Transcript
Speaker: Hi, it's Dan here and I wanted to let you know that this is a very special episode of the show. Some glimpses from my chats with four previous guests. You'll hear about 10 minutes of each guest's 60 plus minute conversation, which will give you a small idea of the many topics that we covered. Also, you can listen to the entire conversation at either linernotes .ca or on any podcast platforms. Just search for liner notes revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Enjoy.
Speaker: Today, I'm very honored to have as my guest, iconic songwriter, producer, performer, Eddie Schwartz. He has written and recorded multiple hits and received many well -deserved awards and accolades for his accomplishments. So you were born in Toronto, but you're living in Nashville now, is that right? Yeah. Been here since 1997. Oh, wow. But we still get to claim you as a Canadian, right? Definitely. And we spend the summers in Muskoka. I mean, it's still one of the most beautiful parts of the world, as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker: So you, uh, you were one of those people who had like an early musical experiences that you just grew up with. I mean, we grew up at such a great time. I guess you're a little bit older than I am, but, uh, I'm right there with you and it was such a magical time. But what was your influence when you were growing up? Take lessons or family influence. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, my family, um, my mother was from New York. My father was a Torontonian. So.
Speaker: I had a lot of interesting influences from them. Musically, they were very much into the folk scene of the 40s, I guess 30s, 40s, and 50s that grew up in the Depression. I was there. And there was a lot of incredible, you know, kind of folk music from people like Odetta and Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Nina Simone. So I grew up in a house where they listened to music that meant something and the lyrics were important.
Speaker: The lyrics were delivering a message about social equality and, you know, the struggles of, you know, the less fortunate with, you know, the more privileged, which of course is still going on today. So I grew up in that kind of environment. And it had a big influence on me. So, I mean, I did take some music lessons. I was kind of a failure at the music lessons thing.
Speaker: mostly because I would get exercises on guitar or piano, and I would just immediately start writing a song. I mean, I'd learn a few chords or learn to play something, and then as soon as I had CF and G under my fingers on a guitar, or banjo, actually, I started with banjo because beat seeker was as I said. I just would start writing a song. I just couldn't help myself. Also, I guess Dylan, one of my
Speaker: cousins lived in New York and I would go down to New York and she lived in Greenwich Village, which was at its peak in those days, early 60s. And so, you know, Dylan, you know, Allen Ginsberg were walking on the streets in her neighborhood, saw people before they were famous even, you know, they were just, you know, becoming famous in New York, but their fame hadn't spread worldwide yet. So it was really, as you said, it was an incredible time.
Speaker: But you did take some formal training. Did you do a degree in English and music? Did I read this from U of T? Well, actually it was York. I studied music and literature English at York in its early days, fairly early days. And I think I was, in fact, I think I was in the very first class of the Fine Arts Department. Oh, wow. That was a bit of a struggle. Again, songwriting wasn't really what they were about. They were more about jazz.
Speaker: the faculty there were very much about jazz. So what I was doing was a little outside what they were teaching. But the most important thing to me is some of the people I've met there, like David Tyson, who I ended up working with and writing for years, and Fred Mandel, who went on to be Elton John's keyboard player, and Dallas Cooper, and Queen.
Speaker: It was my peers that I met in those programs that had a lot of influence on my career as I went forward. Nice. Yeah, that's right. Because when you get in the incubator of the study, you can become a musical scientist, which really is what most of us don't want to be. I think you're quoted as saying that your songs came from the heart. That's where the magic happens. It's not so much in how fast you can play a diminished scale. It's the heart of the music. I couldn't agree more, Dan.
Speaker: you know, if you came from a background where I like think about guys like Dylan and Leonard Cohen and, you know, great Canadian Joni Mitchell, I'm in the lyrics also. We talk a lot about the music when we talk or as songwriters, as music creators. But the lyrics, you know, songwriting attracted me again, I studied music and literature.
Speaker: Songwriting is the place where those two things meet. To be honest with you, music has always come to me fairly easily and it's always the most fun part. I struggle with lyrics, but I put a lot of time into trying to get them right. We can't forget about the lyrical side of things if you're a songwriter as well. The act of songwriting, the process of writing songs,
Speaker: A lot of my friends were out doing sports when I was 12, 13 years old. All I wanted to do was write songs. I guess I thought of myself as an artist, but again, it was the act of creating a song was just completely mesmerized me. I was just completely in love with it. Unlike many teenagers, I think I'd
Speaker: I was struggling with a lot of emotions and some depression, I think, you know, in the early days there at 12, 13, 14, 15, going through puberty and, you know, where do I fit into, you know, you're becoming an adult. It's a very awkward and difficult period. And I just compulsively wrote song after song after song. And so it was really, it was always about that and about how that kind of helped me deal with my angst about being
Speaker: a young teenager at that point in suburban Toronto and trying to figure out who I was and just deal with a lot of strong emotions. The defining moment for me and something that I was aware of at the time was writing hit me, hit me with your best shot. Because again, I was going through a very difficult period.
Speaker: I was in my 20s at that point. I was, you know, in Toronto. Couldn't get arrested. Nobody was interested in listening to my music. You know, I had a little bit of success wrote music for Spring Thaw, which was a very well -known annual, you know, musical comedy review that happened in Toronto every spring. Written music for that in 1970.
Speaker: So, you know, I'd had some success. I had some support. I'd met Bob Asbury, a new one, of course, to become incredibly important. But Hit Me was written at the low point for me. I was contemplating just packing it all in. And I went into therapy. It was kind of a kind of a new age, slightly hippie -ish thing called bioenergetics. And one of the things we did was punch pillows to get our
Speaker: you know, kind of get our hostility. We're speaking about anger and hostility. Gestalt, Gestalt therapy kind of thing. Yelling in a chair, breaking eggs and stuff kind of thing. Right. Yeah. This was along those lines. I was punching pillows and I walked out of one of these therapy sessions and the title hit me with your best shot came to me. And I was at a, I was in therapy because I was so depressed about the fact that nobody wanted to hear my music. And so again, it came back in that moment of like complete kind of despair. This title came to me that
Speaker: And I wrote it from that despair. It was like, it's really me against the world kind of song. But I was able to capture some attitude, say, okay, I'm not giving up. I'm calling your bluff world, if you will. But I finished the song and it took me a long time to finish it because the lyrics had to be right. I kind of knew that I'd maybe turned a corner.
Speaker: in terms of my writing. Well, again, it resonates with basically everybody. I mean, it's it's one of those universal themes that everyone's had that moment, right? Yeah, I think so. But you played guitar for Charity Brown, right? That was was that one of your first earliest experiences of playing in a sort of recording act that could do something? Yeah. Yeah. And that comes back a little bit to what you were asking about a plan. And that is and I was I know
Speaker: one of the musicians actually, he was the musical director for charity. We knew each other and he offered me the gig. They're about to go on tour. I can't remember. I think the previous band had fallen apart that she was using. She was quite a big name in Canada at the time. Yes, absolutely. I knew she had a record deal with A &M Records.
Speaker: I knew they're very active in Canada and signing Canadian artists. And it wasn't that I really wanted to go on the road with Charity, with all due respect to her, you know, for the next year and a half of my life. But I thought, well, maybe, as again, I said, nobody was interested in my music. Maybe they'll hear, maybe she'll do one or two of my songs and will hear the songs. Maybe they'll, you know, they'll have some interest in what I'm doing.
Speaker: So there was a bit of a plan there, I suppose.
Speaker: Well, fair enough because you're knocking on doors that are really difficult to open, right? You've got to find your way. You got to go around the building and find a door that's open. And if that's the one that's open, you go through that one and see what you can find in there. And obviously you did that. Exactly. And just so you know, I mean, I'd sent tapes, you know, the old cassette tapes in those days to, uh, to, uh, A &M. Nobody ever got back to me. So yeah, this was like, okay, well, maybe, maybe this'll work. Maybe at least they'll, they'll hear one or two of my songs.
Speaker: Today, I'm very happy to have as my special guest, former radio executive, record company promoter, and music business veteran, Dave Chesney, affectionately known as the Chez. Thanks for joining me today, Dave. I had you in the back of my mind because I knew that you had a history in, well, radio and then as a music business executive. And so I thought, well, you'd be a great guy to talk to because you've been around for, well, a few decades now. We won't say how many, but a lot. Yeah, it's been a long and winding road, that's for sure.
Speaker: So your dad was Joe Chesney and he was a very well -known radio industry person. I guess he worked at CKNW and CGOR and then had the country music station in Langley? Yes, he kind of pioneered country music at CKNOR. The radio station virtually didn't have any ratings and he left CKNW when they found out that he was thinking of applying for his own radio station.
Speaker: Which he eventually did but in the meantime before he got his own license. He went to work at cjor and did the afternoon show and with a radio program called melody ranch. Which featured the nashville stars and back in the day any of the local entertainers that had product to release records he also featured them.
Speaker: Then in the early 60s, 1962, after two unsuccessful attempts, finally was granted a license for a radio station in Langley, which the call letters became CJJC and the JC, of course, for Joe Chesney. It became British Columbia's first 24 -hour -a -day country music radio station. Your dad was very well known. He was very connected to the community. Why did they call him Uncle Joe?
Speaker: Good question. Um, I don't, I don't know. I think it was just, uh, I think it was when he had the radio show at a CJOR, there was another gentleman, Vic waters who went by the name cousin Jody. So I don't know whether it was just something that they, I don't know, maybe uncle Dave Macon, a Nashville star. I'm not really sure. It's a good question. Funny. I never even bothered to ever ask him.
Speaker: So the deal with you is you wanted to be more than just the boss's son. Like once you decided you were gonna work there, you had aspirations of your own.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. I mean, anybody that's ever worked in that kind of environment, I think you have two options. Either you can just be the boss's kid and be a slacker, or you can plow your role a little straighter and tighter than anyone else. And it was a golden opportunity. CJJC was a great mixture of people whose careers were on the way up or on the way down. So it became like a modern, when eventually WKRP came on the radio or on the television, I thought, oh my God, I could have written better scripts than any of these people.
Speaker: It was really a cast of characters, but I was privileged enough to be mentored by some of the greats in the radio industry.
Speaker: Yeah. And what a great time too. I often mentioned to my guests, you know, the sixties, seventies and eighties were really the golden decades of music and the buzz around it and radio stations were a big deal then, right? They had the tunes. There was nowhere else we could get them. I mean, I, you know, I can distinctly remember, you know, uh, getting out of school at three o 'clock and trying to get to the nearest radio to, uh, perhaps you're the new Beatles single or something with Daryl B or Roy Hennessy or any one of those, you know, big daddy, Dave McCormick, they were all.
Speaker: You know, people that later on in life became close personal friends, but I mean, they had the tunes. It was the only place you were going to get it. And it was AM radio to start with. And later on in life, it became FM radio.
Speaker: You know, you just, uh, they had the tune simple as that. Yeah. And I've often said that to young people, I'm sure you've shared much the same about how important radio was and especially am radio in the early days. But as you say, once we moved to FM, you had the high fidelity, the stereo feed, and it just sounded great. And that was a lot of life surrounded around the radio stations. Yes, absolutely. Indeed. Radio industry is, is, is sort of all that I've ever known. Now it could be the same in the trucking or the building industry, but
Speaker: You make friendships that last a lifetime and you find and you meet people that have a huge impact on your life. And for me, in the early days of working at my father's radio station, one of the jobs I had was music director. So, uh, my job was to try to, uh, build relationships with the record companies so that we could get product. Well, in those days, in the sixties, uh, record companies.
Speaker: had an absolutely no time, effort, or energy for country music radio stations. As a matter of fact, so we ended up getting the US record service to get the records that were coming out by the big stars of Nashville. But I did make our lasting relationship with a gentleman by the name of Frank Gilioti, who at that time worked for Columbia Records. And I still, you know, all these years later, some 48 years, I still call him my brother. We became very, very close and it ended up that,
Speaker: after I'd left my father's radio station. I opened up a second -hand store in Alder Grove and Frank still used to come out and visit me and one day he said, you know, they're looking for a music director at what in those days was LG FM was turning into FM 99. He said, you know, would you be interested? And I said, yeah, I don't know whether I really enjoyed the drive into Vancouver every day, but
Speaker: Yeah. Let's, uh, you know, tell me who to call. And I went and set, uh, set up a meeting with, uh, at that time, uh, Roy Hennessy, the real Roy, who was leaving AM radio. They just couldn't pay him any more money, but they had, they wanted to keep them within the Moffat family. So they said, Roy, why don't you, uh, take on the program duties of, uh, CKL GFM, uh, which he did. And he hired me as music director and promotions director and hours.
Speaker: Then that, that just kind of, you know, then now I was working at the big smoke in Vancouver and dealing with a lot of all the major record labels across Canada.
Speaker: Cause you're in kind of in a position of power, uh, which never really went to my head. But through that course, uh, after two years there, uh, I was approached by CBS records. They were going to the business as you stated was, uh, you know, that we're now looking at the late seventies, early eighties. The business was exploding, absolutely exploding. And it really had nothing to do with anything that we were doing. There's just this huge population called the baby boom.
Speaker: that gave AM radio its giant numbers and then it moved on. It's just like if you were fishing and looking at a sonar image, you'd see this huge bulge going from AM to FM. And as a result of that, once that baby boomer moved into the FM era, we were, I mean, I don't know about you, but even I was going down to A and B sound on a Friday afternoon.
Speaker: and picking up a half a dozen albums. I mean, I mean, that was a big deal. We just didn't think anything of it. I mean, Led Zeppelin one and two came out in the same year in sixty eight. You know, we were just like kids in a candy store. If people are listening across Canada, Sea Fox is, you know, was the flagship and probably still is to some people the station in Vancouver. I mean, that was the place to be right. That was.
Speaker: It was probably one of the three, you know, probably Chum FM in Toronto, Chum FM in Montreal and CKLG FM were the pioneers of, of that era of, uh, you know, FM rock in Canada. That's for sure. Cool. So you, you get into C Fox and then, uh, that must've been like a different universe for you. Uh, well, it was, it wasn't, it wasn't that, that really that big a difference than what I was doing out in Langley at, uh, my father's radio station, the job.
Speaker: The level and the importance of it may have been a little bit higher, but the machinations of the job were still very much the same. Okay, and you knew the business, so there was nothing surprising in that respect, I suppose. I don't know that anybody ever really knew the business. It was changing so fast, to be very honest. It was fluid, to say the least.
Speaker: So you were at C Fox and then you applied for a job at CBS records. What was, what was the deal with that? Like, what was the lure there for you? Well, again, the, uh, we're going to have to come back to Frank Gilioti again. Um,
Speaker: He actually was, when he found out that CBS Records was going to expand and end up, because there was such a great roster that Frank couldn't possibly do all the work himself. So he said, you should throw your hat in the ring. And I had met a lot of the national people from the various labels, and I really liked the record labels, the roster that CBS had. We played a lot of it at Sea Fox.
Speaker: Yeah, I applied and 12 years later I was leaving CBS Records when Sony bought it. The whole business changed when that happened. We were just about under the crest.
Speaker: of Napster and digital and everything. So everything was about to change. But when Sony bought CBS records, the, you know, we, I think I remember sitting in my office one day and we had four or five of the top 10 records. And I thought, you know what? I don't even want to listen to any of these artists. I mean, not to begrudge the artists, but
Speaker: It wasn't my style of music anymore. I'd had the pleasure of working with the Stevie Ray's and the cheap tricks and the Boston's and the Eddie Monnies and on and on. And all of a sudden now we had, you know, Gloria Estefan and the sound machine. And, and, and as I'm saying, I'm not, I don't want to be derogatory about any of that style of music. Just wasn't my cup of tea. So, you know, idealistically, I said, you know what? I think it's time to move on.
Speaker: bassist, songwriter, and recording artist, Johnny Sinclair. Thanks for joining me today, Johnny. How are you? I'm good. It's nice to talk with you, Dan. Where are you from originally? Because I know when you started your career, I guess, with the pursuit of happiness and stuff, you came out of Toronto, right? Right. So yeah, I was born and raised in Saskatchewan. Yeah, I went to high school here and I'd been flunking around in some bands here with some
Speaker: other local musicians. During the time that my friends were out of high school and in college, I'd started a band with
Speaker: a guy named Brian Potvin who later went on to be in the Northern Pikes and then that band broke up and then Jay Sempko and I had a band called 17 Envelope. Jay played guitar and I played bass which was really an honor for me because he, as a kid here in Saskatoon, he was a bass player that I really respected and looked up to and tried to learn from.
Speaker: you know, be in his band and go, no, no, no, don't play that play like this. So that was really, it was really good for me. So, so you, you had been kicking around Saskatchewan and then how did you make your way to Toronto?
Speaker: Well, at that point, right, it was like, you know, Saskatoon was a smaller city and the musical stylings and tastes of people were, you know, the people that I would want to play with was not plentiful here. So I, you know, my friends were getting out of university and I was like, Oh, I got to get out of here because I've done nothing but work in a record store and playing bands. So I packed it up and I went to Toronto. And that would have been in like 1984.
Speaker: And I'd had enough money saved up to put down a first and last month's rent and maybe live for a couple months on top of that and then I had to get a job. So I started working in a book and record warehouse. It's kind of an interesting part of the story. I started a band in Toronto called Month of Sundays and a guy with a guy named Andy Koyama who later went to LA to do
Speaker: movie production audio stuff. And our big highlight was we opened up for Breeding Ground for two nights at the Rivoli. And then, you know, it was sort of a tentative thing. And I was out one night to go see Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra at the Horseshoe. I'm talking to Jerry after the show because all these bands had come to Saskatoon and I'd met them in Saskatoon. So I went up to Jerry and I'm like, hey, Jerry, yeah.
Speaker: I remember from Saskatoon, oh yeah, how you doing? We started talking and I said, whatever happened to Mo Berg? What's he doing now? Because he had Face Crime and Modern Minds and other bands that had come to Saskatoon as well. I'd actually done Lights for Face Crime one time. I had a gig and he said, it's funny, you should ask. He's moving here next week. And I go, well, where's he staying? Do you know where he's staying? I'd like to hook up with him. And I got the number of this girl, Belinda, that he was going to be staying with.
Speaker: So I called him up and said, hey, I don't know if you remember me from Saskatoon, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada. Anyways, we went for a drink. We started hanging out and he was looking for a job. And by the time that came around, I had been working at this book and record warehouse. So we were looking for someone there and I got him a job there. So we started spending more time together and he was looking for a bass player. And I was like, oh, maybe I should be, maybe I should audition for your band. And he goes, well, you know, we'd become friends, you know, and it would be kind of shitty if, uh,
Speaker: It didn't work out. We weren't friends anymore. I said, it's okay. I'm an adult. I can deal with it. So I tell people, I got 51 % on the test. I made it into the band.
Speaker: I'm an adult now. Yeah, exactly. Well, cool. No, the reason I ask it, and I appreciate you sharing that because elected, the path that people take is always different in it. You know, some people think, well, you just get a band together and you get a song and you know, it's a very circuitous path that people take sometimes and happenstance and flukey sort of meetings and those kinds of things that lead to quite often lead to those things, right?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. But it's got to start with a desire or a dream or a want to do that. And you see that, that there are people that just have that hunger, that this is what they are and this is what they want to do and they're going to do it.
Speaker: And when we started Pursuit of Happiness, you were three Western guys. Mo and Dave had moved here from Edmonton. I was here from Saskatoon. And we were just pissing vinegar, postering our own gigs, doing everything ourselves. We were indie before indie was indie, right? We did an indie 12 inch and we just did it because we wanted to do it. So that got us going. We got gigs. I think our first gig was at the Rivoli opening for Shadowy Man on a Shadowy Planet.
Speaker: We opened with I Am An Adult now actually, which at the time we didn't even think like this is going to be a big song. It's just another one of our songs. Yeah, that's great. Well, it's funny because like I said, I like to hear the path that people take. And I mean, for you, it takes a lot of kahunas to just up and move from the prairies to Toronto, like the big city. Lots of guys do that. But I mean, you're on a wing in a prairie. You didn't even have really a plan, I guess, right? It was just sort of going to see what happens. Yeah, I was just ready to do it. Saskatoon, there was a big exodus to Calgary.
Speaker: Okay. And points west, Vancouver. But I was like, you know, at the time, um, I was into, you know, working in a record store and into music and there were bands like, you know, the Diodes, Martha and the Muffins, Blue Peter, um, even the Vile Tones and stuff like that. There was Toronto seemed to me had more of a pull to me than, than what was in Vancouver. So I just kinda, that's why I headed east. And plus I had an aunt, I had an aunt in Toronto, so.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's cool. And it was an exciting time. Like, you know, I'm probably a little bit older than you, but to me, during the seventies and the eighties and stuff, being in a band was a super cool thing to do. And it was just to find all the young bands. You talk about the early bands and the guys that you played with and stuff. Those create a lot of fond memories and just are great moments in our lives.
Speaker: Absolutely. In my high school, there was a guitar program. You could take guitar and it was just kind of an easy credit to do. I started playing guitar and my buddy, Robin Billington, who I got to move to Toronto after I was in the pursuit of happiness, he became the front of house guy for pursuit of happiness for many years.
Speaker: And he's since moved on and he's been doing Bear Naked Ladies forever now. But he's like, yo, Johnny, you should switch to bass. There's too many guitar players, not enough bass players. And I was like, okay. So I went out that like that week and got a L -Dagas precision copy bass and started plunking around, you know.
Speaker: No, it's good. Well, you play with your fingers too, which I do like. I mean, I know some guys are really good with a pick, but I see on your videos, you play with your fingers. Well, you know, but I started with a pick. Yes. And those pursuit albums were done with a pick. I was still playing with a pick in that band. And then I got through this point where I became sort of not really into the pop scene. And I actually spent a couple of years listening to a lot of reggae. And it was like, that's when I switched to my fingers. And it was like,
Speaker: I still play certain songs with a pick, but I prefer the fingers. Yeah, good. Well, that's the thing. When you switch from guitar to bass, if I ever play bass, which I do the odd time, I have to play with a pick just because the fingers is a different skill, right? Yeah. It's harder, I think. Yeah. You definitely feel more connected to the instrument, for one thing. But I'd spend hours just doing the walking finger to finger, just trying to get that written down.
Speaker: you make a good point with the reggae too because that gives it that rolling sort of vibe right with the fingers that you couldn't get with a pick i don't think yeah i don't i don't think i've heard any good reggae that's been playing with a pick so yeah there you go well cool so so you must have been uh pretty happy about that because you're you're sort of kicking around and then you and you and mo put to pursue the happiness you got that going and then you got some success almost right away and then you're on tour you did uh
Speaker: You got a record deal and you did a couple of tours. In hindsight, it did happen pretty quickly. But when you're down there slugging it out and swinging, we played Toronto and we'd started playing the 401 circuit and getting more popular. And we just thought, we got to make a single. What songs are we going to do? Let's do this song. And it wasn't even like, this is the song. But it was, I'm an adult now. And we put it out and we did a video, like a cheap independent video on Queen Street. And I think the video cost us $750.
Speaker: And we put it to Much Music just thinking, oh, maybe we'll get local play. Much Music was affiliated with City TV at that time, and City TV had Toronto Rocks and some other music shows. And some very expensive videos, too, we might add. Yeah.
Speaker: So we thought, well, let's just give it a go. Let's do it. And we put it out just before Christmas and we all went home. We all went West for Christmas. And when we came back, it was like, what happened? It was like all of a sudden there was like pursuit mania. We were like kings in Toronto. And it was like, you know, we attracted a manager. We'd attracted some Canadian labels. But at that point,
Speaker: In history, it was like, oh, no, man, we've got to get an American record deal. We've got to do that. And the first label that was interested was Electra Records out in New York. And we went down there and we played a showcase for them at a place called the Cat Club. And we opened for They Might Be Giants. And Electra came, and we were supposed to go sign the contract the next morning. But for some reason, I don't know what happened. Mo made a joke.
Speaker: And he's got a great sense of humor. But sometimes I think maybe humor is a delicate thing and people can be offended easily. He made a joke about New Yorkers and New York City or something. And the ANR person for Electra was so offended that he pulled the contract.
Speaker: Oh, wow. So we were like, what? Whoa, that's really that's crazy. Anyways, so we went back to Toronto kind of trying to regroup and think what the hell just happened. And we went out on another Western swing. And a woman named Kate Hyman, who worked for Chrysalis, New York came and saw us. And this was probably February. And by July, we were recording with Todd Renner. So yeah,
Speaker: my special guest, singer, drummer extraordinaire, Jeff Eyre. Jeff is well known for his time in the hometown band in the 1970s, but he's done much more both before and after that. So where were you from originally? Well, originally, born in Manchester, England, emigrated in 1954. My father, after the war, went to Edmonton, Alberta, and was working there. So we ended up in Edmonton. And so more or less, I spent about two, maybe
Speaker: Almost 20 years in Edmonton, then moved to Vancouver and that's when everything else began. And then how did you end up in Vancouver? Was it a music thing?
Speaker: Yes, it was a music thing. We had our man, Graham and the Wafers, and we were completely original, and we did some fabulous things in Edmonton. And there were more often than not groups that would come from Vancouver to Edmonton, and we'd play U of A, or there weren't too many clubs, or some other gigs. And they had this different style of music, you know? Yeah. And I thought, that was pretty cool. So when
Speaker: When things are all over for the wafers cause we tried our darndest and uh, we're just too ahead of our time, I guess at that point. What year would that have been Jeff? Oh, that was 65 to 69 when we opened up for the who we set the standards as far as I'm concerned in Edmonton. We just, uh, it was a fabulous group.
Speaker: But then again, moved to Vancouver after that because I actually hitch -tiked out there to see what the, what it was all about. And then decided to move there and it began and it ran into Terry Jacks and did that particular session and ran into Bob Buckley and Dave Sinclair and Kat Hendricks from Spring. And they liked what we did when they saw us in Edmonton as the wafers. So I got a break there.
Speaker: And, uh, uh, the group, but I ended up joining was Hans Stammer, who's also in Edmonton. And I was in 74 and then 75 hometown band and so on and so on, you know? Yeah. Well, interesting. So your musical influence, did you, did you have family influence or you just decided one day to start playing drums and voice? And well, cause you're a singing drummer, right? Which is very unusual. Like you sing very well and play very well. So that's a good combination. And it's a rare one.
Speaker: Thank you. Uh, my, my dad's dad was a musician. It was just a gift to Dan. I could just do it, you know, and I sang in a choir. So with no lessons, I could just do it. So of course, when I started playing the drums, there were just tin cans and boxes all over the place. So with a couple of friends, uh, one dairy Stewart, whose father was Stu Davis, uh, a great, uh, a Canadian Troubadour.
Speaker: and we'd start writing our own stuff. I finally got a drum kit and started playing and that was the beginning of everything. I could just do it and yeah. So when you came to Vancouver, obviously you had been a guy that people would want to have in the band, obviously with good talent, good flavor and the voice, open some doors for you?
Speaker: Yes, it did. Hans, whom I knew in Edmonton, I ran into him again in Vancouver, and I met Tom Lavin, because he came to Vancouver, Tom Lavin, 20 Potter Blues, from Chicago, about the same year, and went to Hangout, and he wasn't doing the blues at that time, and he was looking for a studio, and he was playing bass with Hans in 74. I was just playing around with various people at
Speaker: Do you got me an audition in a place called cycord with Robin Spurgeon is there like a two, two track machine, you know? And there was, uh, Robbie King, Doug Edwards, Eddie Patterson and hands and Tom. So I auditioned, which I had never auditioned before. I thought you just tell him, you know? So, uh, and I passed, uh, and Tom and I had a great time. We became, uh, and we still are the best of friends. Okay. And then again, things moved forward then in a very, very positive way.
Speaker: Yeah, well, very cool. And Hans had some good success around here, I guess, and some radio success and that. So that kind of morphed into the hometown band, or was that a totally different project? What really happened, Dan, was it was about seven inches. And we did an album. It was about late 74. And I was working with Bruce Miller, if you remember Bruce. He went to Nashville and wrote some songs for Dixie Chicks and so on. He was a fine musician, an American gentleman. Yeah.
Speaker: And so he would hire me to do some gigs. It wasn't folky, it was original stuff, but it wasn't folky, but it was lighter side of things. And there was a program, we do the interior of BC, and there was a program out of CBC called the Great Canadian Gold Rush, and that was produced by Claire Lawrence, who was the sax player for the home town band and the leader.
Speaker: And they had a mobile studio. So when I was playing with Bruce, we ended up in Vernon playing somewhere. And I was playing with Bruce and lo and behold, the Claire was there with the whole mobile studio and recording things. So that was fine. So, and time went on, you know, maybe another six months and I get phone call and it's Claire. I said, just Jeff Harris. I said, yeah, this is Claire Lawrence, producer of Voldy. I went, Oh, cool.
Speaker: He said, would you like to do all these next album? Well, it took me about two seconds to say yes. Next question. Yeah. But then I had to ask him, why me? He said, well, you know, Jeff, I heard you play and you play great folk drums. Yeah.
Speaker: I never knew there was such a thing. Yeah. And it was the beginning. So that's the Clara Lawrence connection. And then of course you're off to the races and, and Robbie King, I used to get to play with Robbie a lot down at the American when he hung out there. Cause he played down there all the time, but what would you like playing with him? It was outstanding Dan. We locked in immediately with all those guys.
Speaker: I guess we were all either born with a gift and just feel that it just clicked immediately and we were always good and we were always a good band and we had great harmonies, great tunes and it was
Speaker: one of the finest bands I've ever been in, all things considered. We did things original and our way. So when we won the Juno, I thought to myself, somebody was actually listening because it was different style and genre of music at that time. We went different places. In fact, A &M Records, our first album on the B side, there were two songs and nobody ever did that. One was 20 minutes long and one was 10, it was like,
Speaker: How did you do that? But they allowed it and we actually wanted you to offer. But I thought that was pretty cool. So we did it our way and it worked out real good, Dan. Oh, very good. So did you sing on that as well? Did you get to do some harmonies and stuff or was that? Oh, absolutely. I sang a few tunes, but I've never considered myself a lead singer unless it was probably the right kind of tune. But oh, absolutely. We had five part harmony and I had a gift and I had an ear. So we had a ball doing that.
Speaker: So the hometown band and then it morphed into Voldy and then I guess he went on his own and then Pied Pumpkin and Pied Pear. Can you sort that all out for me and explain? Yes. Claire was Voldy's producer and he was with A &M Records. This is about 1975 because he had the hit song Rock and Roll Song in 1972, which finally won him the Folk Juno Award, which there isn't anymore because Gordon Lightfoot would always win it.
Speaker: Because of Baldi's rock and roll song, he won the Juno in 1972. And Claire was producing him, and Cliff Jones, who was passed, who was his manager. When it came time, when Claire called me to do an album with Baldi, Sherry was asked to come and do some fiddle playing, and Jerry Scheff, an LA killer player, played some bass, and all the guys that ended up in the band were there as studio players.
Speaker: And she got Sherry because she was in a band called The Pied Pumpkin with Rick Scott and Joe Mock. And we got her to do some violin and cello playing. And then we took it on the road to just backing up Baldy, but we were allowed to do two songs of her own. And it was pretty good, you know? And Claire said, well, we got to start a band, you know? And Bruce Miller had
Speaker: penned a song called Hometown Band on Baldy's album that we did. And so we decided to do that, but we needed to replace a couple of players just because it was the right thing to do. And Sherry was one of them. I was another. Robbie King was the guy. And Doug Edwards and Sherry Elricon. There was no bass per se on the very first album. So the Pied Pemkin had their own world going on. And then we
Speaker: put the band together and toured as a package with Valdi and the hometown band. And that went over really well and we did a lot of touring and that was really a fine, fine time. And we did our own album with that. So it became Valdi in the hometown band and then Valdi did stuff on his own too, or else it was just billed as Valdi as well, right? Did he kind of - Yes, Valdi was always, yeah, always, even to this day, he'll just drive or fly back to the Maritimes and
Speaker: Bivoli could see. He's the consummate folk singer. He'll sing about whatever the issues are and then give him province and replace some of the words with the goings on. And it was fabulous, you know. Thanks for checking out these short bits from my much longer conversations with previous Liner Notes guests. Don't forget you can listen to each full interview at either linernotes .ca or on any podcast platforms. Just search for Liner Notes revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Until next time, I'm Dan Hare.
