereafter by Prokop (who went on to work as a highly-renowned session musician and co-found Lighthouse). The rest of the band soldiered on for a while, but for all intents and purposes The Paupers were finished. Mitchell went on to a solo career which included work as a producer and a couple of folk-rock hits throughout the '70s and early '80s, Gerrard released one solo album before joining McKenna Mendelson Mainline, and Beal managed a few bands before becoming a rock broadcaster and historian.

Magic People was produced by Rick Shorter, with arrangements by Shorter and The Paupers, and every song on the LP was written by Mitchell and Prokop. It's a solid late-'60s folk-rock album, particularly distinguished by Prokop's versatile drumming. The title track is a melodic folk-rock tune punctuated with bursts of manic percussion and psychedelic sound effects. "It's Your Mind" is a moodier number that segues into an extended, Doors-esque instrumental coda, while "Think I Care" is a nasty, harder-edged track with Middle-Eastern touches throughout. And "Simple Deed" is back towards the poppier side of The Paupers' sound, a tuneful singalong which also includes a bit of Mideast flavour.

Magic People
It's Your Mind
Think I Care
Simple Deed

Radio Canada International Presents...

2009-02-25T08:30:00.003-05:00

Bit of a grab-bag today, courtesy of this 1982 compilation of live and studio recordings from the collection of Radio Canada International (RCI).

~~There'll Never Be Another You - Fraser MacPherson~~

Saxophonist, clarinetist and flautist Fraser MacPherson was born in Winnipeg in 1928 and was raised in Victoria, B.C. In 1948 he moved to Vancouver, where he played in local clubs, was an in-demand session musician and occasionally performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. He was also a mainstay on CBC radio and television, constantly toured internationally (including an unprecedented four trips to the USSR during the height of the Cold War) and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1987 before passing away in 1993. This breezy ensemble rendition of the jazz standard "There'll Never Be Another You" is taken from the LP "Jazz Canada Europe." None of the other members of the band are identified on the sleeve, which is a drag because they're all great.

~~So Low Down - Alexis~~

There isn't a whole lot of information out there about Vancouver singer-songwriter Alexis "Rose" Radlin, but I can tell you she released one self-titled LP in 1975 on Mushroom Records (which was nominated for a Juno) before moving to Windsor, Ontario and recording another album for RCI in 1978. After that it sounds like she dabbled in acting and released one more LP at some point during the '90s. "So Low Down" is easygoing, folky pop-rock reminiscent of Ronney Abramson.

~~New Funk - UZEB~~

UZEB were a prolific Montreal-based jazz fusion band formed in 1976 by guitarist Michel Cusson. They were one of the biggest bands in Quebec throughout much of the '80s, winning Félix Awards as Group of the Year in '84 and '89, Jazz Album of the Year four times, and a lifetime achievement award in 1991. A series of Canadian and worldwide tours (they were also big in France) culminated in a huge outdoor farewell concert in Montreal in 1992. "New Funk" is pretty much exactly that; a very '80s take on funk (i.e. lots of synthesizer and brittle basslines) that originally appeared on their LP UZEB Live In Bracknell.

~~Anything You Want - Bim~~

"Bim" is the stage name of singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer and broadcaster Roy Forbes, who was born in Dawson Creek, B.C. in 1953. As a teenager he moved to Vancouver and started performing in local coffeehouses, folk clubs and festivals, both solo and as a member of a duo (with Connie Kaldor) and groups (including UHF). Forbes' songs have been covered by dozens of Canadian and American artists, and during the mid-'80s he started up a second career as a record producer. He has also scored films and television shows, hosted a couple of CBC radio programs and won and been nominated for a number of West Coast Music and Juno Awards over the years. Although he's well-known for his interpretations of Hank Williams songs, the low down and blue "Anything You Want" is a Forbes original.

~~In Love Again - Bernie Senensky~~

Jazz pianist Bernie Senensky has been featured on this site before. "In Love Again," a wistful ensemble number, was written by Senensky for his 1981 LP Free Spirit.

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Kali & Dub Inc.

2009-02-20T10:04:00.004-05:00

The Montreal-based reggae outfit Kali & Dub Inc. was formed in 1986 by Hayes "Kali" Thurton. Kali was born in Trinidad, but in 1972 he and his family moved to Canada. While studying science at the University of Toronto, Kali got hooked on the local reggae scene (populated as it was by greats like Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles and Johnny Osborne). After a few years of gigging around Toronto he moved to Montreal, where he was a member of a couple of bands (including Selah, who opened for UB40, Steel Pulse, Gregory Isaac, Black Uhuru, and The Clash) before he put together Kali & Dub Inc. They released a couple of albums on vinyl (the EP I'm posting today and a full-length named Human Rights) and two CDs (Rise Up, which was nominated for a Juno, and Weapons of Mass Construction). Over the years, Kali & Dub Inc. won a number of Toronto and Montreal music awards and shared the stage with a lot of international reggae greats (including The Wailers, Burning Spear, Aswad, Ziggy Marley, Black Uhuru, The Meditations, and The Mighty Sparrow). These days, Kali is still very active within the Canadian reggae scene, although he performs as a solo act.

The entirety of Uncensored Reggae was written, arranged and produced by Kali, and was recorded in 1988 at Madgic [sic] Studio and Secret Studio (both in Montreal). The band consisted of Kali (lead and background vocals, guitar, bass and keyboards), Lincoln Leslie (background vocals), Allison Smith and Sophie Delorme (keyboards), Joanna Peters (background vocals and percussion), Anand Sahai (drums) and Andrew Harder (bass). Overall, the record has the prototypical '80s sound, although it doesn't get anywhere nearly as carried away with the synths and sound effects as some of the reggae from that period. "Crucial Dub" is an instrumental version of "Crucial Rock" (an easygoing party tune) while "Home Livin'" is a slightly melancholic look back at Kali's Trinidadian upbringing.

Home Livin'
Crucial Dub
Crucial Rock

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Al Deric and The Blue Chips

2009-02-17T10:38:00.005-05:00

Country singer Al Deric was born in Timmins, Ontario, where he began his musical career by playing dances and small festivals. After forming The Blue Chips Al moved to Kitchener, where he worked as a disc jockey and had his own show on CKCR. In 1965 Al and The Blue Chips toured Canada and traveled from British Columbia to Quebec, with a stop in Churchill, Manitoba to play for an Inuit audience. Unfortunately this is about all I can dig up on Mr. Deric, although this page states that an incarnation of the group was still active as late as 1981.

This self-titled Paragon LP was produced by Bill Bessey (who also worked on albums by Jenny Reeves and Roy Payne) and Chuck Wilton, with label boss Jack Boswell listed as the executive producer. The other members of The Blue Chips were Al's wife Rose (bass), Vernon Darrington (lead guitar) and Gord Affelot (steel guitar). My favourite song on the album is the first one, a cover of Mel Tillis' "Honky Tonk," the sad tale of a fellow trying to get some sleep in a cheap hotel but being kept up by the band playing on the first floor. Al's singing is at its best, and Darrington turns in some sharp work on guitar. "Great Big Love" is a jaunty, slightly altered version of "Big Big Love" by George Hamilton IV, and "Don't Be Angry" is a plaintive ballad that was a hit for George Jones and Stonewall Jackson.

Honky Tonk
Great Big Love
Don't Be Angry

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Fraser & DeBolt w. Ian Guenther

2009-02-11T08:52:00.001-05:00

Fraser & DeBolt were an offbeat folk duo consisting of singer-songwriter/guitarists Allan Fraser and Daisy DeBolt. There isn't really a whole lot on the internet about the two of them, but it looks like DeBolt was a Winnipeg girl who moved to Toronto and became a part of the late '60s Yorkville folk scene. At some point she and Fraser hooked up, formed a partnership and released this LP with guest fiddler Ian Guenther on Columbia in 1971. Another album (With Pleasure) followed in 1973, but although both were lauded by critics neither sold well and it would appear that the duo split up sometime afterward. However, both Fraser and DeBolt continue to perform as solo acts to this day.

This self-titled LP was recorded by engineers Mark Smith and Allan Moy, and it's not your typical folk album; although it was released on a major label, its rather spare sound, peppered with rough edges and experimental, dissonant touches, is reminiscent of more indie, avant-garde acts. "Gypsy Solitude" is a rambling number that manages to sound both rather traditional and very much of its time, while "Warmth" and "Stoney Day" hew closer to the folk conventions of the day. And "Don't Let Me Down," the only song on the album not written by the duo, is an aching cover of The Beatles classic preceded by an ominous-sounding instrumental lead-in.

Gypsy Solitaire
Warmth
Stoney Day
Don't Let Me Down

Freddie Pelletier

2009-02-05T08:23:00.005-05:00

Guitarist Freddie Pelletier started out as a professional musician during the late '60s and kicked around Toronto and Nashville trying to make a name for himself before ending up in Calgary, where he put together his own band named The Northwest Rebellion. This group landed a gig as the house band at a bar named Ranchman's and backed up visiting artists from throughout Canada and the U.S. (including Ian Tyson, Al Cherny, and Ferlin Husky). During the early '70s he won a Moffat Award for Best Canadian Country Recording, put out his first LP and scored a couple of top 10 hits on the Canadian country charts, but by the time his second album was released a few years later instrumentals had all but disappeared from the radio. After taking a few years off away from the music scene, Pelletier returned and these days he performs as a duo with his wife Sheila, backs up some of Canada's best fiddlers and helps run the Pelletier Guitar and Music Camp with Sheila and his son Clint.

Canadian Country Guitar Picker was recorded in 1972 at E.K. Studios in Calgary by recording engineer Ernest Klump. The band backing Pelletier up on this completely instrumental LP included George Pistun (a member of The Cottonpickers at one point) on fiddle, Doug Amon on pedal steel guitar, Ronaldo Reyes on raquinto guitar, Rick Stevenson on rhythm guitar, Bo Davis and Lorne Pavelick (who also played with Ron Jeffery) on drums and Glen 'Stretch' Yorga on bass. "The Claw," "Happy Go Lucky" and "Natchez Trace" are crisply-played, fairly straightforward country numbers with a touch of rockabilly thrown in here and there, while "Maria Elena" has, as one might guess, more of a Spanish flavour.

The Claw
Happy Go Lucky
Maria Elena
Natchez Trace

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Toronto: What other city calls its main street Yonge?

2009-01-30T08:04:00.004-05:00

This LP, a promotional item for the city of Toronto, was commissioned by the Toronto Star and released by World Records of Oshawa. The liner notes on the back cover extol Toronto's virtues ("By luck, planning and the indefinable qualities of "good neighbouring," Toronto has avoided many of the problems that exist today in most large North American cities...the homes, trees, parks, cleanliness, and generally attractive environment in Toronto's neighbourhoods contribute a basic essence to this city's character, which in turn has motivated a living condition remarkable for its low level of urban stress. In other words, it's a good place to live!"), while the LP itself tells the story of Toronto's history. The spoken-word bits (which I've cut out of the posted samples) alternate between a straight man narrator and a grizzled old character named "The Rural Resident," who argues with the narrator and tosses off ironic asides about Toronto's supposed attributes.

Toronto... was recorded at Manta Sound in Toronto by engineer and mixer Dave Greene, with arrangements by Rudy Toth. Pretty much every session musician in Toronto played on it, including (but not limited to) Ian MacDougall (trombone), Peter Magadini (drums), Peter Appleyard (percussion), Ed Bickert and Bobby Edwards (guitar), and Moe Koffman (flute). "Lizzie Simcoe," a funky track with a country flavour by singer Cal Dodd, is a retelling of the story of Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of Upper Canada's first Lieutenant Governor and a writer whose diary provided a lot of information regarding colonial life at the time. Apparently she was also a butterfly enthusiast. "This Train" is a bluesy lounge number (sung by Terry Blue) about Toronto's history as a railway hub, while "Hogtown Hoe-Down" is an instrumental jig by fiddler Al Cherny. And "Episode 7-Oh!" (by trumpeter Guido Basso, saxophonist Gene Amaro and pianist Gary Gross) is my favourite track on the LP, a jazzy instrumental with a '70s tv show theme song feel.

Lizzie Simcoe - Cal Dodd
This Train - Terry Blue
Hogtown Hoe-Down - Al Cherny
Episode 7-Oh! - Guido Basso, Gene Amaro & Gary Gross

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Denny Vaughan

2009-01-25T10:58:00.001-05:00

Singer, arranger and pianist Denny Vaughan was born in Toronto in 1922. As a teenager he performed on radio and with bandleader Horace Lapp, before studying music at the University of Toronto and touring Europe during World War II with a revue named The Army Show. After the war he stayed in England, recorded and performed with a variety of dance bands, and developed a reputation as "The English Sinatra." In 1952 he returned to Toronto, where he made appearances on CBC radio and television, including his own variety program named The Denny Vaughan Show. At the end of the decade he moved to Montreal and led the Queen Elizabeth Hotel Orchestra until 1967, when he moved to Hollywood and worked as the musical consultant and choral director on The Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour and The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour until shortly before his death in 1972.

This entirely instrumental CTL LP, entitled simply Denny Vaughan and His Orchestra, was recorded by engineer Peter Houston (who also engineered the original Hockey Night In Canada song) with supervision by CTL mainstay Johnny Burt, but none of the members of Vaughan's orchestra are identified. "Traces" is an easy-listening cover of a pop-rock number by Classics IV, while "My Cherie Amour" is a breezy version of the Stevie Wonder hit. "Hayseedelic" is a country-ish novelty tune (written by Vaughan) and "Je reviens chez-nous" is a stately Jean-Pierre Ferland number.

Traces
My Cherie Amour
Hayseedelic
Je reviens chez-nous

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Bonnie Dobson

2009-01-20T10:41:00.001-05:00

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Dobson was born in Toronto in 1940. Her older sister became friends with some of the musicians who would later form The Travellers and, inspired by their example and performances by Pete Seeger at her teenage summer camp, she got into folk music while studying at the University of Toronto. Throughout the first half of the '60s she lived in New York and Chicago, toured throughout the United States, recorded four albums for Prestige and Mercury, and returned to Canada now and again to play coffeehouses in Toronto and the Mariposa Folk Festival. In '65 she moved back to Toronto, where she made regular appearances on the CBC Radio programs "1967 And All That" and "La Ronde" and recorded the self-titled LP I'm posting here plus another named Good Morning Rain. In 1970 she decamped for England, where she recorded two more records, performed on the BBC and ITV and toured throughout Europe before more or less retiring from the music biz to work as the head administrator for the philosophy department at the University Of London.

Dobson is probably best-known for writing "Morning Dew," a folk-rock standard inspired by the post-apocalyptic film On The Beach. Dobson wrote and recorded the song in 1962, and not long afterward it was covered by Fred Neil, who changed some of the lyrics. Then, in 1966, Tim Rose heard Neil's version, recorded his own (which, admittedly, is great) and took advantage of a loophole in U.S. copyright law to gave himself a co-writing credit, which Dobson has always fiercely contested. Rose's claim to "Morning Dew" held up in court and many people subsequently thought he had written it, especially after it was covered by a wide range of artists including The Grateful Dead, Lulu, The Allman Brothers, Jeff Beck, Lee Hazelwood and Nazareth...but it's Dobson's tune.

Bonnie Dobson was recorded in March 1969 at Eastern Sound and RCA Studios in Toronto by producers Dave Bird and Jack Richardson and arranger/composer Ben McPeek. Dobson's singing is gorgeous throughout, but unfortunately none of the musicians on the album are identified. Even more unfortunately, my copy of this record is warped, rendering the first two songs on each side (including "Morning Dew," which was re-recorded for this album with an orchestral arrangement, and another standout track named "I Got Stung") pretty much unplayable. Of the songs I was able to record, "Let's Get Together" is another folk-rock evergreen recorded most famously by The Youngbloods, although Dobson's version is more bittersweet than their celebratory take on the number. The reflective ballad "I'm Your Woman" is a Dobson original and another one of her better-known songs, while "Pendant Que" is a melodramatic Francophone tune by Gilles Vigneault I've included here mainly because I like its instrumental coda, 35 funky seconds of sitar, piano, drums and strings. And album closer (and personal fave) "Winter's Going," also written by Dobson, is a rare example of a sad song about the end of winter. Why is she bummed out about the prospect of winter drawing to a close? Well, you'll just have to listen for yourself.

Let's Get Together
I'm Your Woman
Pendant Que
Winter's Going

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Roy Payne

2009-01-13T15:41:00.003-05:00

Country singer/songwriter Roy "The Goofy Newfie" Payne made his first appearance on this site almost two years ago, and today I've got a few selections from one of his RCA albums, this one entitled Roy Payne's Country. There still isn't a whole heck of a lot on the internet about Roy, but the liner notes do give us a bit more to go on:

"'Goofy Newfie' - country singer - entertainer - songwriter - ex-soldier - Roy is all these things but he is also much more than that - he is a sincere young man who thrills his audiences with his warm, sometimes humorous, but always enjoyable songs.

It all started 31 years ago in the thriving metropolis of Trout River, Newfoundland, where Roy first saw the light of day. Since then, Roy has had a varied career which has included a tour of duty in Egypt and Cyprus with the Canadian Dragoons. It was in Egypt that Roy got his first chance to perform in public and he soon discovered that the songs his army buddies liked best were those that were reminiscent of his Canadian home.

Following his discharge from the service, Roy was "discovered" in Toronto by Jack Starr - owner of the Horseshoe Tavern. Mr. Starr gave Roy an opportunity to display his talents as an entertainer at the Horseshoe, and also helped Roy with his songwriting career by promoting his songs through Star Music Publishing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy Roy's first album on the RCA label."

Roy Payne's Country was recorded at RCA Studios in Toronto by producer/engineer George Semkiw (who has popped up on this site more than a few times). Payne's backing band isn't identified, but he did write every song on the LP. Even though it was released by a major its overall sound hews fairly close to the first album I posted, which was on the much smaller Paragon label. "Waylon Brown" is a fairly straightforward country-rock number that kicks off with a little drum break, while "Tramps Make Good Wives" is a lighthearted defense of the singer's allegedly wayward wife. "Canadian Princess" is a spirited paean to a pretty country girl, and "Toronto Streets At Night" (my favourite track) is a gorgeous, lonesome ballad that namechecks Yonge and Dundas Streets.

Waylon Brown
Tramps Make Good Wives
Canadian Princess
Toronto Streets At Night

Five Man Electrical Band

2009-01-07T09:23:00.001-05:00

Welcome back, everybody; I'm kicking off 2009 with a band I didn't even know was Canadian until I picked this album up; Ottawa's Five Man Electrical Band. The group, originally named The Staccatos, came together in 1963 and released a number of singles on Capitol between '65 and '68. One, "Half Past Midnight," was a hit in Canada, but in 1969 they changed their name to Five Man Electrical Band and moved to Los Angeles. At this point the group consisted of Les Emmerson (lead vocals, guitar), Ted Gerow (piano/organ), Brian Rading (bass) and brothers Rick (vocals, percussion) and Mike Bell (vocals, drums). They recorded a number of singles and a self-titled debut album in L.A., returned to Ottawa for a bit, then moved back to Los Angeles and hopped over to MGM after releasing one last single on Capitol ("It Never Rains On Maple Lane"). Between 1970 and 1975 they released three LPs and several singles; one of the first was "Hello Melinda Goodbye," which included a B-side named "Signs." "Melinda" didn't go anywhere, but "Signs" got some radio airplay, so in '71 it was re-released as an A-side and reached #3 on the Billboard charts (and #4 in Canada), selling over two million copies worldwide in the process (in 1990 the hair-metal band Tesla also hit big with the song on an LP named Five Man Acoustical Jam). Later that year the follow-up single "Absolutely Right" was also a substantial hit, but endless touring (with The Allman Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane and BTO, among others) and creative and financial differences took their toll and by 1973 everyone but Emmerson (who continued to record as Five Man Electrical Band until '75) had quit.

Good-Byes And Butterflies (which sports a pretty salacious cover for a record with a song named "Safe And Sound (With Jesus)") was recorded at Golden West Studios in L.A. by producer Dallas Smith (formerly the house producer for Liberty Records) and engineer Bruce Ellison. Rick Bell sings lead on the first two songs I've posted here; the aforementioned "Safe And Sound" is a raucous hippy gospel number, while "Dance Of The Swamp Woman" is a funky blues-rock track. Les Emmerson (who also wrote every song on the album) sings lead on the other two; "Hello Melinda Goodbye" is tuneful pop-rock with a decided late-period Beatles influence, especially during the harmonized fade-out. And speaking of The Beatles, "Together Forever" (the best song on the LP) is a spectacular high school prom-ready ballad that manages to combine the melodic touch of the Fab Four and the gorgeous vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys.

Safe And Sound (With Jesus)
Dance Of The Swamp Woman
Hello Melinda Goodbye
Together Forever

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T08:55:00.005-05:00

FBOBT is taking a break for Christmas. Have yourself a great holiday season; I'll be back in early 2009 with more of Canada's lesser-known musical heroes!

It Came From Canada Vol. 5

2008-12-21T08:48:00.001-05:00

At long last, here's the fifth and final volume of Og Music's It Came From Canada compilation series (1, 2, 3, 4).

~~Bureaucrat From Hell - The Desmonds~~

The Desmonds, who came together in Ottawa in 1984, were comprised of former members of The Swinging Seven and The Wiggling Pulled Out Mosquito Legs; Wax Bombastic (vocals), Del Tremenz and Curly Leads (guitars), Beef Bourguignon (drums) and Mike Shy (bass). "Bureaucrat From Hell" is a fairly straightforward punk rawk rant about the sort of person you don't want to run into when you're renewing your drivers' license.

~~You're Too Much - The Vindicators~~

Calgary's The Vindicators also made an appearance on the Og compilation Mister Garager's Neighbourhood. Like their song on that LP, "You're Too Much" is a tasty slice of '60s-style r&b-influenced garage rock.

~~Long Dark Train - The Ripcordz~~

It looks like Montreal's The Ripcordz are still around in some form. At the time "Long Dark Train" - a crunchy rocker that's equal parts '77 punk and '66 trash - was recorded they were Paul Gott (vocals, guitar), Ian Swinson (bass) and Ewan MacDonald (drums).

~~If You Could Read My Mind - The Supreme Bagg Team~~

The Supreme Bagg Team hailed from Toronto, where they claimed to be the city's best "Vegas-garage band," a mix of frat, trash and lounge rock by Mike Sayk (vocals), Dave Dysart and Shawn Crockard (guitars), Claude Barnes (drums) and Jim McDowell (bass). "If You Could Read My Mind" is, of course, a punkified take on the Gordon Lightfoot classic, which to many Canadians has taken on the status of Holy Writ.

~~That Tune - Captain Crunch & Let's Do Lunch~~

Another Montreal band, Captain Crunch & Let's Do Lunch were more folk/psych-influenced than most Og bands, although they could and did kick it up a gear when they wanted to. "That Tune," by Pat Hineson (vocals, guitar), Celine Fleurquin (vocals, bass) and George Agetees (drums), is a gorgeous, folky number with a bit of hard rock guitar soloing.

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Motherlode

2008-12-17T08:29:00.001-05:00

Motherlode went through a ton of personnel changes over the course of its brief existence, but when this LP was recorded in 1969 the lineup was William "Smitty" Smith (organ, piano, vocals), Ken Marco (guitar, vocals), Wayne "Stoney" Stone (drums) and Steve Kennedy (saxophone, harmonica and vocals). The four had previously been members of Grant Smith and The Power, but split and formed Motherlode in order to play their own material. After holing up in London, Ontario and playing any gig they could get, they caught the ear of Mort Ross, who signed them to his label Revolver Records in 1969. Their first single, "When I Die," didn't go anywhere in Canada at first, but hit the Top 20 in the States and subsequently sold over 500,000 copies. Their first full-length, also named When I Die, was released before the end of the year, and although "Memories Of A Broken Promise" was also a moderate hit, that was pretty much it for Motherlode. The quartet had trouble recording their second album and broke up in early 1970; the album (Tapped Out) was posthumously released in the U.S. only. Kennedy, Stone and Marco immediately joined Doug Riley's band Dr. Music, while Smith brought in three new guys and recorded another single as Motherlode. When it flopped they broke up, but that didn't stop Revolver (who owned the rights to the name) from going through three more incarnations of "Motherlode" before calling it quits for good. The original foursome did get together in 1976 for a single ("Happy People," which had to be released as a Ken Marco solo number for legal reasons) and a series of Toronto reunion performances in 1989.

When I Die, an impressive slab of late-'60s r&b, was produced for Revolver Records by Mort Ross and Doug Riley. In addition to the band members, Carol Kaye played bass and acoustic guitar on every track and Paul "Mickey" MacCalum played congas on "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)". "When I Die" (an original number written by Smith and Kennedy; not to be confused with "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat & Tears) was the hit, and it's a gorgeous, melancholic but tuneful number. The jazzy, Spanish-tinged "Memories Of A Broken Promise" (by Dianne Brooks) was the album's second chart entry, while "Living Life" (by Marco) is a slightly longer, soulful ballad. And the aforementioned "What Does It Take" (a cover of a Jr. Walker and The All-Stars tune) is the LP's funkiest track and probably my favourite, with particularly nice work by Kennedy on sax.

When I Die
Memories Of A Broken Promise
Living Life
What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Bobby Edwards

2008-12-14T08:39:00.006-05:00

Bobby Edwards first picked up a guitar at the age of five and learned the basics jamming with his father, a violinist. By 12, having already surpassed a number of would-be guitar teachers, he began to study with Tony Bradan, and as a teenager he played in Trump Davidson's orchestra and on the CBC-TV shows "Music Hop," "Front Page Challenge" and "The Friendly Giant." Moving into studio and session work, he often played with Ed Bickert, worked on several CFTO-TV shows, scored a number of feature-length films, and acted as musical director of the Juno and ACTRA Awards. Throughout the '80s Edwards was often working on eight shows a week, but by the end of the decade synthesizers began to replace live musicians within the TV industry and he moved into accompanying blockbuster musicals such as Les Miserables, Jolson, Chicago and The Patsy Cline Show. Nowadays Edwards splits his time between teaching, playing live theatre shows all over North America and recording; he has an album coming out next year.

Fat City Suite In E Major, a CTL album Sipreano was kind enough to sell me, was recorded at Manta Sound in Toronto by producer/arrangers Edwards and Jerry Toth. Edwards is accompanied by an impressive assemblage of Canadian musical talent: Ed Bickert, Jim Pirie and Art Devilliers (who also played on the Bonfield-Dickson LP) on lead guitar, Hank Monis, Terry Bush and Brian Russell on rhythm guitar, Bob Price on bass, Peter Appleyard on vibes and percussion, Pete Magadini on drums, and Jack Zaza on flute, oboe, accordion, mandolin, harmonica and spoons. The LP veers between jazz, classical, pop and rock, sometimes all within the same song. "Fat City Suite In E Major" (by Jerry Toth) is one of the more classical-sounding numbers, while "Tonight" is a classy, fairly straightforward take on a Leonard Bernstein number from West Side Story with particularly nice work by Appleyard on vibes. "Samba de Fuzz" (by Edwards) is a more rock-oriented number, with wakka-chikka guitar that makes it sound like a track from a blacksploitation flick. And the gentle ballad "If" is a cover of a Bread tune.

Fat City Suite In E Major
Tonight
Samba De Fuzz
If

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Mercey Brothers

2008-12-10T08:24:00.002-05:00

The Mercey Brothers (Larry - singer/guitarist, Ray - singer/bassist, & Lloyd - singer/drummer) were three siblings hailing from Hanover, Ontario who went on to establish themselves as one of the most popular country acts in Canada. In 1956, Larry began singing on the CKNX Barn Dance and was soon joined by Ray. Modeling themselves as a Everly Brothers-style close harmony duo, they recorded for Art Snider's Chateau Records (where they made their first chart appearance in 1961 with "Just The Snap Of Your Fingers") and made appearances on CBC-TV.

In 1966 Lloyd joined the group and throughout the late '60s they recorded a number of singles for CTL/Columbia (including "Whistling On The River," their first hit as a trio), performed at the Grand Ole Opry and toured England, Germany and Scandinavia. In 1970 they signed with RCA and between 1969 and 1972 they won the Juno Award for Best Country Artist. The following year they opened their own recording studio in Elmira, Ontario (which is where this Ollie Case LP was recorded), and by '75 they'd started their own label in order to give themselves more control over the business end of the music industry. The studio was closed in 1980 and by the end of that year Ray had left the band to act as manager and spend more time with his family. Larry and Lloyd continued to tour as The Mercey Brothers with a rotating cast of replacements for Ray until 1989, when they packed it in for good and were inducted into The Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame. Lloyd put together a pick-up rock band for a while afterward, while Larry set out on a prolific solo career; most recently he put out an album with The Larry Mercey Trio.

Have Mercey was recorded at RCA Studios in Toronto and produced by Gary Buck, with arrangements by The Mercey Brothers. Every song on the LP was written by Bruce Rawlins and Terry Carisse, and they're a fairly diverse bunch not limited to straight-up country. "Liberty Queen" is fairly conventional country-rock, but "Don't Disturb The Night" is a melancholy, Beatles-esque pop song. "Swamp Picker" is an earthy, Southern-fried tune with a fantastic hummed refrain, and "Blind Man" is an epic, folkier number reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot's '70s output, with that wide-open "Canadian sound" I've talked about before. All four tunes, of course, feature first-rate singing and playing by The Merceys.

Liberty Queen
Don't Disturb The Night
Swamp Picker
Blind Man

Strictly Canadian

2008-12-07T08:39:00.003-05:00

This Birchmount (a subsidiary of Quality Records Ltd.) compilation LP features six artists from Thunder Bay, Ontario's Gaiety Records, including Tomorrow's Keepsake and The Plague, both of whom were featured on this site last summer.

"Love & Obey" by The Plague is a British Invasion-inspired garage rock number complete with organ and a stinging guitar solo, while Sandi Shore's "Like A Madness" (my favourite song here) is more like Petula Clark-style pop. "My Love Stood By Me," by Duncan & Fife (actually American expats Gib Guilbeau and Darrell Cotton recording under a pseudonym), is a somewhat bombastic pop-rock tune about a guy whose girl sticks around after he gets thrown in prison. And "So Much In Love With You" by Regina, Saskatchewan's The Checkerlads (Robert Frei -guitar, b/g vocals, Harvey Franz - drums, Arnold Rippliner - lead vocals, bass, rhythm guitar, Robert Bucholtz - organ, b/g vocals) is a nicely-sung, poppy, melodic rock number (there's a video of another one of their songs playing on a jukebox here).

Love & Obey - The Plague
Like A Madness - Sandi Shore
My Love Stood By Me - Duncan & Fife
So Much In Love With You - The Checkerlads

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jimmy James, Rene Dore & Linda Lee

2008-12-03T08:08:00.003-05:00

I can't track down anything about the Quebecois singers Rene Dore (who was also known as "Mexican Joe") or Linda Lee, but Jimmy James (not this Jimmy James) is apparently still on the roster of artists at Weatherby Sound. All three of them appeared on this LP, entitled Trois Dimensions, which features a mix of country, pop, jazz and French-Canadian folk tunes.

Trois Dimensions, identified on the back cover as Arc Records' first complete foray into the French-Canadian market, was produced by Arc mainstay Ben Weatherby. "N'oublie jamais" by Jimmy James is a laid-back, jazzy number with a nice piano-and-guitar bridge. "Sait on jamais," Linda Lee's first-ever recording, is a pleasant, more traditionally "French"-sounding ballad. And "C'est magnifique," the best song on the LP, is Rene Dore's country-rockified version of a jazz standard (you can listen to another version here), complete with a Chuck Berry-esque guitar solo.

N'oublie jamais - Jimmy James
Sait on jamais - Linda Lee
C'est magnifique - Rene Dore

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist)

2008-11-30T08:57:00.006-05:00

The psych/folk group The Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist) - previously alluded to in my post about Bob Burchill - was formed in Stratford, Ontario (located in, yes, Perth County) in 1969 by founding members Cedric Smith (guitar, vocals) and Richard Keelan (guitar, vocals). They were joined by Michael Butler (bass), Terry Jones (guitar, vocals) and George Taros (piano, vocals) and put out a debut album named "Mushroom Music" in '69 before signing with Columbia Records and releasing the self-titled LP I'm posting today in 1970. A double live album recorded at Toronto's Bathurst Street Church and entitled Alive (their last before they were dropped by Columbia) followed in '71, and in '73 Burchill (guitar, vocals, fiddle) became a permanent member just before the release of a second live album (What School Bus Tour, recorded in Ottawa, Sudbury and Winnipeg). After this the group's performances became somewhat infrequent, but this didn't stop them from recording a third live album in 1976 (Break Out To Berlin) just before breaking up. Smith and Jones carried on for one more album (1977's Ten Lost Years - And Then Some), but when that met with little success they moved on for good. If you're interested in a look at the group's early days, there's a page with some pretty good photos here.

The Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist) wasn't just a band with five or six guys, it was a classic hippie-era commune supported by friends, wives and girlfriends, and their ambitions stretched beyond music to include theatre and poetry...which is why this LP (recorded at Toronto Sound by producer John Williams and engineer Terry Brown) includes recitations of Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas and children's poems. The liner notes are also referred to as the "libretto". So, yeah, it's a little spliffed-out (cannibus is listed in the libretto under "inspiration, help, love") and pretentious, but hey, it was the spirit of the times. The Conspiracy are justly much-loved amongst folk/psych aficionados, and their indie label LPs are worth a pretty penny. "Midnight Hour," the album's first track, is a brooding, dramatic tune interspersed with the aforementioned Dylan Thomas readings (from "In My Craft Or Sullen Art"), while "You Have The Power" ends the first side with by repeating the chorus of "Midnight Hour" before trailing off with a foreboding chant. "Trouble On The Farm" is a shorter, more traditional country/folk tune, and "Crucifixation Cartoon" closes the album with a melancholic, slow-building ballad.

Midnight Hour
You Have The Power
Trouble On The Farm
Crucifixation Cartoon

St. Andrew The Apostle Folk Choir

2008-11-26T08:53:00.005-05:00

Two years ago I posted a cover of The Beach Boys' "In My Room" by London, Ontario's St. Andrew's Folk Choir and Congregation, and today I've got another LP by the same group, although this time they're named St. Andrew The Apostle Folk Choir.

I usually don't bother with church records unless they have at least one secular cover, but this second recording by St. Andrew's has a bunch, all of which revolve around the album's overall theme of peace and pacifism. Peace was recorded with the assistance of CJOE London, the choir director was Gerald Woodman and Kevin MacDougall directed the guitarists. Unlike the first album there's no bassist, but the guitarists were Glen Palmer, Rudi Davis, Sue Moyse, Jim Doyle and Paul Quinlan (there were forty kids in the choir, so I'm not going to list them all). This LP isn't quite as polished as the first one, but it's still a notch above the average youth ensemble. "One Tin Soldier" was originally recorded by a Canadian group named Original Caste, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is of course a Bob Dylan classic, and "Universal Soldier" is a Buffy Sainte-Marie number popularized by Donovan.

One Tin Soldier
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Universal Soldier

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Doug and The Slugs

2008-11-23T08:48:00.005-05:00

Doug and The Slugs were a Vancouver pop-rock band led by singer Doug Bennett who came together in 1977 and released their debut album (Cognac And Bologna, which included the Top 20 hit "Too Bad") in 1980. The group consisted of Bennett on vocals, John Burton and Rich Baker on guitar, Steve Bosley on bass, Simon Kendall on keyboards and John Wally Watson on drums. Between 1980 and 1992 The Slugs (and Doug) released six LPs and a number of singles, many of which were moderate hits within Canada, but they never really cracked the big time and by 1994 all of the original members had left aside from Bennett, who continued to tour as Doug and The Slugs with a rotating cast of sidemen until his untimely death in 2004.

Wrap It!, the Slugs' second LP, was recorded in 1981 at Little Mountain Sound in Vancouver, by co-producer (along with the band) Jim Vallance and assistants Mike Jones, Patrick Glover and Kevin Doyle. The liner notes on the dust sleeve are an amusingly self-deprecating look at the process of making the album, with ironic asides about spending $100,000 on coming up with an album concept, hiring producers and engineers, recording the damn thing and promoting it afterwards. "Dangerous," both the first song on the album and my favourite, is an up-tempo, new-wavey number with impassioned vocals by Bennett. "Forget About Me" is a meat-and-potatoes rock number that just might bear a certain resemblance to, say, Huey Lewis and The News, while the slower "River" is a jazzier, more epic take on the Slugs' sound that kind of reminds me of The Rheostatics.

Dangerous
Forget About Me
River

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Syrinx

2008-11-19T08:45:00.002-05:00

Syrinx were a Toronto "cosmic jazz" group (and/or one of the world's first electronic rock bands) made up of John Mills-Cockell (keyboards), Doug Pringle (saxophone, bongos, guiro) and Alan Wells (percussion). Mills-Cockell, who had previously been a member of Kensington Market, joined up with Wells and Pringle in 1970 and they went on to release a self-titled debut later that year and the album I'm posting today - Long Lost Relatives - in 1971. They went their separate ways not long after, but all three have remained active within the Canadian music and art scenes.

Long Lost Relatives was recorded at a number of Toronto studios - Eastern Sound, Thunder Sound, Pathé-Humphries and Bay Recording - by co-producers Mills-Cockell and Eugene Martynec (who was also a member of Kensington Market) and engineers Dave Kalunbach, Don Stewart and Bill Roncken. In addition to the band members, there was a string section (John Dembeck, Berul Sugarman, Stanley Solomon, Ronald Lurie and Sam Davis) and "orchestral percussion" by Vair Capper. Syrinx's sound is hard to classify; I've seen them described as "prog", "electronic" and "worldbeat"...so let's call it some combination of the three and leave it at that.

My copy of this LP is so warped that the first couple of songs on each side are unplayable, but I managed to rip a few songs all the same. "December Angel," my favourite track on the album, is a long, gorgeous and somewhat melancholic instrumental that was originally written for a solo dance performance by Peter Randazzo. If it were to be released today (and it could be) it would be filed under "ambient," and it reminds me of The Dead Texan or Jóhann Jóhannsson. "Tillicum," the theme song for a CTV show named "Here Come The Seventies", is a relatively poppy synth and sax-driven tune that actually reached #38 on the Canadian pop charts. "Better Deaf And Dumb From The First" and "Aurora Spinray" are more experimental numbers with Middle-Eastern touches here and there. "Spinray" also includes some vocal chanting towards the end, and some of the synths bring to mind passages on Massive Attack's album Mezzanine; all of the references to contemporary groups should give you an idea of how ahead of their time Syrinx were.

December Angel
Tillicum
Better Deaf And Dumb From The First
Aurora Spinray

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ron Jeffery

2008-11-16T08:14:00.002-05:00

There's nothing on the internet that I can find about country singer/songwriter Ron Jeffery, but the liner notes state that after recording this album in Portland, Oregon, he and his drummer Lorne Pavelick hopped back into their bus (dubbed "Beaver One") and "headed back to Canada," so it's probably safe to say he was a Canuck (and probably from Alberta, which is where the photos for the front and back covers were taken).

Permanent Change was released in 1974 on Marathon Records and was recorded by producer Gene Breeden at Ripcord Studios in Vancouver, Washington (a part of the Portland metropolitan area). The musical lineup was the aforementioned Pavelick and Dan Breeden on drums, Gene Breeden on dobro, acoustic and electric guitar, Helen Thompson on acoustic guitar, Ellis Miller on bass, Gene Keyes (who also did the string arrangements) on piano and banjo, Bobby James on bass and acoustic guitar, and Doug Atwell on fiddle. "Permanent Change" is a cover of a fairly obscure Johnny Rivers tune with a philosophical bent, while "Perfect Stranger" is a snappy Tom T. Hall number with a corny twist at the end, and "Loose Words" (probably my favourite song on the LP) is a grandiose ballad by Ripcord Studios bassist Bobby James.

Permanent Change
Perfect Stranger
Loose Words

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

3rd Anniversary - Jazz and Hot Dance in Canada: 1916-1949

2008-11-12T00:45:00.002-05:00

Today I'm marking the third anniversary of this site by featuring the oldest music I've ever posted here; a few selections from a compilation entitled Jazz and Hot Dance in Canada: 1916-1949. When I picked this record up I saw it was Vol. 14 in a series and thought, damn, I've really got my work cut out for me if I'm going to track down volumes 1-13. Then I learned that it was but one entry in a series of reissues put out by Harlequin Records during the '80s, each one focusing on a different country or region (including but not limited to Germany, Hungary, San Francisco, Sweden and India).

According to the liner notes, there were black musicians (many of whom were freed or escaped slaves) in Canada as early as 1775. Towards the end of the 19th century some, including Nathaniel Dett, began writing and performing ragtime music, which over time (this is a gross oversimplification) mutated into what became known as swing and jazz. These styles spread in popularity across the globe and were played by musicians of all races and nationalities, and Canada was no exception to this cross-pollination.

~~Delirious Rag - Harry Thomas~~

Pianist Harry Thomas was born in England but moved to Montreal, where he became a protégé of Willie Eckstein (one of Canada's most popular musicians at the time) and developed a gift for improvisation honed by endless hours spent accompanying silent movies, despite his inability to read music. The Canadian Jazz Discography describes him as Canada's first real jazz musician. "Delirious Rag," a frenetic solo piece for piano, was written by Eckstein and Thomas and was recorded in New York in 1916.

~~Music (Makes The World Go Round) - The Melody Kings and Willie Eckstein~~

Banjo player Andy Tipaldi formed The Melody Kings in Montreal in 1921, and they played that city's best dance clubs until 1928. They also recorded a number of sides, including this jaunty 1922 tune co-written by Eckstein, Billy Munro and Sam Howard. Apparently The Melody Kings were considered a "hot dance" group, rather than a jazz band. If you're wondering what the difference is, Eckstein's entry in The Virtual Gramophone (which is an *amazing* resource) describes it thusly; "Hot dance music, usually played by bands that had piano, saxophone, and cornet or trombone, was then thought of as jazz; but in fact several characteristics distinguished it -- and Eckstein's piano style -- from true jazz. These included arranged solos and a more restrained swing rhythm." At the time of this recording, the group's lineup was Johnny Dixon (trumpet), Alex Lajoie (alto sax), Tipaldi (banjo), Eckstein (piano), Tipaldi's brother John (violin) and Rob Roy (drums), with unidentified tuba and trombone players rounding out the ensemble. Apparently, this side was recorded the night after a long party, and the group members were allowed to improvise a bit; Eckstein's dexterous runs on the piano absolutely own the track.

~~Darktown Strutters' Ball - Trump Davidson and His Orchestra~~

Sudbury, Ontario's Jimmy "Trump" Davidson formed and led The Melody Five, which was possibly Canada's first jazz band. But this take on the jazz standard "Darktown Strutters' Ball" was recorded with a different group (Davidson - cornet, Gordy Connell and Frank Barnard - trumpet, Ken Houston - trombone, Cokey Campbell - clarinet, tenor sax, Herbie Mason - alto sax, Vern Kahanen - alto & baritone sax, Eddie Houston - tenor sax, Johnny Burt (later the musical director of the CTL) - piano, Joe Niosi - bass, and Reef McGarvey - drums) at Club Esquire in Toronto in 1937.

~~One O'Clock Jump - Allan McIver and Orch.~~

Montreal pianist, composer and arranger Allan McIver was another guy who got his start in music playing alongside silent films. Throughout the '30s and '40s his ensembles were frequently heard on radio and he eventually went on to work as the musical director on many CBC television shows. "One O'Clock Jump, a Count Basie classic, was recorded in Montreal in 1940 with McIver conducting Raymond Denhez, Louis Eusanio and Frank Taylor on trumpet, Joe Bell and Frank Taplitsky on trombone, Alec Finlayson, Howard Higgins, Edgar Tremblay and Lucio Agostini on saxophone, Rusty Davis on piano, Dave Kirschberg on guitar, Hymie Krasner on bass and Leslie Mills on drums.

~~Pallet On The Floor - Lorna Dean~~

It doesn't appear as though much is known about singer Lorna Dean, which is a shame because I love her gorgeously melancholic 1949 rendition of the folk standard "Pallet On The Floor". The liner notes do state that this band - led by Lorna's husband Dean (cornet), with Bill Hicks (guitar) and Michael Snow (yes, that Michael Snow) (piano) - was one of a few amateur outfits which played dances in and around Toronto during a late '40s revival of traditional New Orleans jazz; this record was sold to fans at their gigs.

So, yeah, today is indeed Five Bucks On By-Tor's third anniversary, and I guess it's high time that I came clean and admitted that my name isn't actually Yves Perret (that's the name of the villain in Tango and Cash, one of my favourite bad movies), it's Beau Levitt. I'm just a 35-year-old Toronto librarian who got a little drunk one night, listened to a 45 I'd bought at a garage sale that afternoon and thought it might be kind of cool to start sharing some of the Canadian records I came across in my travels. Keeping this site going takes a lot of hard work, but the music I've been lucky enough to stumble across and the conversations I've had with some of the artists I've featured and/or their families makes it all well worth it. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to stop by and learn more about the lesser-known heroes of Canada's musical history over the past three years; I've had just over 60,000 unique visitors since Dec. 2006.

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

R. Murray Schafer

2008-11-09T08:58:00.004-05:00

Avant-garde writer, composer and educator R. Murray Schafer was born in my hometown of Sarnia, Ontario in 1933. As a young man he was interested in painting, but gravitated towards music and entered the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto in 1952. Feeling stifled by what he felt was the university's conformist atmosphere, Schafer left the school in 1955 and decamped for Austria in order to study at the Vienna Academy. After two years he moved to England, where he studied with the composer Peter Racine Fricker, worked as a journalist to pay the bills and married his first wife, Canadian mezzo-soprano Phyllis Mailing.

In 1961 Schafer returned to Canada, where he organized and directed the Ten Centuries Concerts (a selection of lesser-known but important works), and became a teacher in his capacity as artist-in-residence at Memorial and (later) Simon Fraser University. Throughout the '60s and '70s he established The World Soundscape Project, a research group dedicated to the study of the principles of "acoustic ecology," wrote books on subjects ranging from the music of Ezra Pound to novels to his educational and cultural theories, and composed operas, works for chamber and orchestral ensembles and musical drama cycles. These days, his awards and honours almost too numerous to list, he continues to teach and work as artist-in-residence at Concordia University. All in all, not too shabby for a Sarnia boy.

Threnody, one of Schafer's works for youth groups, was performed by Lawrence Park Collegiate Orchestra and Choir, but it's definitely not your typical high school band LP. The title track is an anti-war protest comprised of spoken word recitations of (graphic) eyewitness accounts of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, accompanied by an orchestra, choir and electronic sounds. Easy-listening it's not. "Epitaph For Moonlight" is (I'm reading from the liner notes here) "an ear-training exercise...the singers must learn to pitch their notes by interval from key notes which are given." Apparently the lyrics derive from an exercise in which Schafer asked a grade seven class to come up with synonyms for the work "moonlight" in their own invented languages; hence, "noorwahm, nu-yu-yul, malooma, sloofulp, shiverglowa," etc. And "Statement In Blue" is "a graphic score containing scarcely a conventional musical note. As such it forms the basis for a kind of controlled improvisation by the group and no two groups perform the work the same way. It is what Schafer calls an 'heuristic composition.' It sets problems and asks questions of the performer." So, yeah...no shaky, off-key renditions of "Blue Moon" and "In The Mood" on this high school band record, nosiree.

Threnody
Epitaph For Moonlight
Statement In Blue

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

T-Birds

2008-11-05T11:45:00.001-05:00

I don't know anything about the rockabilly band known simply as T-Birds, but this single was released by Castle Records of Canada and its two songs appear on compilations entitled Early Canadian Rockers Vol. 6 & 7 and 11 & 12, so it's probably safe to say they were Canucks.

The other name listed on the label is New Talent Records, so it's possible that was T-Birds' record company and Castle Records was the distributor. One or the other, anyway. The only other info to pass along from the label is that both songs were written by A. Young, who was presumably a member of the band. "Broken Hearted Blues" and "Thunder Rock" are both fairly simple instrumentals that amble along pleasantly; you've gotta figure T-Birds were just a bunch of kids who were still in high school or just out of it.

Broken Hearted Blues
Thunder Rock

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jim Chigwedere

2008-11-02T08:30:00.001-05:00

Jim Chigwedere, whose song "Georgina" was featured here a few posts ago, wasn't Canadian (I think he was from Zimbabwe), but he lived here for several summers while he helped to build new homes as a volunteer for Operation Beaver, the organization that also put out this record.

Jim Chigwedere and his Zambezi Valley Songs, like the other OB album, was recorded at Sound Canada in Toronto and features songs arranged by Chigwedere (who sings and plays them by himself on acoustic guitar) in the Shona, Sindabele and Bemba languages. I don't speak any of those, but the back of the album helpfully includes a short blurb describing what each song is about:

~~Njililo~~ - "A Zambezi lion celebrates a successful hunt"
~~Unotonkisakai~~ - "Where will you put me now that I'm in rags?"
~~Ifwe Ma Expensive~~ - "We are the expensive people; this is our land"
~~Rosi Masihlamgame~~ - "Rosy my girl"

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

George and June Pasher

2008-10-29T08:42:00.001-04:00

George and his late wife June Pasher were a pair of Nova Scotian country singers. George grew up in the Cape Breton area, joined the army and was stationed in Korea until 1953, and worked in a coal mine for a short while after his return. In 1954 he and his father moved to Toronto to look for work, which is presumably where he met and married June (who had also moved to T.O. during the early '50s) and started up his career as a musician. George and June recorded for Arc Records throughout the 1950s and '60s and became mainstays on the Canadian country circuit. At some point it would appear as though they separated; June continued to play local taverns in Toronto now and again, while George remained fairly active as a musician, playing in the U.S., Japan, Korea, Germany, France and Switzerland. George also carved out a secondary career as an actor, landing small parts in television shows and movies including “Friday the 13th,” "Street Legal," “Searching for Bobby Fisher,” "Super Dave" and “Tommy Boy”. These days he lives in Toronto with his second wife, Sophie, and plays with Josi and Lori ("The Newfie Chicks").

Are You Mine?, Arc release #615, doesn't include any information about where the album was recorded, or who played on it aside from George and June. It's an LP's worth of spirited country standards heavily influenced by legends like Kitty Wells, Hank Williams and Jean Shepard. This record's in fairly rough shape, so many of the songs weren't really playable, but I did manage to rip three tunes, all of them really old traditional bluegrass numbers. "Columbus Stockade Blues," which shares a bit of its melody and some of its lyrics with "You Are My Sunshine," is probably my favourite of the bunch.

Columbus Stockade Blues
That Was Before I Met You
This Old House

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Mariposa 1976

2008-10-26T08:57:00.006-04:00

The first Mariposa Folk Festival was organized in 1961 by Ruth Jones, her husband Dr. Crawford Jones and Pete McGarvey, and was held in Orillia, Ontario. After bouncing around different locations throughout Ontario the Festival, which has always aimed to promote roots music in Canada, returned to Orillia, where it continues to be staged to this day. Between 1968 and 1979 it was moved to Centre Island, just off the coast of Toronto, which is where this double LP of that year's performers was recorded.

Throughout the '70s the Festival's artistic director Estelle Klein attempted to promote lesser-known acts amongst big names like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Joan Baez. In 1976, the lineup included notable American acts including Taj Mahal, Roscoe Holcomb and Steve Goodman, but I've limited this post to Canadian acts only.

Feather - Akinsi Novalinga
Throat Singing - Lucie Amarualik & Alicie Tulaugaq

The Festival's commitment to smaller acts included an increased emphasis on First Nations and Inuit performers. "Feather", by Akinsi Novalinga, and a demonstration of Inuit throat singing by Lucy Amarualik and Alicie Tullaugaq, are rather otherworldly and almost beyond my ability to describe; the best I can do is to say they could almost be backing tracks on one of Bjork's recent albums.

~~Heh Broker - Willie Dunn~~

Singer, songwriter, filmmaker, playwright and politician Willie Dunn was born in Quebec of mixed Scottish and Mi'kmaq heritage, and has devoted his musical career to highlighting aboriginal issues, including the injustices visited upon First Nations peoples within Canada. "Heh Broker" is a relentless, sombre country number sung by Dunn, who accompanies himself on acoustic guitar.

~~Chattanooga Night - Colleen Peterson~~

Folk singer Colleen Peterson was born in Peterborough, Ontario and moved to Ottawa, where she started performing in coffeehouses and played in an emsemble named 3's A Crowd with Bruce Cockburn and David Wiffen. She was a constant and popular presence within Canada's folk and country scenes up until her untimely death (of cancer) at the age of 45 in 1996. "Chattanooga Night," another solo performance on acoustic guitar, is a plaintive country ballad.

~~In My Solitude - Jackie Washington~~

Born in Hamilton in 1919, blues singer, guitarist and pianist Jackie Washington started performing with his brothers at the age of five and is still making live appearances in his late eighties. A longtime mainstay at Canadian festivals, coffeehouses and nightclubs, Washington is known for his huge repertoire of songs in styles spanning pop, novelty, blues and jazz. "In My Solitude" is a Duke Ellington jazz standard on which Washington is accompanied by Chris Whiteley on harmonica, Ken Bloom on clarinet, Mike Gardiner on bass and Bill Usher on drums.

~~The Little White Church - The Humber River Valley Boys~~

The Humber River Valley Boys were a bluegrass band comprised of Dave Harvey (who played with Cathy Fink and Duck Donald), Don Thurson, Brian Pickell and John Jackson. "The Little White Church" is a traditional bluegrass standard, performed by the band in the best old-timey style.

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2008-10-22T08:40:00.003-04:00

There doesn't seem to be anything on the internet about the Toronto country group The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, nor is there much to learn about Dream On The Run, a TV movie they soundtracked for Periwinkle Records. However, the liner notes do an admirable job of filling in the blanks a bit:

"Discovered in the Orchard Park Tavern [apparently located at the corner of Queen St. E. and Kingston Rd.] in Toronto's lower east end where they have been regular performers for some time, Periwinkle recording artists The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly now take a step into the film world and the big times. Utilizing a middle of the road country sound, the band features [guitarist and singer] Gerry Hall (songwriter and performer from Buckens, Newfoundland), [singer and bassist] Randy McDonald (lover of good wine and good music, from Glace Bay, Cape Breton, N.S.), [steel and dobro guitarist] Mickey Andrews (from New Waterford, Cape Breton - a musician ranging from Stompin' Tom to Mozart), Paul Clinch (an English drummer and good friend of all), and [another singer] Toronto's Anette George (adding that feminine touch)."

It's not really clear what kind of movie Dream On The Run was, but if I had to guess based on the photos on the (awesome) cover and the gatefold sleeve (a gambler raking in his chips, a drunk passing out in a bar, some dude kicking another guy in the face) I'd say a gangster flick or some kind of thriller.

Like most Periwinkle recordings, this LP was recorded at Sound Canada Recording Centre in February, 1974 (although the IMDB says the film was released in 1977), and produced by Art Snider (who also did the string, brass and vocal arrangements). The liner notes' description of the band as having a "middle of the road country sound" is pretty spot-on. "Theme For Two" is a pastoral, Ry Cooder-ish instrumental, and probably my favourite song on the album. "Dream On The Run" is a mid-tempo ballad in the "when you're born to run, it's hard to slow down" vein, and "Deep In The Woods" is another (mostly) instrumental number, with backup singers adding some "do-do-do-do"'s to the laid-back atmosphere. And "It's Sad To Hurt That Way," the only track I've posted that features Anette George's singing, is another fairly conventional mid-'70s country weeper.

Theme For Two
Dream On The Run
Deep In The Woods
It's Sad To Hurt That Way

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Bobby Gimby

2008-10-19T08:02:00.006-04:00

Trumpeter and bandleader Bobby Gimby has graced FBOBT two Canada Days in a row in his guise as "the Pied Piper of Canada". However, this time I'm posting a few tracks from a solo LP of his, entitled Bobby Gimby Now!

Gimby was born in Cabri, Saskatchewan in 1918, and as a boy played in several youth bands and orchestras out west. He wound up in Toronto during the early '40s, playing lead trumpet in Mart Kenney's Western Gentlemen before starting up his own band and landing his own country music radio program, The Bobby Gimby Show. He was also part of "The Happy Gang" on CBC Radio and acted as musical director on "Juliette" between 1956 and 1960. In '63 he decamped for London, England, where he wrote radio jingles and somehow wound up penning "Malaysia Forever," a tune celebrating the formation of Malaysian federation in 1963. Shortly thereafter he returned to Canada, where he led hotel orchestras and dixieland bands and gained a measure of fame for writing "Canada", a tune performed by The Young Canada Singers to celebrate the country's Centennial in 1967. Afterwards he toured the country (as well as Japan, Germany and the U.S.) leading kids' bands and choirs, hosted a television variety show named "Sing A Song" on CTV, and led other groups including The Bobby Gimby Orchestra in public performances well into the '80s before passing away in North Bay, Ontario in 1998.

Bobby Gimby Now! was released on Gimby's own "BG" label at some point during the '70s, I'd imagine. The back cover doesn't include any information about the members of his band, but the album was was recorded at United Media Studios by engineer Brian Bell and producer Jerry Toth. Gimby's pimpin' outfit on the cover aside, it's not what you'd call the hippest album in the world (it includes covers of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and "In The Mood"), but earnest charm...that it has in spades. "Copacabana" is a spirited cover of the Barry Manilow hit, while "Rise" (credited to "A. Armar/R. Badazz") is a kinda porn-y disco/funk number that is far and away my favourite song on the album. Lastly, the ballad "Lover's Lullaby" is an easy-listening Gimby original that floats by in a pleasant haze.

Copacabana
Rise
Lover's Lullaby

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Third World Sings

2008-10-15T08:34:00.004-04:00

Since 1964, Operation Beaver has been a program operated by Frontiers Foundation, an Aboriginal non-profit organization. OB started out as a work camp, but over the years since it's branched out into educational and housing construction activities to benefit Native communities. One aspect of the program has been to bring people from other nations over to Canada to work alongside Natives, and in 1974 OB released this album on its own Beaver Records label, featuring songs performed by several musicians associated with the program.

The Third World Sings was recorded at Sound Canada Studios in Toronto. There are five different acts featured on the album, so I chose one song by each. The Conklin Minstrels were a Metis family (William, Roy and Deloris Tremblay), and their number "Machimanitohyassis" (English translation: The Brave Who Travelled The World) is a country-ish number with nice harmonizing on the choruses. "Burung Kakatua" is a jaunty Malaysian children's song by Mr. and Mrs. Mustapha Besar, while "The Northern Memories" is a straight-up country song written by Al Osler and performed by Fred House with Ken Stoltz and The Nightlife Band. "Georgina" is an absolutely gorgeous Zambezi love song by Jim Chigwedere (Beaver Records also released an entire album of his entitled Jim Chigwedere And his Zambezi Valley Songs that I also have and will post sometime soon). And "Bonsoir Dame" is a fairly traditional Caribbean steel drum tune by Geoff Jones and Jerry Jerome and The Cardells, who were featured here back in July.

Machimanitohyassis - The Conklin Minstrels
Burung Kakatua - Mustapha Besar
The Northern Memories - Fred House w. Ken Stoltz and The Nightlife Band
Georgina - Jim Chigwedere
Bonsoir Dame - Geoff Jones w. Jerry Jerome & The Cardells

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Vic Franklyn

2008-10-12T08:49:00.006-04:00

Welsh-born crooner Vic Franklyn was previously featured on this site one year ago, and met with a pretty enthusiastic response. So you'll be glad to see I've found another of his albums, this one entitled Shangri-La.

Shangri-La is another Canadian Talent Library release, and was recorded in 1973 at RCA Studios in Toronto by producer/engineer George Semkiw. There's no information about the members of Franklyn's backing band, but the arrangements were by Rick Wilkins, Jackie Mittoo is credited with "reggae rhythm tracks," and the choral director was Laurie Bower. "For All We Know" is a reggae-fied version of the Bread hit that pretty much everyone covered in the '70s. "The Old-Fashioned Way" is a classic pop ballad that sounds like a Tony Bennett number, while "Shangri-La" and "I Won't Last A Day Without You" also reveal the influence of Mr. Mittoo.

For All We Know
The Old-Fashioned Way
Shangri-La
I Won't Last A Day Without You

Bob Ruzicka

2008-10-08T08:29:00.008-04:00

Thorsby, Alberta-bred singer/songwriter Bob Ruzicka was otherwise known as "The Singing Dentist," and during his heyday in the '70s and '80s his songs were covered by a long list of artists including (but not limited to) Anne Murray, George Hamilton IV, Judy Collins, Henson Cargill, Valdy, Stompin' Tom Connors and The Rhythm Pals. Ruzicka first made a name for himself during the early 1970s by making appearances on Peter Gzowski's "This Country In The Morning" radio program, and by 1972 he was hosting his own short-lived TV show, Ruzicka, a variety show which featured a wide range of Canadian country and folk acts. He released his debut LP, What The World's All About, in 1972, and over the next decade he went on to record six more albums, scored a number of hits on the Canadian country charts, and frequently performed on Tommy's Hunter's popular CBC show. However, by the early '80s he'd tired of the spotlight, moved with his family to Vancouver Island, and returned to his original career as a children's dentist.

Fresh Tracks, released in 1976 on RCA, was Ruzicka's fifth LP, and was recorded by producer/engineer Gary MacDonall at Edmonton's Damon Sound Studios. It's another album with enough musicians credited to fill a symphony orchestra:

Moe Marshall - guitar
Stu Mitchell - drums
Al Wilson - piano
Gary Koliger - guitar
Jerry Rauw - bass
Larry Good - banjo
Wally Petruik - string and brass arrangements
Joe Schultz - accordion
Bruce Cramer - cello
Tom Johnson - viola
Dave Blacker - trombone
Rick Tait - trumpet
Earl Seymour - baritone sax

Backup singers: Brian Good, Bruce Good, Betty Chaba, Blue Williams, Nancy Nash, Jan Baker, Jim Olson, John Ford

All of the songs I've posted here are Ruzicka originals. "String A Long," the album's first track, is a short, funky number, while "No Place To Hide" is a vindictive kiss-off tune with more of a traditional country feel. And "Everybody'd Love To Know" is a bittersweet ballad that includes a neat turn of phrase ("It's a lead pipe cinch") I'd never heard before but will henceforth incorporate into my own vocabulary.

String A Long
No Place To Hide
Everybody'd Love To Know

Jackie Mittoo

2008-10-05T08:04:00.001-04:00

Jamaican-born keyboard maestro (and Skatalites co-founder) Jackie Mittoo, who called Toronto home throughout most of the '70s and '80s, made his first appearances on this site two and a half years ago. Today I've got a few selections from his 1975 CTL LP Let's Put It All Together, which, like Wishbone and The Money Makers, is more of a reggaefied instrumental pop LP than an out-and-out reggae album; hence its Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka covers. It should also be noted that Mittoo wasn't very happy about being known in Canada primarily for his easy-listening material instead of his reggae work;

"Meanwhile, in Toronto during the early 1970s, he is employed by the
Canadian Talent Library and between the years 1971 and 1974 releases three easy listening albums for the project with 'Wishbone', 'Reggae Magic' and 'Let's Put It All Together', the title track from the first of these going on to become a local hit. In fact, he tells me that in Canada he is known only as an easy listening performer and for his contributions to reggae not in the least. And it is while living in Canada during the mid-1970s that Jackie meets up with Bunny Lee..."How he an' I actually start workin' now, he went to Canada an' he was there for a long time. I go Canada an' meet 'im again and say, 'Wait, wha' 'appen, Jackie! Wha' you up here a waste time, old man?' An' 'im was a very bitter man, because nobody mention 'im, an' all a these great work 'im do in a Jamaica."

Mittoo's misgivings aside, Let's Put It All Together definitely has its easygoing charms. It was recorded at Manta Sound in Toronto by engineer/mixer Andy Hermant, with arrangements by Mittoo and Rick Wilkins and backup musicians separated into two groups:

REGGAE RHYTHM SECTION:
Leader/keyboards: Jackie Mittoo
Guitars: Wayne McGhie & Carl Harvey
Bass: Brian Atkinson
Drums: Joe Isaacs, Everton Paul & Earl Leeder
Percussion: Dick Smith

SWEETENING SECTION:
Leader: Rick Wilkins
Flute: Moe Koffman
Saxophone: Eugene Amaro
Trombone: Rob McConnell
Trumpet: Guido Basso
Strings: Walter Babiak, Peter Schenkman, Albert Pratz, Berul Sugerman, Joe Sera, Frank Fusco, Maurice Solway & Stanley Kolt

All four of the songs I'm posting here are Mittoo originals ("The Rattler" was co-written with C. Alex Brown). "Drum Song" is definitely the funkiest of the bunch, but I really like the chilled extended fade-out on "The Rattler," too.

Ram Jam
The Rattler
Drum Song
Reggae Roots

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Juliette

2008-10-01T08:10:00.003-04:00

The singer known as Juliette (full name Juliette Augustina Sysak, later Cavazzi after she married manager/singer Tony Cavazzi) was born in a suburb of Winnipeg in 1927. When she was still a child her family moved to Vancouver, and at the age of 13 she began her professional singing career with Dal Richards' nightclub orchestra. At 15 she made the first of many CBC appearances on "Sophisticated Strings" with George Calangis, which led to stints on Alan Young's Toronto radio show, CBC Vancouver's "Burns Chuckwagon" and her own show entitled "Here's Juliette". Midway through the '50s she moved back to Toronto, co-starred with Gino Silvi on another radio program, "Gino and Juliette," and often performed on Billy O'Connor's "The Late Show" on TV. In 1956 she landed her own CBC-TV variety show, titled simply "Juliette," which aired for ten years on Saturday nights (after "Hockey Night In Canada") and made her into a pretty big star, even though critics (who often referred to her as "Florence Welk") didn't much care for it. When it was canceled in 1966 (in the wake of dropping ratings and rumours of conflict with CBC management), she went on to host the occasional holiday special and a couple of '70s talk shows ("After Noon" and "Juliette And Friends"). After these shows went off the air, Juliette was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, went back to singing in nightclubs, became known as a Canadian drag queen icon, and cared for her husband, who suffered from Alzheimer's and passed away after 40 years of marriage. These days she's retired and living in Vancouver, and made her last public appearance in 2004 at an event marking Del Richards' 85 birthday.

Never having heard of Juliette, when I picked this LP up I figured it was a country album. Instead, it's Doris Day-style jazz-tinged pop, recorded by producers Bob Wagstaff and Jack Budgell with Lucio Agostini's orchestra backing Juliette up and arrangements by Eddie Graf and Rick Wilkins. The entire album is made up of standards; "Until It's Time For Me To Go" is a melancholy, oft-covered Buffy Sainte-Marie number, while her version of the Gordon Lightfoot classic "Ribbon Of Darkness" slows it right down into an atmospheric torch song. "Honey On The Vine" (by prolific songwriters Fred Burch and Jan Crutchfield) is a gorgeous, bluesy number, and "Feelin' Good" (the last track on the album) is a lush, melodramatic show tune (and probably the only song covered by both Nina Simone and The Pussycat Dolls).

Until It's Time For Me To Go
Ribbon Of Darkness
Honey On The Vine
Feelin' Good

Alexander Zonjic

2008-09-28T08:23:00.007-04:00

Jazz flautist Alexander Zonjic was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1951, and at the age of nine he started playing guitar. By the time he was in his teens he was playing lead guitar in an r&b group, but it wasn't until he bought a flute (for $9) from some sketchy dude on a street corner that inspiration really struck. One year later, at the age of 22, he'd mastered the basics of the instrument and entered the music program at the University of Windsor, where he took lessons from Ervin Monroe, principal flautist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. After graduation, Zonjic continued to play guitar in rock groups, taught flute lessons and performed in Detroit jazz clubs. After one such gig at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, he was approached by Bob James, who asked Zonjic to join his band. This led to a series of tours all over the world, and recording sessions with jazz artists such as Earl Klugh, Kirk Whalum, Harvey Mason and Angela Bofill. In 1978 he recorded his first solo album (the one I've posted here), and has gone on to release nine more over the intervening years. These days, Zonjic lives in Windsor with his wife and son, continues to perform live and hosts a morning show on WVMV-FM Smooth Jazz V98.7 in Detroit.

This self-titled LP was recorded and mixed at Polaris Recording Studio in Windsor, with production by Zonjic and string and horn arrangements by Jim Surell. The musical lineup varies from song to song, so I'll stick to listing the guys who play on the numbers I'm posting:

"Evening In Rio": Tom Borshuk (piano), Mark Weisberg (bass), John Knapp (drums)
"Blue Bossa": Matt Michaels (piano), Dan Pliskow (bass), Gene Stewart (drums)
"Joy": Jim Bruton (piano), Larry Pohjola (bass), Kent McMillan (drums)
"Wave": Matt Michaels (piano), Dan Pliskow (bass), Gene Stewart (drums)

Then there are the string and horn players:

Violins - Alan Gerstel, Felix Resnick and Alvin Score
Viola - David Ireland
Cello - Barbara Fickett
Trumpets - Ernest B. Skuta, Michael Skrzynski and Gordon Stump
Trombones - Eldred D. Baird, Leo Harrison and Alfred Winters
Alto Saxophones - Rick Janusas and Robert Scarff
Tenor Saxophone - James Tararelli
Baritone Saxophone - Rick Janusas

I know what you're thinking; you read the words "Smooth Jazz" in the top paragraph and a chill ran down your spine. Fortunately, this album's sound is a lot closer to Herbie Mann (who Zonjic lists as an influence on his website) than Kenny G. All four of these songs are pleasantly groovy and impeccably played light jazz numbers; "Blue Bossa," which features some particularly nice work on drums by John Knapp, is probably my favourite of the bunch.

Evening in Rio
Blue Bossa
Joy
Wave

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

300th post - Maestro Fresh Wes

2008-09-24T08:33:00.005-04:00

Maestro Fresh Wes (real name: Wesley Williams) is fairly well-known in Canada, but I'm not sure about the rest of the world. Wes grew up in Scarborough and originally named himself Melody MC, but switched to Maestro Fresh Wes not long before the release (in 1989) of his debut LP, Symphony In Effect. The single "Let Your Backbone Slide" (you can watch the video here) was Canada's first top 40 hit by a Canadian rapper and is still the only certified gold single in Canadian hip-hop history, and Symphony remains the best-selling Canadian rap album of all time. It was also, for a lot of people (including me), the first Canadian hip-hop they'd ever heard. His 1991 follow-up, Black Tie Affair, was also a hit (the video for "Conductin' Thangs) got a fair bit of airplay), but his subsequent attempts to crack the U.S. weren't a success and he never again hit it as big as he did with Symphony. However, he remains active as a musician (having shortened his name to Maestro in the late '90s) and actor, and these days is widely regarded as the godfather of Canadian hip-hop.

Symphony In Effect was produced by Peter and Anthony Davis (otherwise known as First Offence Productions), co-produced by Maestro and recorded at Don Valley Sounds in Markham. I won't pretend to know much about rap, but this is a pretty great album, and its best moments (especially "Backbone" and "Drop The Needle") stand up with much of the best of hip-hop's golden age.

Drop The Needle
Untouchable
The Mic's My Piece
Let Your Backbone Slide

Note: These songs have been archived a It Came From Canada.

As you can see, this is indeed my 300th post on FBOBT, ~~and to mark the occasion I'm giving away a free vinyl copy of Leveillee-Gagnon to the first person to email me and tell me they want it.~~ Many thanks to you all for continuing to take an interest in the lesser-known heroes of Canadian musical history!

Note: Congrats to John in NYC for winning the record!

Catherine McKinnon

2008-09-21T08:37:00.005-04:00

Pure-voiced singer Catherine McKinnon was born in Saint John, NB, in 1944 and made her first appearance on radio there at the age of eight. By the time she was twelve she'd appeared on TV in London, Ontario and went on to study music at Mount Saint Vincent College in Halifax. During the mid-'60s she was a regular on the CBC-TV programs "Singalong Jubilee," "Music Hop" and "Don Messer's Jubilee", and even had her own radio show entitled "That McKinnon Girl". In 1964 she recorded her first (and best-selling) LP, Voice Of An Angel, on Arc Records. This collection of folk standards spawned a sequel (Voice Of An Angel 2) and she went on to release four more albums on Arc over the next five years.

During the '70s McKinnon became a nightclub performer and moved into acting, appearing in a wide range of stage productions and television programs, including her own variety show on CTV, a musical biography of artist Emily Carr ("The Wonder Of It All") and Global TV's "Everything Goes". She gave a command performance for Queen Elizabeth during the Montreal Olympics, and also sang with the Saskatoon and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Hamilton Philharmonic. After taking a break from recording for a few years, she released a couple of comeback albums in 1980, followed by a Christmas LP in 1992. After that she appears to have exited the scene somewhat, although it looks like she still performs at her restaurant in Stanley Bridge, Prince Edward Island.

McKinnon started out as a folk singer, but on this 1969 LP she updates her sound a bit to include covers of contemporary hits by The Beatles, Harry Nilsson, Simon & Garfunkle and Donovan. Everybody's Talkin' was recorded at Bay Studios in Toronto, and produced by Brian Ahern with engineer Gary Starr. The musicians are identified as Ahern, Tom Graham, John Pace and Pat Riccio Jr., but the liner notes don't specify who played what. McKinnon's got a gorgeous voice that wouldn't really be suited for anything too gritty, but it matches up well with the pastoral Beatles tunes "Blackbird" and "In My Life". "Colours" is a gently rollicking take on a Donovan hit, while the a capella "Bold Irish Boy" is a stark and mournful traditional Irish ballad. Unfortunately, this record's a bit scratched up, so you're going to put up with a little static.

Blackbird
Colours
In My Life
Bold Irish Boy

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jean-Pierre Ferland

2008-09-17T08:35:00.008-04:00

Singer/songwriter Jean-Pierre Ferland was first featured on this site almost two years ago. That post only had one song from a compilation, but this time I've got an entire album, 1970's Jaune. This LP was a pretty big deal (and a commercial success in Quebec) within the chanson movement, as the contemporary-sounding music marked a break with his more traditionalist peers.

Jaune, released on Barclay Records, was recorded at Andre Perry Studio, with Jim Young on drums, David Spinozzo on guitar and Tony Levin on bass. "Prologue" and "...", the first songs on each side of the album, are very short folky-but-funky numbers that remind me a bit of Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack for Kelly's Heroes (a personal favourite of mine). "Le petit roi" (which unfortunately has a skip I couldn't get rid of at the 2:36 mark) moves through several distinct musical sections and sounds even more like a Kelly's Heroes track. "God Is An American" is a funky number with a nice groove undercut by somewhat (to my ears) trite lyrics and singing. And "Le chat du cafe des artistes" is another thing altogether, a gothy number that, with its minor-key melodies and orchestral backing, wouldn't sound entirely out of place on a Portishead album.

Prologue
Le petit roi
God Is An American
Le chat du cafe des artistes
...

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jerry Cole

2008-09-14T08:34:00.004-04:00

Country singer Jerry Cole (not this Jerry Cole) was born in Timmins, Ontario, but at the age of three his family moved to Kirkland Lake. As a schoolboy Cole sang with small bands and performed on radio talent shows, and in 1956 he joined the Royal Canadian Navy. Signing up with the Navy gave Jerry, as a crewmember on the HMCS Preserver, the opportunity to perform in France, England, Scotland, Ireland and Norway, as well as on other ships and throughout Canada. He also made appearances on the The Don Messer Show and played with Nashville stars like Carl Smith, Bobby Bare and Bob Luman. Beyond that information, which I got from the liner notes, I don't know anything about Cole, but here are four YouTube clips from 1970 of his performances on CBC Halifax's "Countrytime": "The Belles Of Maritime Tel", "Lookin' At The World Through A Windshield", "Could I Live There Anymore", and "Georgia Boy".

This Marathon ("The Sound Of Canadian Country") LP was recorded by Jack Hutchison and George Taylor, with Cole singing lead and playing rhythm guitar. His backup group, The Countrymen, was comprised of Lew Jenkins on backup vocals and steel guitar, John Shaw on electric Spanish guitar, Bill Oxner on bass and Keith Helpart on drums (Doug Wornell replaces Shaw in the clips seen above). The album's highlight is definitely the spirited Canned Heat-esque cover of the Chuck Berry classic "Promised Land", but the band takes a good crack at Charley Pride's "Snakes Crawl At Night," and the Cole original "Travellin' Youth" is an amusing swipe at those dang hippies.

Promised Land
Travellin' Youth
Snakes Crawl At Night

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Moe Koffman

2008-09-10T08:19:00.004-04:00

Multi-instrumentalist and arranger Moe Koffman was born in Toronto in 1928 and was studying violin and alto saxophone at The Toronto Conservatory Of Music by the age of 13. After dropping out of high school in his mid-teens, Koffman began playing in dance bands with the likes of Horace Lapp, Leo Romanelli and Benny Louis. By 1948 he'd been named Canada's best alto saxophonist in a CBC poll and in 1950 he moved to the U.S. and played in bands with Sonny Dunham and Jimmy Dorsey, while studying flute with Harold Bennett and clarinet with Leon Russianoff.

After returning to Toronto in 1955, Koffman became the booking agent for George's Spaghetti House, where he also performed regularly for almost 30 years. The popularity of his 1958 song "Swinging Shepard Blues" gave him an unusually high profile for a Canadian jazz musician, and by the end of the 1960s he was making regular appearances on Canadian and U.S. television. Throughout the '70s and '80s Koffman recorded several jazz, classical and pop LPs, played on innumerable recordings by other artists and performed around the world both solo and as the leader of his own ensembles. In addition to many other awards, Koffman was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1993 and inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1997. He made his final public appearance as a musician in June of 2000 and passed away on March 28th, 2001 after being diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

A double concept album by a jazz flautist about the nine planets of the solar system: it doesn't get much more '70s than that. Did I mention that the song titles are accompanied by their astrological signs in the liner notes? Solar Explorations was recorded in July of 1974 at Toronto Sound Studios by producer Doug Riley and engineer Terry Brown. I've posted one song from each side of the album; "Neptune" and "Venus" were written and arranged by Koffman, while "Saturn" is credited to Rick Wilkins and "Pluto" to Don Thompson. There are almost twenty musicians identified in the liner notes, a few of whom appeared on the album in my last post;

Moe Koffman: flute, piccolo, alto & soprano sax
Doug Riley: keyboards, Fender Rhodes
Don Thompson, Rick Homme: bass
Terry Clarke, Claude Ranger: drums
Michael Craden: percussion
Sonny Greenwich: guitar
Guido Basso, Fred Stone, Arnie Chycoski, Al Stanwyck: trumpets
Rob McConnell, Ian McDougall, Bob Livingston: trombones
Eugene Amaro, Keith Jollimore: saxophones
David Rosenbloom: ARP synthesizer
Peter Schenkman: cello

All four of these tracks are straight-up jazz with none of the pop influences found on some of Koffman's other recordings. "Saturn" starts out fairly maniacally before fading off into a chilled-out ending, while "Neptune" is a more relaxed tune that does build to a frenzied peak towards the middle of the song. "Venus" is probably the most abstract number of the bunch, and "Pluto" (which had its planetary status revoked in 2006) is the quietest and most spaced-out.

Saturn
Neptune
Venus
Pluto

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Bonfield-Dickson

2008-09-07T08:25:00.003-04:00

Bonfield-Dickson (apparently named after a canoe route in Algonquin Provincial Park) were singer/guitarists Henri Audet and Jim Duchesneau, both of whom appear to have been involved in the recreational camping community their entire lives. After this album was released in 1976, Audet went on to act as Director of Camp Kirk, an outdoor site for disabled children, while Duchesneau operates two educational recording companies, Sound Language Solutions and Jacquot.

Portage (available for sale on CD here) was recorded at Zaza Sound Productions in Toronto by producers Ron Harrison and Paul Zaza, with sound technicians Bill Cuff and Bob Romani. There were a small army's worth of backup musicians on this LP, so take a deep breath:

Eugene Amaro: tenor sax
Andy Benac: strings
Laurie Bower: trombone
Arnie Chycoski: lead trumpet
Art Devilliers: guitar
Ron Harrison: keyboards
Barry Keane: drums
Moe Koffman: alto sax, flute
Russ Little: trombone
Bob Lucier: steel guitar
Beauna Neilson: strings
Frank Radcliffe: strings
Berul Sugarman: strings
Erich Traugott: trumpet
Case Ysselstyn: strings
Jack Zaza: bass, english horn, alto sax, clarinet, flute, harmonica, oboe

With a cover like this (and a photo on the back of two guys with t-shirts and acoustic guitars), I expected this to be a country or folk LP. Instead, it's an album of '70s-era disco-inflected easy-listening pop. The writing credits are split between Duchesneau and Audet, but all four of the songs I've posted here were written by Audet. "Don't Know How To Laugh," the first song on the album, is a mid-tempo number with horn and guitar arrangements somewhat reminiscent of '70s blacksploitation soundtracks, especially towards the end. "Ten Thousand One Twenty Days" is a slower tune with more of a country feel, and "Riding High" is another guitar and horn-dominated track that builds to a crescendo with a nice groove. Lastly, "Can't Pretend" is a ballad with particularly smooth singing by the duo and some atmospheric soloing on guitar.

Don't Know How To Laugh
Ten Thousand One Twenty Days
Riding High
Can't Pretend

Georges Dor

2008-09-03T08:09:00.009-04:00

We haven't had much Quebecois material up here on FBOBT lately, so let's change that with a few tracks by singer, songwriter and author Georges Dor. Dor was born the youngest of 11 children in Drummondville, Quebec in 1931, and after first going to work in a factory at age 17 he landed a job writing short sketches for a radio station. This led to a gig as a news announcer, editor and producer at CBC Radio, where poet Gaston Miron urged him to take up songwriting. In 1966 he recorded a single ("La Manic," which in 1972 was named the most popular song of the past 50 years by a Quebec radio station) and a self-titled debut album and quickly met with both critical and popular success. Dor ended his career as a performer in 1972, but continued to write and record music, published a number of short stories, poems and plays, opened an art gallery and a summer theatre and went back to work in television as a producer until he passed away in 2001.

Au ralenti, recorded at Andre Perry's Le Studio and released in 1972 on Sillon Records, was Dor's fifth album of original material. The musical lineup was Robert Seguin (bass, organ), Serge Lahaie (guitar), Jean-Claude Tremblay (piano) and Jean-Guy Seguin (drums), who are identified collectively as La Bande Sonore. All in all, it's an LP of rather theatrical rock somewhat reminiscent of Robert Charlebois' work. "Le beau temps," written by Dor and Jean-Claude Tremblay (as was "Ne cherchez pas..."), rides an easy-going bass and piano loop before being taken over by heavy-metal guitar soloing. "Pour la musique" (by Dor and Robert Seguin) which name-checks Charlebois and other musicians including The Moody Blues, is another mid-tempo number with a lot of organ and soloing on guitar; Dor's vocals are straight out of Quebec, but the music's almost got kind of a southern U.S. feel to it. And "Ne cherchez pas...", which features vocals by Ginette Langlois, is a folkier, softer number with a few jazzy touches.

Le beau temps
Pour la musique
Ne cherchez pas...

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

John Perrone

2008-08-31T08:39:00.004-04:00

Classical guitarist John Perrone was born in Toronto, of Spanish and Italian extraction. As a young man he traveled and studied music with Manuel Lopez Ramos in Mexico and Alirio Diaz in Italy. After moving back to Canada, Perrone often wrote and played music for the CBC, appeared as a guest on many television and radio variety shows, established a reputation as a popular and critically-respected live performer and taught at The Royal Conservatory Of Music.

He also recorded a number of albums, including this CTL release named Estudio de Juan, which was recorded by engineer Peter Houston, with CTL musical director Johnny Burt acting as recording supervisor. Perrone is accompanied by an orchestra on this LP, but none of the orchestral performers are identified. "La Fiesta" is a cover of a jaunty number written by Byron Williams and popularized in the late '60s by The Nashville String Band. The melancholy "Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet" is another oft-covered tune, written by Nino Rota for the soundtrack to Franco Zeffirelli's cinematic adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. And the pensive "Taboo" is another standard, written by Ernesto Lecuona; longtime visitors to this blog may remember organist Phil La Penna's version.

La Fiesta
Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet
Taboo

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Laurie Bower Singers

2008-08-27T12:26:00.004-04:00

It's turning into two-timer week here at FBOBT; here are a couple of tracks by easy-listening popsters The Laurie Bower Singers, who made their first appearance on this blog last December.

This Canadian Talent Library LP, actually entitled Take Me Home, Country Roads, was released in 1982, although it definitely sounds like it was recorded during the '70s. There are no liner notes, so there's no information about where it was recorded or who played on it. The entire album is made up of covers of songs by a mix of Canadian and American artists; "Lay It On Me" is a slick Bee Gees number, while the bittersweet "Love And Maple Syrup" was originally by Gordon Lightfoot.

Lay It On Me
Love And Maple Syrup

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Pete Schofield and The Canadian College All-Stars

2008-08-24T08:16:00.002-04:00

Bandleader, teacher and saxophonist Pete Schofield is another two-timer on FBOBT (1). On this album, entitled The Old Meets The New, he leads a group of young musicians named The Canadian College All-Stars through their paces. This site includes a bit more information about Schofield, including a photo of another album of his named It's A Sign Of The Times.

Schofield's daughter Kim left a comment on my last post which stated that Pete's studio was located in their family's basement, and that after he passed away in 1995 she and her brothers kept an informal rehearsal band going; according to a comment she left on the other site linked above, they continue to meet every Tuesday night to this day, and one member has been involved with the group for over 50 years!

This LP was recorded by engineer Peter Houston with arrangements by Jerry Nichols, and the Canadian College All-Stars - all of whom were between 15 and 18 years old (a little young for college, you'd think) - were:

Pete Schofield: alto and soprano saxophone, clarinet
Bill Jackman: alto saxophone, clarinet
Steve Seto: tenor saxophone, clarinet
George Zarras: tenor saxophone, clarinet
Pete Maher: baritone and alto saxophone, clarinet
Ian MacKay: trumpet
Bob Edwards: lead guitar
Brian Pattullo: rhythm guitar
Rick Homme: bass
Garry Owens: drums

All of the songs on this album are covers. "007 Medley" weaves together the brassy themes from the Bond flicks Dr. No and Goldfinger, while "King of the Road" is a swingin' take on the Roger Miller hit which features a tight, jazzy solo on guitar by Bob Edwards. "And I Love Her" rounds things out with a fairly faithful rendition of The Beatles' classic.

007 Medley
King Of The Road
And I Love Her

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Eric Mercury

2008-08-20T08:17:00.003-04:00

I was originally going to put this album on The Thrifty Digger. But after a bit of searching I discovered that soul/r&b singer Eric Mercury was born here in Toronto, so I'm posting it here instead. Born into a musically-inclined family, Mercury was singing in school and church choirs by the age of five. Towards the end of the '50s, Eric was bitten by the rock 'n' roll bug and sang with bands like The Pharaohs (which also included Jay Jackson, future lead singer with The Majestics) and his own group, Eric Mercury and The Soul Searchers (who toured in a revue with Dianne Brooks).

In 1968 Mercury moved to Chicago to start a solo career and kicked things off by recording a single named "Lonely Girl". Between '69 and '81 he recorded five LPs, including the one I'm posting here, 1972's Funky Sounds Nurtured In The Fertile Soil Of Memphis That Smell Of Rock, plus the odd single here and there. Throughout the '70s he also appeared in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar and wrote songs, sang backup and produced work for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. In 1986, Mercury moved back to Toronto and managed a group named Age Of Reason for a while, before returning to work as a writer and producer in Canada and the U.S.

Aside from Mercury, there isn't much about Funky Sounds... that's Canadian. It was produced and arranged for Enterprise Records by Steve Cropper at TMI Sound Studios in Memphis and engineered by Ron Capone and Jim Gaines, with string arrangements by Dale Warren. Mercury's musical accompaniment on the album was Jim Johnson on bass, Richie Simpson on drums, Cropper and Paul Cannon on guitar, Jay Spell on piano and organ and William "Smitty" Smith also on organ, with The Memphis Horns rounding things out. "I Can Smell That Funky Music," the album's leadoff track, is a driving r&b number written by Cropper, Eddie Floyd and Mack Rice, while "Stop Looking Down," by Cropper and Mary Williams, is a bumpin' funk tune with nice horn arrangements. And "It's Time For Me To Love You," at 9:23 by far the longest track on the album, is an unstoppable groovy jam credited to Cropper, Mercury and "Smitty" Smith.

I Can Smell That Funky Music
Stop Looking Down
It's Time For Me To Love You

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ned Landry

2008-08-17T08:13:00.002-04:00

Fiddling legend Ned Landry makes his second appearance here on FBOBT (1) with a few selections from Arc Records release #610, entitled Ned Landry and His Fiddle (not, as the cover would have you believe, Ned Landry and Other Fiddle Favourites).

A commenter on my first Landry post informed me that Ned continues to write and play music to this day, and still makes the occasional public appearance here and there. He has also recorded with his great-grandchildren Alexander and Alison Landry, who perform together billed as The Fiddling Landrys.

Unlike More Ned Landry Fiddle Favourites, this album doesn't identify any of the musicians who accompany Landry, nor does it include any information regarding where and by whom it was recorded. However, it does equal that LP's high level of musicianship, even if nothing on it is quite as great as "Hillbilly Calypso" (a song "Dale's Beat" does somewhat resemble). I was hoping that "Chinese Breakdown" would be a little more, you know, Chinese, but all three tracks I've included here are sterling examples of Landry's craft.

Chinese Breakdown
Dale's Beat
Ontario Swing

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The York Lions Steel Band

2008-08-13T08:18:00.003-04:00

This is the second post here on FBOBT to feature The York Lions Steel Band (1), and this time I've found their first LP, We Come Out To Play. The LP's subtitle reads "York Lions Steel Band at The Canadian National Exhibition," but it was recorded at St. Hilda's Anglican Church in Toronto, so it's not a live album. However, they did play at the CNE for five days in 1974, and the opening number of their performances was also the title track of this album.

The liner notes of this album go into a bit more detail about the group's history than On The Beach At Waikiki's did. The band was formed in 1972 when brothers Don, Ted and Doug Saunders acquired a set of steel drums. When Doug's daughter Debbie joined the group, they decided to put together an entire steel drum orchestra and convinced the York Lions Club to sponsor the ensemble. Recruitment and rehearsals went on throughout 1972, and by the following year the group had started making public appearances and touring throughout Canada and the U.S.

We Come Out To Play features arrangements by Jerry Jerome (of The Cardells) and Doug, Don and Debbie Saunders, who also plays lead. The band members are too numerous to name individually, but I will mention that the regular drum kit heard on the album was played by Brian McGee. The LP's song selection is a mix of originals, calypso standards like "Yellow Bird" and "Jamaican Farewell" and contemporary rock and disco covers. The aforementioned "We Come Out To Play" is a fast number clearly written with making a good first impression in mind. "Love's Theme," a slower tune that builds to several crescendos, is almost certainly a cover, but I can't quite place it. "T.S.O.P. (Soul Train)" is an awesome cover of the theme to the TV show Soul Train that features funky steel drum solos, and "(Don't) Rock The Boat" is another disco cover with drum breaks courtesy of Brian McGee.

We Come Out To Play
Love's Theme
T.S.O.P. (Soul Train)
(Don't) Rock The Boat

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Contrevent

2008-08-10T09:12:00.003-04:00

Contrevent were a Quebecois modern jazz group who were around in the mid-'80s, but there isn't much on the internet about them. I can tell you that the group consisted of Russell Gagnon (cello), Marc Vallee (guitar, piano), Francois Beausoleil (vibraphone, percussion), Gerard Paradis (bass) and Michel Dufour (drums).

As far as I can tell, Jeu de paume was recorded at Quebec City's Studio PSM-16 in May and June of 1985. Production is credited to Contrevent, and all of the songs were written by Marc Vallee except for "D'eau," which was written by Francois Beausoleil. "Acoustifunk" is a frenetic number with a bit of, yes, funk in the mix. The slower, atmospheric "Jeu de paume" has an arrangement dominated by vibraphone and cello, while the mid-tempo "Creme de menthe" gives each member of the band a chance to show off a bit, although it prominently features Vallee's guitar. And the plaintive "D'eau" is almost entirely a solo piece for Beausoleil's vibraphone, with some synthesizer in there as well.

Acoustifunk
Jeu de paume
Creme de menthe
D'eau

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Purple Toads

2008-08-06T08:39:00.002-04:00

Oshawa, Ontario's The Purple Toads were a punky garage band who came together after an earlier group named Durango 95 broke up in 1985. Rob Sweeney (guitar, vocals), Paul MacNeil (guitar) and Roger Branton (bass) - former members of Durango 95 - hooked up with drummer Mark Keigan and released a self-titled debut album in 1986. Its mix of originals and classic trash rock covers found an audience on college radio stations across Canada, and in 1988 they released the LP I'm posting today; Love Songs For The Hard Of Hearing. It garnered favourable reviews from as far away as Europe, but by that time the band was already falling apart and they broke up not long afterwards. However, the original members did get back together for a few reunion gigs in 2004; here's a video of them playing a tune named "Love's All Gone" at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern.

Released on Oshawa's Star Records label, Love Songs For The Hard Of Hearing was recorded in 1988 at Quest Recording Studios in Oshawa, and was produced by the band and Paul La Chappelle. "Wildtime" was written by Sweeney, while "All I Want" and "Love On Your Back" were by MacNeil and "Tobacco Road" is a cover of the classic John D. Loudermilk tune. All four are straight-up garage punk, served fast and trashy.

Wildtime
All I Want
Love On Your Back
Tobacco Road

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ina Harris

2008-08-03T08:35:00.005-04:00

Singer Ina Harris was married to guitarist 'Smiling' Al Harris. A former student of Al's, they got hitched in 1960 and often performed together as a duo until she passed away in 1990. Unfortunately, that's about all I could dig up on Ina.

Ina...naturally was released on Periwinkle Records (probably sometime during the '70s), with production and arrangements by label boss Art Snider. Ina's backing band isn't identified, but all of the songs that aren't covers (including the three I've posted) were written by Irving Dobbs. "Yearning" is an easy-listening tune with a lounge feel, while "Tell Me That You Care" has more of a country touch, albeit in a '70s "countrypolitan" way. "How You Cry," my favourite song on the album, is a jazzy tune with an atmospheric arrangement including vibraphone, piano, organ and some nice runs on electric guitar (by Al?).

Yearning
How You Cry
Tell Me That You Care

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Gordie Sullivan

2008-07-30T08:44:00.003-04:00

This page states that rockabilly singer Gordie Sullivan was born in the former city of Verdun, Quebec (a borough of Montreal these days)...and that's pretty much the sum total of what I know about him. However, one of his tracks appears on a compilation entitled Early Canadian Rockers, which bolsters his case for Canadian citizenship a bit.

Gordie Sullivan Sings was LP # PL-3310 from Montreal's Plaza Records. There's no information regarding the release date or the members of Gordie's backing band, but the songwriters are identified on the label. "Ride On Josephine" and "40 Days" are spirited covers of songs originally by Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, respectively, while the finger-poppin' "Rocking Chair Mama" is a Sullivan original (the only one on the album, as it turns out). All three are belted out by Gordie in full-throated early rockin' style, without any trace of a Canadian accent, Quebecois or otherwise.

Rocking Chair Mama
Ride On Josephine
40 Days

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jerome MacMurray

2008-07-26T08:52:00.002-04:00

According to the lyrics of "I'm Goin' Home," Jerome MacMurray was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, but moved to Canada and spent time in cities including (but probably not limited to) Halifax, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Montreal, which is where this self-titled album was recorded (at Unicorn Sound Studio, to be exact). Aside from that bit of autobiographical background, the only information I have about MacMurray (apparently not the Jerome McMurray mentioned in this story) is the liner notes, reprinted here in their entirety:

"I would like to thank everyone who has made this album possible: on bass LUCIEN FORDJMAN, on drums MICHEL FORDJMAN, DAVID DIVINE on electric guitar, NORMAN ROBINSON on congas, JOHN RUDELL on sax, SAYEED JAMAL on six and twelve string guitar and vocal, me.

P.S. I would also like to thank Montreal and all the nice people I have met that make her city. Merci."

Jerome, which was released in 1978, is an album of bluesy r&b with some lounge-y touches here and there. Jerome's got a slightly raspy but nicely mellow voice, and his backing band (Montrealers? Who knows?) is pretty good, too. All of the songs I've posted are originals written by MacMurray. "Love Holds The Key" is a funky mid-tempo loverman number, while "Music Man" is one of the lounge tunes and sounds tailor-made for a '70s-era hotel bar. "Coc'" (short for "Cocaine") is a blues about the ups and downs of that particular recreational narcotic with some bizarre lyrics ("If you see Santa Claus this Christmas before I do / Please tell Santa Claus I know why Rudolph has a big nose / Rudolph is a cocaine freak / And Santa Claus might be your pusher"). And the aforementioned "I'm Goin' Home" is a rock 'n' roll evergreen; the lament of the road-weary musician.

Love Holds The Key
Music Man
Coc'
I'm Goin' Home

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

A.B. Crentsil's Ahenfo Band w. A.P.M.S.

2008-07-23T08:49:00.005-04:00

Highlife is a form of West African pop music characterized by jazzy horn parts, bubbling synths and multiple guitars, and Ghana's A.B. Crentsil has long been one of its most popular stars. His musical career dates back to the '60s, when he played with a number of groups, including Kwesi Donkor's Strollers Band, The El Dorados and The Sweet Talks, who broke up in 1978 and were known for a while as The Super Sweet Talks before changing their name to The Ahenfo Band. Crentsil and The Ahenfo Band fled Ghana's oppressive military regime around this time and began touring and recording internationally, and they're still performing to this day. It would appear as though they were based out of Toronto for some time; this site lists them as part of Toronto's highlife scene, and they recorded at least one album - the subject of today's post - here.

Toronto By Night, which sports a gorgeous cover depicting the city's skyline as seen from the Toronto Islands, was recorded and mixed at Sound Design Recording Studios by producer Alfred Schall and engineer Vincent Agostini. In addition to Crentsil, who wrote and arranged all the songs and sings and plays rhythm guitar, the album's musical lineup was Alfred Schall on keyboards and percussion, Carl Jones-Nelson on lead guitar, Paa Kwesi Mensah on bass, Skel on saxophone, Joseph Allan on trumpet and Oswald James on trombone. I don't even know what language Crentsil is singing in (the Wikipedia page about Ghana's languages states that there are nine government-sponsored languages and 79 total spoken in the country), so I couldn't begin to tell you what these songs are about, but all three are upbeat tunes with a steady groove.

Montwe Mma Yen
Ma Mendwen Me Ho
Biribi Dze Mu

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Blushing Brides

2008-07-20T08:48:00.003-04:00

I listened to this album the whole way through before I realized it was by the same Blushing Brides who used to bring their Rolling Stones tribute act to Kingston bars during my university days (I never did go to see them, though). The Brides came together during the late '70s, a time when tribute bands weren't all that common. Singer Maurice Raymond and guitarist Paul Martin, both big Stones fans from Kingston, recruited Martin Van Dijk (bass), Richard "Ricco" Berthiaume (drums) and James "DB" Green (guitar) and began performing as a tribute band, mixing a few of their own original numbers into live performances as they became more popular. Before too long they were playing for crowds that got as large as 10,000 people (in amusement parks, but still), and some critics were holding them up as an example of what the real Rolling Stones should have sounded like at the time. After being wooed by various major labels, the Brides signed a five-album deal with RCA and released their debut LP, Unveiled, along with a French-language EP in Quebec. The first single, "What You Talkin 'Bout," was a hit, but when they toured with Chilliwack it was such a disaster that they lost money on the tour, were dumped by RCA and broke up. In 1984, after Raymond had made an attempt at establishing a solo career, the group reformed as The Brides and returned to their roots as a tribute band (although they did record a self-titled album of originals for Toronto's Strawberry Records). Since then various incarnations of the group (rechristened The Blushing Brides) have continued to tour throughout Canada and the U.S., with Raymond and Martin making occasional appearances as part of the group's original line-up.

Unveiled was recorded at Sounds Interchange in Toronto by producer Hillel Leopold and engineers Kevin Doyle and Vic Pyle, with horn arrangements by Sam Bari. All in all it's a pretty solid disc of early-'80s rock, all original numbers aside from a forgettable cover of CCR's "Fortunate Son." It's definitely much better than some of the crap the Stones were putting out around the same time. The hit single "What You Talkin 'Bout" is a classic Stones-style tune; a great guitar riff, sassy vocals and a bit of bounce in the rhythm section. "Run And Hide" is a more new wave-y number that brings to mind "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield (that's a compliment in my books) and/or the '80s hits of the J. Geils Band. "Got To Like Yourself" is a groove number with particularly nice work on drums and guitar, and "Sweet Sister" is a ballad that turns into a full-tilt It's Only Rock And Roll-era rocker.

What You Talkin 'Bout
Run And Hide
Got To Like Yourself
Sweet Sister

The Rhythm Pals

2008-07-16T08:37:00.003-04:00

Today, country trio The Rhythm Pals make their third appearance on this site (1,2) with a few selections from their album Home Country.

This LP was recorded at Toronto Sound Studios by engineer Peter Houston and producer Johnny Burt, with musical direction by Bert Niosi and arrangements by Art Snider, Jim Pirie and Bob McMullin. The album cover pictures the trio rocking some mildly psychedelic outfits on the set of the CBC's Tommy Hunter Show, a program they performed on quite often. "Saskatchewan" (not to be confused with The Rheostatics' tune) and "Isle Of St. Jean" - the album's best song - are epic, sweeping numbers with that wide-open Canadian sound. "St. Jean" was written by Gene MacLellan, a singer/songwriter whose work I really enjoy (he's best known for penning the Anne Murray hit "Snowbird"). As for "Chic A Rack A Chee Chan"...well, it's a good song, but the lyrics appear to be adapted from a 19th-century tune that made fun of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. Most of the song's overt racism has been scrubbed out, making it more confusing than truly offensive, but it's still a little, shall we say, retrograde.

Saskatchewan
Isle Of St. Jean
Chic A Rack A Chee Chan

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ed Bickert

2008-07-12T08:57:00.006-04:00

Jazz guitarist Ed Bickert has been featured on this site twice before, on a compilation and an LP he cut with bassist Don Thompson. Today I'm posting selections from one of his solo albums, entitled I Like To Recognize The Tune.

This album, CTL #5206, was recorded and mixed at Nimbus 9/Soundstage Studios in Toronto, by engineers David Greene and Ringo Hrycyna, with arrangements by Don Thompson. The musical lineup was Bickert on electric and acoustic guitar, Thompson on bass fiddle, vibes and piano, Gary Williamson on electric and grand piano, Terry Clarke on drums and percussion, Marty Morell on percussion, Ron Laurie on cello, Jack Neilson and Walter Babiak on viola, and violinists Bill Richards, Vicki Richards, Andrew Benac, Samuel Hersenhoren, Albert Pratz, Maurice Solway and Isador Desser. As you might guess from the presence of so many string instruments, this album leans towards the lighter side of jazz, but the performances and arrangements are impeccable, so it's definitely not easy-listening pap. "It Might As Well Be Spring" is a sprightly Rogers & Hammerstein number, while "You're As Right As Rain" is a smooth cover of a Stylistics hit by Thom Bell and Linda Creed. "Street Of Dreams" is a jazz standard by Victor Young and Sam Lewis that was covered by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Sarah Vaughn to The Ink Spots, and the gentle ballad "Skylark" is another classic, written by Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael.

It Might As Well Be Spring
You're As Right As Rain
Street Of Dreams
Skylark

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Jerry Jerome and The Cardells

2008-07-08T09:16:00.007-04:00

Calypso/r&b act Jerry Jerome and The Cardells were the house band at The Regal Constellation Hotel in Rexdale, Ontario (where Jackie Mittoo's LP The Money Makers was recorded). It looks like Jerry Jerome was still performing with a version of The Cardells as recently as last year, but there just isn't much information about the band online. However, Jerome is also an arranger and instructor with The York Lions Steel Band, who were featured on this site a month ago.

This album's liner notes include a long essay extolling the virtues of The Regal Constellation, but unfortunately don't say much about the band aside from identifying its members:

Hurban Johnson - second steel drum, organ
Keith Buddle - cellos, steel drums, rhythm guitar, vocals
Eddy Hinds - bass steel drums, lead guitar
Jerry Jerome - tuner, arranger, bass guitar, lead steel drum, vocals
Talbot Blake - drums, vocals
Danley Ashby - congas, percussion, vocals

Most of this LP consists of pleasant but undistinguished renditions of calypso standards like "Shame And Scandal" and "Jamaica Farewell," but the three songs I'm posting here are straight-up r&b, arranged by Jerome with nary a steel drum to be heard. My favourite track might be the funky cover of Tower Of Power's "Don't Change Horses," with its soulful vocals and a stinging, economical guitar solo. The melodramatic ballad "Story Book Children" is a version of a Nancy Sinatra number with more nice work on vocals and lead guitar, and "Talking Blues" is a heavy reggae number (originally by Bob Marley) that might be as good as "Don't Change Horses."

Don't Change Horses
Story Book Children
Talking Blues

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Paul Hoffert

2008-07-05T07:02:00.002-04:00

Composer, arranger and keyboardist Paul Hoffert was born in Brooklyn in 1943. After moving to Canada in 1956 (and becoming a citizen in 1961) he studied music with Gordon Delamont and Hagood Hardy, and began playing piano and vibraphone in jazz clubs. During the mid-'60s he was the musical director of CBC-TV's Time Of Your Life, and in '68 he co-founded the rock band Lighthouse. After that group broke up, he moved to Toronto and started a second career as an educator, composer, arranger and record producer. Over the years he worked extensively in film, radio and television, and was also a new media pioneer who did research on MP3 audio compression, digital video phones, networked distribution of CD-ROMs and online content distribution. In 2004 he was awarded The Order of Canada for his contributions to Canadian music. One of the films he scored was Outrageous!, a low-budget 1977 Canadian movie about a schizophrenic girl and a gay hairdresser. The NY Times didn't like it, but Hoffert won a Canadian Film Award for his work on the film.

Outrageous! was produced by Hoffert and recorded at Thunder Sound by engineer Phil Sheridan (that's two posts in a row for Sheridan), with re-recording and mixing done at Toronto Sound Studios by engineers Terry Brown and Ken Morris. "Lisa's Theme/It Ain't Easy" is a smooth, '70s-style disco-tinged theme, complete with brass and strings, while "Robin's Party Theme" is a more offbeat, jazzy number that moves through a few distinct moods and motifs.

Lisa's Theme/It Ain't Easy
Robin's Party Theme

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Pied Piper & The Kids

2008-07-01T11:35:00.005-04:00

Happy Canada Day! Fellow Canucks, I hope the sun is shining and the beer is cold wherever you find yourself on this holiday Tuesday. To mark the occasion I'm posting three songs by Bobby Gimby, otherwise known as "The Pied Piper of Canada." Gimby is best-known for writing "Canada," the song by The Young Canada Singers that marked Canada's Centennial in 1967. This full-length LP includes the English verison of "Canada," plus several other songs, some patriotic in nature, some not.

Let's Get Together was produced by engineers George Semkiw, Dave Green and Phil Sheridan, with musical arrangements by Gimby and Ben McPeek. All three of the songs I'm posting here are enjoyably breezy light pop numbers featuring the work of The Young Canada Singers. "The Cricket Song" is probably my favourite, owing to its groovy beat and inventive use of a cricket's chirp, but the flute and trumpet arrangements on "Have A Happy Moment" are pretty great, too.

Let's Get Together/Canada Forever
The Cricket Song
Have A Happy Moment

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ofra Harnoy & The Armin Electric Strings

2008-06-28T10:12:00.003-04:00

Last July I posted an LP of Beatles covers by the Israeli-Canadian cellist Ofra Harnoy and The Orford String Quartet. Today I've got a similar album on tap, with Harnoy accompanied this time by The Armin Electric Strings; Adele Armin and Anthony Flint (violins), Paul Armin (viola) and Richard Armin (cello). The Armins were born in small-town Manitoba (twins Richard and Paul in Winkler, Adele in Morris), the children of Ukrainian-born violinist and teacher Jay Armin. All three moved to the U.S. to study music before returning to Canada and performing both solo and as parts of various ensembles (Richard played with the rock band Lighthouse for five years). Flint was born in Britain, first performed in public at the age of 11 and later moved to Canada and made his debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at 16. Since then his career has taken him around the world, as he has performed with groups from Germany, England, Brazil, Portugal, Switzerland, the U.S. and Canada.

The Beatles Connection was recorded in October of 1985 at The Church of St. Timothy in Newmarket, Ontario by producer and engineer Anton Kwiatkowski, with arrangements by the late Doug Riley. In the interest of balance I've posted one John/Paul song ("Across The Universe"), one George song ("Here Comes The Sun"), one Ringo song ("Octopus's Garden") and one country tune that The Beatles covered ("Act Naturally"). "Octopus's Garden" is my favourite of the bunch, but they're all pretty great. "Act Naturally" is especially interesting; there are plenty of albums with classical renditions of Beatles songs, but you don't hear Buck Owens' music performed by a string quartet very often.

Across The Universe
Here Comes The Sun
Octopus's Garden
Act Naturally

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Marg Osburne

2008-06-25T09:38:00.009-04:00

Singer Marg Osburne was born in Moncton, New Brunswick in 1927. As a young girl she sang in a community choir, and at the age of 17 she got a job performing at CKCW after a relative dared her to audition. When Don Messer passed through Moncton in 1947 he heard her singing on the radio, and asked her to fill in for his singer Charlie Chamberlain, who was recovering from a car accident at the time. Osburne was an immediate hit with audiences, and after Chamberlain recovered he and Marg sang as a duo for Messer's radio program, which was broadcast out of Charlottetown, PEI. In 1959 Messer's show, which had moved to television on a Halifax station, was picked up by the CBC, which increased Osburne's exposure and popularity, and her records sold fairly well throughout the '60s. After Messer died in 1973, Osburne began a second career as a nightclub singer and racked up a few hits in Canada, one of which ("Falling Leaves") was the only song she ever wrote. She continued to perform until July 16th, 1977, when she collapsed on stage during a show in Rocklyn, Ontario, and passed away before she reached a hospital.

The Best of Marg Osburne, another Arc LP, was produced by Manny Pittson (who also produced Singalong Jubilee) and engineered by Bob Theakston, with musical accompaniment by Vic Mullen (flat-top guitar and mandolin), Cec McEachren (electric guitar), Duke Neilsen (bass) and Warren MacRae (drums). Marg has a gorgeous voice, and on three of the songs I've posted here ("Goin' Down The Road" being the exception) it's multi-tracked for a harmonizing effect. "I Can't Escape From You" is a mournful Hank Williams number. "Goin' Down The Road" is credited to Peter Dee, but it's actually a take on the folk standard "Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad" by Woody Guthrie. "Humming Song," by Don Robertson and Ross Jungnickel, is a gentle ballad that ends with, yes, humming, and "Whispering Pines" is an achingly beautiful cover of a Johnny Horton number (not the song from The Band's second album).

I Can't Escape From You
Goin' Down The Road
Humming Song
Whispering Pines

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Tobi Lark & "Toronto"

2008-06-22T08:56:00.005-04:00

Singer Tobi Lark was born (named Bessie Gupton) in Alabama and raised in Detroit, where, like many soul and r&b singers, she performed in church choirs as a young girl. The daughter of gospel singer Emma Washington, Tobi got her first job in showbiz by singing with B.B. King, and went on to a career backing up The Impressions, The Four Tops, Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett, King Curtis, Cannonball Adderley and Duke Ellington, among others. She also recorded a few Northern Soul singles under the name Tobi Legend; this video of her song "Happiness Is Here" includes a bit more of her backstory in the accompanying writeup.

Towards the end of the '60s, Lark moved to Montreal after a divorce and eventually wound up in Toronto, where she performed with Ronnie Hawkins, landed a lead role in a production of Hair and started up her own musical revue at a club named The Blue Orchid. She also recorded the single I'm posting today with a group of Toronto-based musicians collectively billed as "Toronto." After that her trail goes a little cold, although the article in this post's very first link mentions that she moved back and forth between Windsor, Detroit and Toronto, continued to perform as a solo and backup singer into the mid-'90s, and that, tragically, her son died and she had health problems of her own.

This single was recorded "live" (that's how they print it on the back cover) in 1970 at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Toronto (just down the street from where I live, as it happens), by executive producer Jack Richardson, producers Terry Vollum and John de Nottbeck (who went on to work with Max Webster), arrangers Ben McPeek and de Nottbeck, and engineer Dave Greene. Tobi Lark's musical backing consisted of George Semkiw (rhythm guitar), Gord Waszek (12 string guitar), Kim Mitchell (lead guitar), Jim Morgan (bass), Ray Reeves (organ), Ben McPeek (piano), Craig Richardson (tambourine), John de Nottbeck (drums) and Dave Cairns (drums on "Freedom Train"). Then there's the chorus, which lists (I counted) 78 (!) people, none of whom I recognize or will list here. "We're All In This Together" is a bombastic number that reminded me of Joe Cocker during his Mad Dogs and Englishmen days. And "Freedom Train" is less a fully completed song than a bluesy jam with gospel overtones.

We're All In This Together
Freedom Train

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Bob Brooks Music Co. and Chorus

2008-06-18T13:23:00.004-04:00

I have no idea who The Bob Brooks Music Co. and Chorus were, but this album was released in 1976 by Reimer Express Lines Ltd., a Winnipeg-based trucking company. It's the soundtrack to a film produced by Reimer to tell "the story of Canada's young and vigorous trucking industry and how it functions to keep this land alive." The liner notes go on to say that "Day and night, under all kinds of conditions and during all seasons of the year, the people of the trucking industry bring Canadians the goods they need and want"...which reads a little ominously these days, as the trucking industry is getting hammered by high gas prices.

Anyway, To Keep This Land Alive was recorded at The Little Mountain Sound Company in Vancouver (other bands who recorded there: Aerosmith, Loverboy, Metallica, Prism, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, Motley Crüe, Colin James, Olivia Newton-John, The Cult, Skid Row, AC/DC, Coverdale/Page, Poison, The Scorpions and David Lee Roth) by recording engineer Geoff Turner (R.I.P.), and was written, arranged and conducted by Bob Brooks. The film itself was written, directed and shot by Alf Bayne, with editing by Bert Bush. When I picked this record up at a flea market in Grand Bend, I expected it to be a fairly standard country album. There is a bit of that sort of thing, but it's a surprisingly diverse LP. "The Record Setters" is a grandiose, stirring number that I'd imagine must have accompanied shots of stuff like trucks cresting majestic mountains (like on the album cover). "Reimer Country" is a folky, pastoral track performed on acoustic guitar and flute. "The Ontario Swing" starts out as another quiet tune, then swings into a jazzy section and closes with a '70s-style ending; strings, flute, a great bassline and wakka-chicka guitar. And "The Winnipeg Connection," my favourite song on the LP, is a trance-y number that sounds kind of like Stereolab, which leads me to believe that Bob Brooks must have been a fan of Neu! and Kraftwerk.

The Record Setters
Reimer Country
The Ontario Swing
The Winnipeg Connection

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

It Came From Canada Vol. 4

2008-06-14T10:36:00.002-04:00

Today I've got a few selections from the fourth volume of Og Music's It Came From Canada compilation series, which focused on garage rock, punk and rockabilly bands. If you missed my original posts, you can find selections from the first three albums here.

~~Beachcombers - Dik Van Dykes~~

Hamilton, Ontario's Dik Van Dykes (who also had a great tune on the compilation LP Music From The Armpit Of Canada) were active during the last half of the '80s and opened for The Ramones for three nights in '88. "Hamilton's Ambassadors of Tackiness to the World" consisted of lead singer/guitarist Mike Johnson, drummer Stu Smith, rhythm guitarist Steve Hoy, bassist Frank Viola and backup singers Renee Wetselaar and Sara Hodgson (aka "The Pop Tarts"). "Beachcombers" is another good-natured burst of punk rawk inspired by the long-running Canadian tv show of the same name.

~~Balm Of Gilead - Sons Of The Desert~~

The '60s-influenced garage-pop band Sons Of The Desert (not these Sons Of The Desert) hailed from Montreal. On "Balm Of Gilead" Maureen Bradley, Naomi Emmerson, Alain Goulem, Jim Spencer and Neil Stewart (the liner notes don't specify who played what) stir up an organ-heavy mix of '60s bands like The Zombies with a bit of Blondie.

~~Music Interlude - Tongue 'n' Groove~~

Prince George, British Columbia's Tongue 'n' Groove - "a pop-punk garage band (sort of)" - were Sandy Sadowsky (guitar), Neil VanderWerf (guitar), Vito Mori (drums) and Rick Metz (bass)...and that's about all I can tell you. "Music Interlude" is just that; a joke song that sounds like an extremely short hardcore punk tune followed by 20 seconds of amusingly self-indulgent noodling.

~~The Other Side - Fluid Waffle~~

Fluid Waffle (boy, did these Og bands have great names, or what?) were "lounge demons" from Ottawa, part of that city's punk "next wave," even though they were never really a punk band. On "The Other Side" singer/organist Tom Stewart, drummer Dave Dudley and guitarists Steve D'Annunzio and Pat Banister get their organ-driven lounge on. After Fluid Waffle broke up, Stewart, Dudley and Banister formed another group named Furnaceface.

~~Cadillac - Salmon Breath~~

Salmon Breath were a straight-up psychobilly duo (drummer/backup singer Poly Grip and singer S. Garbitch, who answers to Pussycat Smart these days) from Calgary, and "Cadillac" is a raucous strip of Sun-inspired country-fried trash.

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Sweet Blindness

2008-06-10T08:43:00.001-04:00

The r&b band Sweet Blindness was originally named The Statlers, but they changed their name after adding an American guitarist named Curtis Lee to their ranks in 1974. Between '74 and '77 they released a number of singles and two full-length LPs (the self-titled album I'm posting today was reissued in the States as Music You Can Ride On), and toured throughout Ontario before breaking up some time after the release of their second album (Energize). When this self-titled album was recorded, the band consisted of Bobbi Dupont (lead vocals, percussion), Curtis Lee (guitar, lead vocals), Al Marnie (bass, backup vocals), Sonny Milne (drums) and Phil Smith (keyboards, backup vocals), who replaced Gabor Szepesi.

Sweet Blindness - released by Quality Records Ltd. in 1975 - was produced by R.A. (Bob) Morten and engineered by George Semkiw at Phase One Recording Studios in Toronto, with string and horn arrangements by Doug Riley and Milan Kymlicka. "Sweet Blindness" is a solid disco-inflected rock number co-written by Lee and Dupont that was the leadoff single from the album (long-time visitors to this blog might remember that it was also covered by The Mighty Pope on this album). "Give It To You Right Now" is a funky ballad (written by Lee, as was "Quebec") with a classic mid-'70s Barry White-influenced groove and a nice fade-out on guitar, and "Quebec" is a mostly instrumental tune which flows out of "Right Now" (the first time I listened to the album I thought they were actually one song broken up by a particularly long false ending).

Sweet Blindness
Give It To You Right Now
Quebec

The York Lions Steel Band

2008-06-06T10:35:00.002-04:00

In 1972, the York Lions Club organized and sponsored The York Lions Steel Band, a musical group for kids that is still going strong to this day. In 1976, the York Lions (all 31 of them) travelled to Hawaii as part of the Canadian contingent attending The Lions Club International Convention in Honolulu, where they performed in a parade, at a shopping centre, on the beach, and at the Canadian Breakfast of the convention, with "some 1000 Canadian Lions and their guests in attendance." The back of the album also claims that The York Lions were the first steel band ever to appear in Hawaii.

Side one of "On The Beach At Waikiki" was recorded at the aforementioned Canadian Breakfast, while side two was recorded live on the beach at, yes, Waikiki. All three of the songs I'm posting are from side one, though. My favourite tune on the album is a fantastic cover of "The Hustle," the 1975 disco hit by Van McCoy and The Soul City Orchestra. "The Baseman" is another funky little ditty, and "A Place To Stand" is a short but sweet rendition of Ontario's unofficial anthem.

The Hustle
The Baseman
A Place To Stand

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Dale Jacobs

2008-06-02T08:54:00.005-04:00

Hello! I'm back, and I'm ending my little vacation with Cobra, a 1978 LP by the late Dale Jacobs, who was a Vancouver-based keyboardist. Jacobs put out at least one other album, wrote and produced over one hundred songs for movies and radio shows, designed electronic recording equipment, did a lot of session and production work, and played live with all kinds of people. The liner notes for this album also state that it was the result of a year's worth of work and experimentation in the studio by Jacobs and other musicians who met regularly "to persue and develop different avenues of electronic sound."

Cobra was produced, engineered, mixed and arranged for CBS Records by Jacobs, and recorded at Total Sounds West Ltd. in Vancouver, with programming on the Roland Micro-Composer by Ralph Dyck. The musical line-up varied from song to song, but included Joel Wade (bass), Brett Wade (guitar), Jim Vallance (drums), Jim McGillveray (percussion), Wayne Kozak (sax and flute), Tom Lavin (guitar), Lou Hoover (drums), Brian Harrison (bass), Cat Hendrikse (drums), Doug Louie (electric piano), Doug Cuthbert (drums) and Ralph Dyck (vibes). The album as a whole is funky, electronic jazz-rock; one online review I found of Cobra described it as "like an instrumental Steely Dan record on synthesized steroids."

Cobra
On The Wings Of A Song
Taiwan On

On Hiatus

2008-05-06T14:15:00.005-04:00

After two and a half years and 266 (!) posts, I'm taking a bit of a break from Five Bucks On By-Tor to concentrate on some other interests and beef up my inventory of Canadian records. I'll be back in a month or so. In the meantime, I'll occasionally be posting to It Came From Canada and The Thrifty Digger. See you in June!

Diane Merritt

2008-05-02T09:00:00.004-04:00

Well, there's nothing to be found out there about country-pop singer Diane Merritt, but fortunately the liner notes (which I've edited for length) are a little more informative than they are on many Arc Records releases;

"ANGEL OF MY DREAMS is Diane Merrit's first recording...This being so, you should know that Ben Weatherby, who produced the album, THE MUSTANGS, who masterfully back her on it, the entire Arc Records staff from sound studio to pressing plant - all are betting on Diane Merritt to win...Diane Merritt, who inspires such confidence, is twenty-one years old. She was born in Russell, Manitoba, but reared in east in industrial Hamilton. Diane has been singing professionally for only two years.

In that time she has appeared frequently on CHCH-TV's very popular "Music Go Round," guested on many radio shows (most notably with Moose Letrek over CFGM, Ontario's Country Powerhouse) and performed extensively at clubs and in concert.

Now touring with the Varga Brothers (it was Ernie Varga who introduced her to country music), Diane is slated to appear on The Carl Smith Show - CFTO-TV; What's Happening, also on CFTO-TV; Hayride - WWVA, originating in Wheeling, West Virginia, and the highly-rated Gary Buck TV show emanating from Kitchener, Ontario.

AN ARC PRODUCTION

Lead Guitar - Mickey McGivern
Drums - Billy Wilson
Rhythm Guitar - Billy Adams
Steel Guitar - Buddy Saul
Bass - Jerry Lee Legacy
Choral Background - The Sugar Shoppe
Producer - Ben Weatherby"

Of the four songs I've posted here, two ("Angel Of My Dreams" and "Facing Each Tomorrow") are credited or co-credited to "S. Varga," who I think we can assume is one of the aforementioned Varga Brothers. "Angel Of My Dreams" is a gorgeous mid-tempo ballad on which Merritt's brassy voice is multitracked for a nice harmonizing effect. "The Hurtin's All Over" and "I Ain't Had No Lovin'," were both mid-'60s hits for Connie Smith, and "Facing Each Tomorrow" is a sassy, heartfelt lament featuring impressive work on guitar by McGivern.

Angel Of My Dreams
The Hurtin's All Over
I Ain't Had No Lovin'
Facing Each Tomorrow

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Truths & Rights

2008-04-28T09:00:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted a compilation that included one song by a Toronto reggae outfit named Truths & Rights, and just the other day I found this 12" single at a Goodwill near the library I work at.

Metro's No. 1 Problem was released in 1981 by Rhythm Discs (which was located in Kensington Market) with production, arrangements and mixing credited to Truths and Rights. The band members are identified by single names only - Qwammie, Mohjah, Iauwata, Ahmid, Ovid, Abnadengel and Chico - and the liner notes don't specify who played what. "Metro's No. 1 Problem" meanders through an unusual intro featuring piano, organ and harmonica, then merges into a more traditional reggae song decrying racism and violence. "Black Plight," an uplifting number about peace and unity, is a fairly straightforward tune with a few dubby touches throughout.

Metro's No. 1 Problem
Black Plight

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Speaking of reggae, Light In The Attic has released another album as part of its Jamaica To Toronto series of reissues. This time it's Innocent Youths, a full-length LP by Earth, Roots & Water, a sort of house band for Jerry Brown's Summer Records, located in Malton, Ontario. As with all the other Jamaica To Toronto releases, Innocent Youths includes detailed liner notes and interviews with many of the musicians by Kevin "Sipreano" Howe, so make sure and pick up a copy!

The Cathedral Singers

2008-04-24T09:20:00.003-04:00

The first side of this LP by The Cathedral Singers of Hamilton, Ontario is made up of hymns and a medley of songs from Godspell, but the second side is comprised of pretty solid covers of '70s rock songs. I can't find anything online about The Cathedral Singers, but the liner notes do include a bit of info:

"Over the last three years, The Cathedral Singers, students at Cathedral Girls' and Boys' High Schools in Hamilton, Ontario, have performed their special kind of choir and electric band music in two provinces and twelve American states. They have appeared on CBC-TV, CITY-TV (Toronto), Cable 8 [now Cable 14] (Hamilton), and their records are played on Hamilton and Toronto radio stations. In addition to local concerts, they have played in Montreal, Ottawa, the Penitentiaries at Kingston and Joyceville, and in 1975 made a tour of the American South."

The Cathedral Singers On Tour was recorded at Eastern Sound in Toronto by producer Tim Elia and engineer Brian Nimens. The choir members are too numerous to list individually, but the instrumental lineup was Larry Pongetti (drums), Mark Pongetti (lead guitar and vocals), Peter Arthurs (keyboards and vocals), Joe Figiola (acoustic guitar and vocals), Ron Velenosi (bass) and Tim Elia (keyboards and vocals), with John Mariella (bass) and Arnie Settimi (organ) on "Long Train Runnin'". The cover of Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" is an a capella performance by the choir, while the other four songs (originally by Elton John, The Doobie Brothers, Roberta Flack and The Beatles, respectively) are full band tracks.

After The Gold Rush
Your Song
Long Train Runnin'
Killing Me Softly
Let It Be

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Rafael Nunez

2008-04-20T10:27:00.003-04:00

I can't really find any information about the Mexican-Canadian musician Rafael Nunez (not to be confused with this Rafael Nunez), aside from a couple of people who have this LP for sale. So it's time, once again, to cue the liner notes...

"The Siesta Mexicana of Rafael Nunez, featuring the entire spectrum of Latin Rhythm, states the case for the Mexican Mode in an exemplary way. Flamencos, Boleros, Huapangos, Cha Chas, Joropos, Son Jarochos, all are served up by "El Rey Latino" in a sensational, sensual, satisfying style.

Forsaking the balmy air of Mexico, Rafael Nunez came to Canada and things have never been the same since. He was discovered by violinist Ivan Romanoff, the musical director of CBC's "Songs of My People." Romanoff featured him on many programs and since that time there has been a steady stream of nightclub, radio and television engagements. He toured England, France and Germany with the CBC concert party entertaining Canadian Armed Forces in Europe. There he netted an avalanche of offers to stay on the continent, but opted out in favour of this country.

Siesta Mexicana features Nunez at his best. The artist to whom musical artistry comes as naturally breathing invites you to do what comes naturally also. TO RELAX AND ENJOY AS THOUSANDS DO THE BRILLIANT ARTISTRY OF RAFAEL NUNEZ."

Siesta Mexicana, which sports what is almost certainly the sexiest cover to ever grace this website, was recorded at Bay Studios in Toronto by producer Bill Roncken (who also worked on an album by The Three Reeds) and engineer Frank Bertin. None of the musicians on the album are identified, but it would appear as though Nunez played the trumpet. "El Cascabel," which was written by Lorenzo Barcelata, is a up-tempo flamenco number featuring an entire band. "Romance Del Amor" is a moody guitar instrumental, and "Granada," by Augustin Lara, is a gorgeous tune that goes through several distinct stylistic and tempo shifts. Lastly, "Melado De Cana," is another slow, sad song featuring an operatic performance by whoever's singing.

El Cascabel
Romance Del Amor
Granada
Melado De Cana

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Bob Burchill

2008-04-16T12:06:00.006-04:00

Country/folk singer-songwriter Bob Burchill grew up in Dublin, Ontario, a small community located in Perth County. A descendant of Irish immigrants, and the son of a country-style fiddler, Burchill played piano and harmonica as a boy and bought a guitar after hearing a Bob Dylan album for the first time as a teenager. After backpacking through Europe and Northern Africa for a while, Burchill returned to Perth County and got a job at a Stratford coffeehouse named The Black Swan, where he learned how to play guitar from the endless stream of performers (including Jackie Washington and Colleen Peterson) who passed through. In 1970 he joined Perth County Conspiracy [Does Not Exist], a psych-folk band whose members included actor Cedric Smith. In '75 he made his solo debut with the album I'm posting today (Cabin Fever) and after Perth County Conspiracy broke up he continued to record and perform both on his own and with other artists too numerous to list here. In '89, Burchill set up a musical instruction studio in St. Mary's, Ontario and taught guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bass, and keyboards until 2001, when he retired from teaching in order to live on his farm and concentrate on his writing.

Side one of this LP (including "Cabin Fever" and "Pilgrim of the Wind") was recorded at The Schoolhouse Sound Studio Co-Op in Carlingford, Perth County, while side two ("Welcome Song") was recorded live on tour in Calgary. In addition to Burchill, who sings and plays guitar and mandolin, the following musicians also play on the album:

Jeremy Balser: hand drums
Michael Butler: bass
Paul Gelman: violin
Terry Jones: acoustic guitar
Jerome Davis: drums
John Jackson: electric and acoustic guitars, vocals
Koumantaros: piano, congas, vocals
Richard Keelan: amplified acoustic guitar, mandolin, fiddle
Dorit Learned: vocals
Doug McNaughton: fiddle
Zeke Prelosnjak: harp
David Woodhead: bass, banjo, vocals

Cabin Fever's sound is folky country-rock with that big, airy Canadian sound I've tried to define before. "Cabin Fever" is a relatively up-tempo track with a stronger rock flavour, while "Pilgrim of the Wind" leans more heavily towards the folk side of Burchill's music. And "Welcome Song" displays the influence of Neil Young, with the piano and backup singer giving it a melancholy feel.

Cabin Fever
Pilgrim Of The Wind
Welcome Song

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Q107 Homegrown Album Vol. 2

2008-04-12T09:20:00.004-04:00

Q107 Homegrown Album Vol. 2 was the second in a series of at least 15 annual compilation albums put out by Q107 to showcase Toronto-area bands. I've picked up about a half-dozen of them over the years and, generally speaking, they've been pretty dismal. So I was pleasantly surprised when Volume 2 turned out to have some pretty good tunes on it...

Vol. 2 was released in 1980, and as a result most of the songs on the album are more influenced by punk, pub rock and new wave than the synth-pop and hair metal that make up a lot of the later '80s volumes. "Coming To Get Ya," by the apparently short-lived Dawson City (they'd already broken up by the time this compilation was released), is a sturdy pub rocker with an AC/DC feel to it. "Acid Rain" is ecologically-minded roots reggae by Truths and Rights, a still-active band that currently includes two former members of Big Sugar (a group I have many fond, beer-soaked memories of), and "Fighter Plane," by Rex Chainbelt, is a jittery Feelies-influenced tune. Lastly, "Rockit Trip" by King Rockit is a kitschy new wave number with kind of an Adam Ant/Gary Numan thing going on.

Coming To Get Ya - Dawson City
Acid Rain - Truths And Rights
Fighter Plane - Rex Chainbelt
Rockit Trip - King Rockit

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Gordon Deppe

2008-04-09T09:30:00.004-04:00

Gordon Deppe was the lead singer and guitarist in The Spoons, a fairly popular new wave/synth-pop band throughout the first half of the 1980s. After that group broke up towards the end of the decade, Deppe worked as a producer, played with other bands and took part in a few Spoons reunion gigs here and there. These days, in addition to his other endeavors he's a programmer for Galaxie, "CBC's Continuous Music Network."

Deppe wrote and performed most of the music on Listen To The City, which according to this page was never released on VHS or DVD. I don't know what it was about, but one of the commenters on IMDB describes it thusly; "A man wakes up from a 20-year coma and teams up with a young musician and poet to fight corporate crime." Anyway, fellow Spoons Sandy Horne and Bob Preuss also appear on a few of the songs on this album, which was produced by Deppe, recorded at Sound Path Studios in Oakville, and consists almost entirely of (very '80s) synth and guitar-driven mood music. The relatively uptempo "Theme For A City" played over the opening credits, while the more ominous "Until Tomorrow" accompanied the closing credits. "Then As Now" is a bit of (rather woodenly read) speechifying that I've included here mainly because of its somewhat eerie parallels to certain current events ("Many will compare it with the Great Depression. Bank failures, rampant inflation, fortunes lost overnight..."), and "A New World" is a companion piece to "Theme For A City."

Theme For A City
Then As Now
A New World
Until Tomorrow

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ollie Case & Johnny Bond

2008-04-05T13:15:00.002-04:00

Sarnia, Ontario organist Ollie Case was featured on this site just over a year ago, and on this album he's joined by percussionist Johnny Bond. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to track down much of anything about Mr. Bond, but there are a few photos of him performing at the 2006 CanAm Jazz Festival in Sarnia here.

Electromotion! was recorded at The Mercey Brothers Studio in Elmira, Ontario, and produced by Case, Paul David Mercey and Rob Asselstine. "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" is a decent version of the Stevie Wonder hit, and "Opus One" is a sprightly old pop tune, but the best song (by a mile) on this LP is the cover of "Baby Face." Normally I wouldn't be caught dead recommending "Baby Face" to anyone, but after a fairly straightforward opening Case and Bond transform the corny old vaudeville standard into a funky percussion workout with some space-funk keyboard thrown in for good measure; seriously, Bond just about loses his shit during the drum solo that dominates this track.

You Are The Sunshine Of My Life
Baby Face
Opus One

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Les Tetes Blanches

2008-04-02T12:15:00.004-04:00

Quebec seems like an odd place for a surf-rock scene, but in the '60s there were dozens of Quebecois bands making like The Ventures. One of them was Les Têtes Blanches, who were previously known as Les Hou-Lops. Their lineup was the same as Les Hou-Lops (singer Gilles Rousseau, guitarists Claude Domingue and Yvan Cote, bassist Jean-Claude Brassard and drummer Claude Laviolette), and it appears as though their gimmick was wearing white wigs or dying their hair white ("Les Têtes Blanches" translates to "The White Heads" in English). There isn't much out there on Les Têtes Blanches, but you can watch them perform a raucous instrumental number named "Dernière Minute" here.

This album, which was released on Meteor Records, doesn't include any information about when or where it was recorded, but odds are it dates from the late '60s. It's almost entirely instrumental, with only a couple of tunes sung by Rousseau. "Caravan" is a surf-rockabilly take on a Duke Ellington tune with lots of nicely-recorded frantic drumming, and "Escapade," which was written by guitarist Claude Dominique, is a swingin' number with a bluesier feel.

Caravan
Escapade

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Bill Badgley

2008-03-28T12:15:00.002-04:00

I can't find anything on the internet about pianist Bill Badgley, but the liner notes to this album state that before he was a concert performer he worked as a radio announcer, that he "opened" and often played a Toronto restaurant named Ports of Call, and that he made several appearances on television and radio over the years.

Bill Badgley Plays Burt Bacharach features arrangements by Johnny Burt and Rick Wilkins and was recorded by engineer Mark Smith, but none of the musicians in the orchestra which accompanies Badgley are identified. It is, as the title would lead you to believe, comprised entirely of Burt Bacharach/Hal David covers, all done in a light orchestral pop style.

Walk On By
Are You There With Another Girl?
The Look Of Love
Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

The Good Brothers

2008-03-25T10:51:00.001-04:00

The Good Brothers were (and still are) a Toronto-area country-rock group that originally consisted of twins Bruce and Brian Good, who played autoharp and guitar, respectively. After moving to California for a while and meeting Jack Casady and Bill Kreutzmann, they recorded one album with guitarist James Ackroyd and toured Canada with The Festival Express, but by 1972 Ackroyd had left and was replaced by Larry Good, who played banjo. The trio made their public debut that year at a Yorkville coffeehouse named The Riverboat, and before long they were playing weeklong stands at The El Mocambo and headlining both Massey Hall and Roy Thompson Hall. By the end of the decade they'd released four albums and won the first of eight consecutive Juno Awards as Country Group of the Year. As their popularity grew, they moved from playing Toronto-area venues to nationwide tours throughout Canada and the U.S., as well as frequent trips to Europe. Larry left the band in 1991, and Bruce's son Travis (who later co-formed The Sadies with his brother Dallas) temporarily took his place; touring members of the band have also included fiddlers John (J.P.) Allen and Carl Keys and guitarists Laurice Milton 'Red' Shea, Danny McBride, and Pat Rush. In 2004, they were inducted into The Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.

This self-titled RCA LP was The Good Brothers' first album recorded under that name (their country-folk album with Ackroyd was named James and The Good Brothers in 1970). Recorded in 1976 and produced by John Capek and Adam Mitchell at RCA Studios and Thunder Sound (which was also home to albums by Dave Essig and David Wiffen, among many others) in Toronto, there are literally a few dozen musicians credited on the back cover, including Margaret Good (backup vocals), Bob Mann (guitar), Danny McBride (guitar), Bohdan Hluszko (drums), Gord Fleming (keyboards), Milan Kymlicka (strings), and Pee Wee Charles and Al Briscoe (steel guitar). "Midnight Flight" (by Mike McLellan) is a funky mix of country and mid-'70s rock with nice work on bass and a bridge that somehow reminds me of the slower passages in certain Rheostatics tunes. "The Rabbit" (by Bruce Good) is a joke song about, yes, a rabbit who eats the singer's pot crop, with predictable results. And "Homemade Wine" (by Al Manning and Glen Lecompte) is another track that owes as much to funk as to country, with bass, electric piano and banjo working together to form a deep groove.

Midnight Flight
The Rabbit
Homemade Wine

Pat Riccio

2008-03-22T00:20:00.003-04:00

A quick post for the holiday weekend; one song by the previously featured Thunder Bay saxophonist Pat Riccio.

Love Letters, an Arc album like all three of the Riccio LPs I own, was recorded at Bay Studios in Toronto by producers Bill Gilliland (one of Arc's co-founders) and Brian Ahern (also the musical director of Singalong Jubilee). The album is almost entirely instrumental, but the one song with vocals is the keeper; a smooth cover of "Groovin'" by The Rascals with almost-ghostly singers floating in and out of the mix.

~~Groovin'~~

Note: This song has been archived at It Came From Canada.

Simply Saucer

2008-03-19T13:45:00.001-04:00

Cyborgs Revisited, by Hamilton's Simply Saucer, was far and away the most obscure LP listed in last year's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums. How obscure was it? Well, it wasn't even released until 14 years after it was recorded.

Simply Saucer originally came together in late '72, when guitarist/songwriter Edgar Breau started jamming with a few friends, and by early '73 the still-unnamed group was regularly rehearsing in a loft near the corner of King & John. Later that year the band rented out an abandoned storefront in Hamilton's east end, settled on the name Simply Saucer and gave their first public performance on June 22nd, 1974 at St. Albans Church. By that point, the group's lineup was Breau on lead vocals, guitar and theremin, Kevin Christoff on bass and vocals, "Ping Romany" (Ed's foster brother John LaPlante) on various electronic instruments and Neil DeMerchant on drums. That summer, they recorded most of what would become Cyborgs Revisited at Master Sound Recording Studio, which was located in the basement of Bob and Daniel Lanois' mother's home in Ancaster. The following summer (Tony Cutaia having replaced DeMerchant on drums) they played a concert at Jackson Square Rooftop Stage in Hamilton; the show was recorded and three of the tunes (including "Here Come The Cyborgs (Part 2)" and "Dance The Mutation") also wound up on Cyborgs Revisited. Shortly thereafter, though, their manager quit and the band packed it in. Breau did resurrect the group in 1977 long enough to play a few shows and record a single ("She's A Dog" b/w "I Can Change My Mind") that met with some success in the Hamilton area, but by July of 1979, riven by substance abuse problems and personnel defections, they called it quits for good. Ten years later, Cyborgs Revisited was finally released on Mole Records, and Simply Saucer's cult began to grow when groups like Sonic Youth discovered the album and began to sing its praises, but it wasn't until it was re-released by Sonic Unyon in 2002 that its reputation really took off.

Simply Saucer's problem was that they never really fit into the popular scenes of the day. Heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd and The Stooges, they were too psychedelic for punk and too aggressive for prog. "Mole Machine" is an unsettling, psychedelic instrumental that sounds like a harder-edged version of early Floyd. "Here Come The Cyborgs (Part 2)," the longest number here, starts out as a fast-paced Velvets-style rant before moving into a funkier, mostly instrumental coda. "Dance The Mutation," my favourite song on the album, is a garage-y tune vaguely reminicient of The Stooges and mid-period Rolling Stones before it explodes into a full-on guitar freakout. And "She's A Dog," which wasn't on the original Cyborgs Revisited LP, is a punky and surprisingly tuneful single recorded and released in 1978 (with Romany, DeMerchant and Cutaia gone by this point and replaced by Steve Park on guitar and Don Cramer on drums).

~~Mole Machine~~
~~Here Come The Cyborgs (Part 2)~~
~~Dance The Mutation~~
~~She's A Dog~~

Mister Garager's Neighbourhood

2008-03-15T11:00:00.003-04:00

Another day, another Og Music compilation! Mister Garager's Neighbourhood features garage bands that Og promoted in the pages of What Wave Magazine, an '80s punk zine from London, Ontario.

~~The Chessmen - Time Machine~~

The Chessmen, described on the back cover as "snarly invasion-styled beat music," were from Hamilton and consisted of Dan Beer on vocals, Rick Blythe on guitar, Warren on bass and Mike White on drums. "Time Machine" is a classic garage tune with maybe a bit of REM and The Tragically Hip thrown in for good measure.

~~The Vindicators - Thinking Of Birds~~

Calgary's The Vindicators were Chris Carlson (vocals, guitar), Darren Borehan (guitar), Colin Forsyth (organ), Ben Sherazi (bass) and Bryce Dunn (drums), a "fine example of young minds warped by over-exposure to '60s punk records." Sure enough, "Thinking Of Birds" is a fantastically '60s-influenced beat number with loads of swirling organ and guitar solos.

~~UIC - Leave Me Alone~~

Toronto punks U.I.C. played a hard and fast version of "hyper-rock-meta-punk," and "Leave Me Alone" is a punk rawk rant of the highest order. The band's lineup was singer Dave Robinson, guitarist Fred Robinson, bassist Dan Preszcator and drummer Murray Heywood.

~~Legend Killers - She Struck Me Down~~

Legend Killers, who called London home, were Earle Rutherford (vocals), Chris Mittelholtz (guitar), Mike McGill (bass) and Bill Wallace (drums). "She Struck Me Down" is high energy, bone-crunching raunch and roll with a touch of ska.

~~Drums Along The Gardiner - Vagabonds~~

Drums Along The Gardiner (there's another great band name for you) were another Toronto act described as "a brew of '60s and '70s punk mixed together until only the grunge remains." The band's members were singer Pete Moss, guitarist Drew, bassist Zack X. McBuick and drummer Brian, and "Vagabonds" is a bruising slab of Stooges-style punk sludge.

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.

Ray Hutchinson of The Beau-Marks

2008-03-13T01:36:00.003-04:00

Back in December of '06 I did a post on The Beau-Marks, one of Canada's earliest rock groups, and the first to score an international hit. Last night, Graham Hart of CHEX-TV in Peterborough brought to my attention two televised segments about former Beau-Mark Ray Hutchinson that he produced as part of his ongoing "Flashback" series. They're both a really good overview of the band's history and a recap of Hutchinson's life, which has been filled with numerous ups (a long and successful career as a singer) and downs (a childhood battle with tuberculosis, a serious car accident in 1988). If you'd like to watch them, click here and look for the entries titled "Ray Hutchinson Part 1 and Part 2" along the left-hand side.

Eddie LeGere

2008-03-12T11:11:00.007-04:00

Country singer, songwriter and guitarist Eddie LeGere was born in Joggins, Nova Scotia in 1930. As the son of a coal miner he followed in his father's footsteps, but began singing at the age of 14 and wrote "Springhill Mine Disaster" after losing a relative in a mining accident. Before long he'd ammassed a repertoire of over 80 original songs to his credit, and performed on the "Main St. Jamboree" CHCH-TV series, as well as on CKSO, Channel 5 in Sudbury, Ontario. Beyond that, I don't know much about Mr. LeGere, although this site claims he settled in St. Catharines, where he befriended singer Jack Kingston, and was still releasing new music as recently as 2000. He may even be still available for hire.

A Bluenose Song Book was LeGere's first Arc album. Produced, as many Arc LPs were, by Ben Weatherby, it also featured Mickey McGivern on lead guitar, Bob Lucier on steel guitar, Billy Adams on bass, Tony DiMaria (who also produced records by The Majestics and Eddie Spencer) on drums and Artie McLaren on rhythm guitar. I'm not sure if "Maritime Express," an evocative train song about a railway route between Montreal and Nova Scotia, is one of LeGere's original numbers, but "My Nova Scotia Home" (which mentions the Maritime Express in passing) is definitely a Hank Snow tune. "My Old Brown Coat And Me" is an oft-covered Doc Williams song, and the aforementioned "Springhill Mine Disaster" tells the story of an explosion which claimed the life of 39 miners on November 1st, 1956 (one of three fatal mining accidents that occurred near the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia). All four songs are basically straightforward country music, with able backing by the Arc studio musicians and LeGere's Maritime-accented warbling.

Maritime Express
My Nova Scotia Home
My Old Brown Coat And Me
Springhill Mine Disaster

Note: These songs have been archived at It Came From Canada.