Transcript
Speaker: Hi, it's Dan here for Justine Disks Radio. This is the podcast Liner Notes, revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Today, I'm very honored to have as my special guest bassist, vocalist, songwriter, and band leader, Gary Kendall, best known as bassist for the iconic Canadian band, the Down Child Blues Band, amongst his other projects and musical adventures. During our discussion, we'll get into some some of that and get some insights into the Canadian music scene from someone who's been part of it since the 60s. So thanks for joining me today, Gary. How are you?
Speaker: I'm doing great, Dan. it's I'm really looking forward to this chat. No, great. I appreciate it. Well, a prolific is one word that I would use to describe you just as we get into the history of it. But, man, you've put your time in and and paid your dues and been committed to what you're doing. I guess you could say that. I was thinking about that last night. I was listening. I picked up a couple of vinyl records on the weekend when I was up in Ravenhurst, Ontario. and and at the same time, you know looking at ah the vinyl collection in front of me by the stereo. and
Speaker: you know i'm a Music has just took over my life when I was a kid and I'm a real listener and music fan of all kinds of music. But through that journey that started when I was probably around eight or nine years old, it was the blues that kind of grabbed me as a player.
Speaker: And that's, and accepted me into that world. But I listen to all kinds of different music, like the vinyl that I bought was The Best of the Rascals and Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. Well, so you were born in Thunder Bay from what I was. I was, it was Fort William when I was there, but that's where I was born, yeah.
Speaker: I'm a few years behind you, but not too much. and And of course the musical influence we had back then was all over the place from the awesome Motown. I mean i love the bass playing and the Motown tunes and stuff. we just yeah and And then the blues and then the rhythm and blues. and But we listened to everything. It was just such a beautiful time to grow up and listen to music.
Speaker: You're right about that. Yeah, it was um me being like the music fan that I am, but how fortunate and maybe every generation and every era that people live through feels us feel the same way. But from the time I you know came into the world in 1947 until now, the music um that I've been able to
Speaker: expose myself to, it's just fantastic. And I don't even, I barely scratched the surface, you know? Yeah. Well, it was the golden age though. I mean, you know, I, I'm not sure that there's the same experience now. A lot of that stuff was fresh and new and, and.
Speaker: just had a magic about it, partly a function of the time, I suppose, but but just the energy and the and the magic that was created at that time with the the inception of better recordings and and lot the live music scene was just a buzz, right? And you talk about records, I mean, buying a record and opening it up and just having that adrenaline rush and listening to the songs and going, this is so awesome.
Speaker: It was a big deal. And and for sure I guess, as you know, when we were coming up,
Speaker: it music was it was stressed that music was important. It had to be an important part of your life, you know. and um but It sure has been. And I think some people, music is important maybe only during their youth. um And then as they get older and other things come into their lives, it kind of takes a back seat. But if you're a musician,
Speaker: It never takes a backseat. You're always listening. You're always hearing things, you know, um you know, back in in my day when I, you know, Elvis Presley was the first to capture me and and bring me in. And then later on, as I started playing music, it was the instrumental rock and roll bands like The Ventures and Johnny and the Hurricanes and Bill Black's combo, you know, and then I,
Speaker: I heard Muddy Waters live at Newport and that was it. You know, I was a blues guy from that point on. um But we used to, when we were young, we couldn't afford, ah you know, nobody had the the price of an album. So we had pool our money and I remember one day going to um a record store in Port Arthur, which is now like Fort William, now part of Thunder Bay with my friend, Dave Smythe, a band member and musician friend. and God, we were probably about 18 or 19. And we went over to the Folklore Center in Port Arthur, thinking that we could just buy a blues record. We pooled our money and we bought the first Paul Butterfield blues band record.
Speaker: And then we went to another record store shortly after one and four way of called Jerome's music. And the, the owner was very friendly to young people who went into his store and he gave us a catalog to look through. Cause he knew we wanted blues and he didn't really carry any blues, but we, you know, went through his catalog. Oh, BB King blues on top of the blues. You know, we put our five bucks each together, whatever. And Mr. Jerome.
Speaker: ordered us that that record. But yeah, it was it was yeah like you say, you get the record and it was a big deal. It's like it was just last night when I broke into the vinyl e i that I purchased up north. you know I went into this store. It was right across from the theater. The Dow child was playing. Great little store that you know combination antique music, vintage musical instruments and and old vinyl.
Speaker: And I didn't even get into the vinyl room. They had a little shelf right out front and I started going through that and I found those two records, the best of the the Rascals and the best of ah Maurice ah Williams and the Zodiacs. And, you know, I bought those two and then I thought, you know, um I better get out of here. I'm gonna spend all the money I'm gonna make tonight at this store.
Speaker: Talking about to how um how much music is an influence. And if you're if you're a professional musician, I i know i've been I've been able to make a living since the early 80s, so I'm very thankful. And i'm I just think the world is a better place because it has music in it. And and I often say that at my shows. I say, everybody smile. We're here. We're enjoying the music. Imagine the world would be like without music. Yeah, you're you're definitely ah That's ah ah definitely true what you're saying there, and and I agree with it. and i Yeah, I'm like you. I i feel very fortunate to um have you know had a life in music. When I first started out as a teenager, I thought, well, geez, if I can do this till I'm 25, that'll just be great. And then it was like, ah if I can do this till I'm 30, that'll be great. And then it was like, oh, I'm a lifer. I can do this for the rest of my life. yeah
Speaker: So what did you have for training and stuff? And I i guess you were, if you were in Thunder Bay or or before it was called Thunder Bay, but you, uh, you had some formal training and then got into the music scene there. Is that how that happened? No formal training earn while you learn, uh, one of those sort of things, you know, I bought a, I mean, I was trying to learn how to play the guitar yeah ah with ah with another friend. And, um, the guitar that I had at the time ah was,
Speaker: ah horrible ah you know you couldn't play a bar chord if you put a brick on the strings of course yeah but eventually I'd saved up enough money to go and buy a little sovertone 1410 electric guitar which I still have oh nice no amp but I had a guitar and it sounded great on amplified and we figured out a way how to ah put a jack in the back of our parents' hi -fi to plug that guitar in. So my friend would play his harmony acoustic and I'd play this electric. And he was way better than me. yeah And trying to learn how to play guitar together. And then his older brother came to us one day and he said,
Speaker: Hey, this guy, Mel Shea is starting a band. He wants, he needs a bass player and a rhythm guitar player. I'm gonna send him over to see you guys. He was an older guy. He was 19, we were 60. So Mel came over and he said, yeah, I'm starting a band. I need a rhythm guitar player and I need a bass player. And my friend,
Speaker: said, there's no way I'm playing bass. I didn't know much about what bass player it was, but I just wanted to be in a band. So I said, I'll play bass. yeah And we started you know rehearsing and, well, practicing, we called it then. And we started getting some gigs eventually. And I was playing bass lines on that 6th Street Silvertone until I could save up enough money for a real bass. And as soon as I made my first 20 bucks,
Speaker: on a Saturday night dance, it was like, oh yeah, there's money in this. This is this is worth pursuing. And, you know, eventually I got a bass and a crappy bass and, you know, I had a crappy app, but, you know, I was off and running. So what kind of music were you playing?
Speaker: That band was all instrumentals. Like it was saying the Ventures, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Fireballs. um this would just be Eventually that music became called surf music, but it was just instrumental rock and roll for us. And then in 1964, like nobody sang. We played dances and we played all instrumentals, nobody sang. And we were not the most popular band in town and we were not the best band in town.
Speaker: So we had to go and play in the small country towns around town. We couldn't you know we weren't good enough to play the big know shows in Fort Wave and Port Arthur. There was a band called Donny B and the Bonnevilles that had that locked up. But then in 1964, this band from England called The Beatles came along and they sang and they had harmonies and we were, that was it, we were screwed. yeah no Nobody could sing or the one guy who sang, the leader of the band couldn't sing well.
Speaker: But that was, you know, that's how I got in. And, uh, you know, I did that until that band folded. And then there was a bit of time where I wasn't in a band, but I still, by then I had a bass and I had an amp and I had still had the silver toe, which I still have today. I don't know what happened to that first base. So you're listening to records and playing along with them. So I have to ask you about your Paul Shafer connection too. Cause you guys came up together and he, he was from, he talks fondly about you and the,
Speaker: in the Downchild documentary. Yeah, fall that was, you know, by the time I reached my late teens, 18 or 19, I joined a band called, well, eventually they they changed the name and they became a shameful minority. And that band was playing a
Speaker: A little bit of blues, R and &B like the stack stuff, you know um Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave while trying to play, and some Rolling Stones. The Stones were always a real influence because they talked about who their influences were and you would go and research and find out who's this guy that they're talking about. you know So we were playing around and in Fort William, Port Arthur with our band, the Shafer Minority, and there was this great vibrant music scene. Paul Shafer was in a band called the Fugitives. There was a band called the Thorns and a band called the Herbs. And we all
Speaker: That was our scene, and we all kind of hung out together. And that's where the exchange of music and music ideas and somebody would get a new, hey, I got this new record by this man called the Jimmy Hendrix Experience. Hey, I got this record by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. You know, and we would listen to each other's stuff. And that's how I met Paul. He joined, when he joined up with the fugitives,
Speaker: change that whole band like anything he does when he arrives, things get better. And he was always was an amazing musician. We would all sort of you know pipe dream about making it in the music business. And then when we come to our senses, we would say, well, the only one who's going to make it is Paul. Well, he made it. ah But when we moved to Toronto, some of the guys from the band as I was in, me and the drummer and the guitarist, Dave Smythe and Jim Ragg and our manager, a guy named Dominic Bezzignano, we moved to Toronto in 1968. And Paul was here. Paul had left
Speaker: the fugitives and Fort William to go to University of Toronto. And our plan was to move to Toronto and then talk Paul into talkpi and starting a band with us. Well, he sort of humored us, I guess, and we did start a band that was more of a rehearsal band, but he was going to university and he was I guess he told his parents that he would put in the time at university. And when that was over, he would either go into law or go into music, whatever was offering him the best opportunities. and Okay. So we had a little this little band that we rehearsed more than we played. And at one point we hooked up with a guy named Mel Dixon, who was a singer actor.
Speaker: And he would start taking Paul to auditions with him as an accompanist. So Paul started meeting people in that whole field of actors and music okay in theater. And at the same time, he had hooked up with this amazing jazz musician named Munoz. So he's doing all of this other stuff that's way above our heads, but he's still coming around and rehearsing with us.
Speaker: And while he would be at these auditions, he got discovered by the guys who were putting together the musical Godspell. And they approached him one day and they said, you know, we have someone that's doing our music, but we want someone like you that's a little more rock and roll.
Speaker: So, I don't know the all the details, but essentially what happened was Paul graduated from University of Toronto and his first job was musical director at Godspell at the Royal Alex Theatre in Toronto. Yeah, absolutely, there you go. And most people took him to New York and, you know, yeah he did Godspell in New York, he did Hair, ended up on Saturday to Lie Alive, and the rest is history, you know, David Lickering, the whole bit.
Speaker: and And as you say, well -deserved, I mean, he put in his time and he had, he had the training, but he also had that feel that he could do anything. Right. To this day, he says yeah ah that he's not very good at reading music. Well, he didn't ever need to read music because he's got this amazing ear. You know, he, what are these, one of those guys hears something that plays it. Yeah. Doesn't matter what kind of music it is. Nothing is too complicated for him.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's good. Well, and no, thanks for sharing that. So I often ask my guests, you know, ah in your path in life and your musical path, especially how much did you have a defining moment or how much of it was planned or sort of happenstance? I mean, you obviously you decided to move to Toronto because that's the center of the universe in Canada for music. So you made that point of doing that. How much of else, how much else was planned or just sort of happenstance?
Speaker: Yeah. Well, getting to Toronto was, you know, that was a definitely a reality check because we didn't have a clue how to get in once we were here and we weren't really good enough either. yeah So I ended up just as a matter of survival. I mean, we had the rehearsal band that Paul was in and and with us, but I ended up taking a factory job. Yeah.
Speaker: And I got married and we had a child. okay And this is all in my first two and ah two years yeah two and a half years in Toronto. But I still had that dream of being a ah you know a musician, making a living as a musician.
Speaker: yeah and
Speaker: The band kind of we had with Paul, that sort of fell apart. But David and Dave Smythe and I would you know make attempts and we put this one band together. I was still working at the factory. I think he was working at the same factory at that time. I got him a job there. With the intentions of breaking into the bar circuit, we had become a little bit better at playing at that time.
Speaker: ah you know And when you're young, you know, you progress pretty quickly. And so after about a year and a half or so, we were better musicians. yeah um So we had this band together. There was he and I and a drummer and and two singers and we were going to play top 40 kind of stuff, I guess it would be. but I mean, my love was still the blues, but I just want to be in a band. So what year would this have been, early 70s?
Speaker: Yeah, this would have been like 1970, by then, 1971. No, 70. Yeah, this would be, maybe so yeah, 70 -71. Yeah, it was 1971. And I was on the subway coming home from work and I was reading an article about this rockabilly blues guy, Matt Lucas. He'd had a hit in the 60s with a cover of ah Hank Snow's I'm Moving On. And he was making a comeback and he was now living in Canada.
Speaker: And I'm really on the subway and I'm tired. I've been working this factory job. It's not really what I want to do. yeah And I'm thinking, I'm reading this article on them and I think, a man, wouldn't it be great if I could be in a work with somebody like that? And I came home and I was kind of whining to my wife, Shirley about, I came here, you know, two years ago to start a career in music and I'm going nowhere. And she said, well, why don't you just quit your job and be a musician. I mean, not many wives would say that to their husband. Yeah, there's a shocker. She's ah she's a different type. Oh, great. We've got some backup here. So geez, not long after that comment. I don't know how we hooked up with these guys. Well, we met this guy, Matt Lucas, and his manager, Heavy Andrews. And Heavy Andrews was an appropriate name for this guy. He was a thug.
Speaker: oh Anyway, they came to our rehearsal with this trio backing up these two singers and they asked us if we wanted to be a part of the Matt Lucas show. Yes, we do. um So we sign up and immediately after we've signed up, they say, okay, you got to fire those two singers. We don't need them. um No loyalty to the singers. We get rid of the singers and we become Matt Lucas' backup band.
Speaker: And the the drummer quits almost immediately. Matt hires a drummer that can't really play. So the band's horrible. yeah and We work with Matt for about six weeks, but that's all I needed. That's six weeks of work. I quit my day job. yeah And I'm in the Matt Lucas band. We get fired.
Speaker: ah The new band that's going to back him up, they need me to fill in for a night with them while they're waiting for Matt's gigs to start again. They're playing at a place called Forbes Tavern in Toronto. Now, by then, I know Downchild. Downchild are my favorite Toronto band. I know the band. I was going to ask you the connection with them, how you got hooked up with them. Yeah. At that point, I didn't know them. They were just my favorite band. I just thought they were the best.
Speaker: yeah So we're playing in Forbes Tavern, filling in for Downchild. And i' know I know I'm only there for the one night. I'm not in the band. I'm just filling in. And this guy comes up to me. His name's James Hartley. And he says, I'm starting a blues band. I'd like you to be my bass player. Well, great. I don't have a gig. I sign up.
Speaker: Turns out that Downchild Donnie Walsh has taken James under his wing and they're helping him out, get his band together. oh So I meet the guys in Downchild by being in the James Hartley band. That's 1971. So by 1979,
Speaker: I'm in the band, I'm part of Downchild. But a real defining moment for me was, now i'm I'm in the James Hartley band, I've broken into the Toronto Blues scene after the James Hartley band, I start my own band called Dollars. I'm still friends with Downchild, I'm sitting in with them whenever I go to their gigs, they invite me up. I am playing at a bar with this band, Dollars, that's underneath the Colonial Tavern.
Speaker: in Toronto, where I would see all my blues heroes, Holla Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters. well Muddy's playing upstairs. One of the women in our band meet the guitar, one of the guitar players in Muddy's band, Bob Margolin, bring him down to Basement to where the bar we're in and we become friends with Bob Margolin. We're there for a whole week. So Bob's coming down on his breaks and so are the other guys in Muddy's band because the The drinks are cheaper in our bar than they are in the, in the colonial. They're coming down into the meat market, the place that we're playing in. And I'm getting to know Bob more than the other guys in Muddy's band, but it's Pine Top Perkins, Jerry Portnoy on harmonica, music guitar junior Johnson on guitar, Willie Big Eye Smith on bass.
Speaker: Calvin Jones, ah oh Willie Big Eye Smith on drums, Calvin Jones on bass. So I'm getting to to meet those guys in that form of this friendship with Bob, Bob Margolin. And every time Muddy would come to town, Bob and I would connect. I'd go to see Muddy's band and one night I'm hanging out with them. And there used to be a matinee at the colonial that all even the headliners had to play the matinee and local guys would be able to get up and jam.
Speaker: But the star of the show would never be there for the jam part. In Muddy's situation, Bob would put together the jam, the rest of the guys in Muddy's band would go back to the hotel to go back to bed, and all of the local musicians would go away from Saturday afternoon at the Colonial and say, yeah, I jammed with Muddy Waters. Well, Muddy was back in bed by the time the jam started. But anyway, Bob invites me down.
Speaker: Saturday afternoon to the matinee and says, you know, you can come and sit in. And I said, yeah, I'll sit in with you and all the the local guys after Muddy's finished his first set, right? He said, no, I'll get you up and I'll make sure you get up in the first set so you get to play with Muddy and and all of the guys in the band. I didn't think he was serious, but he did. um And i here I am on stage standing next to Muddy Waters, you know, so that was a defining moment in my life. yeah Yeah. And that's when I got my as I walked off stage, buddy turned around and he said to me, son, you kick that bass. Yeah. So that's when I graduated. That's when I got my degree in music. Yeah, there you go. Well, that's right. You got the feel and you got the ah the platform because lots of guys have the talent and maybe the skill, but they don't have the platform. You got to get in with the people and and they got to like you. It's a vibe thing, right? They got it. Exactly. You're exactly right. Yeah.
Speaker: No, well good for you. And then so, so eventually that all worked around. It's funny because I, I work a lot and people are, are sometimes wonder how I do that. And then they call me and they say, well, what are you doing? And so we got to get out there and play. You got to play, play, play, because then when things come up, they go, well, Hey, what about this Gary guy? He's been playing. He's great. Let's let's get him. Yeah. Was that, was it your experience like getting into down child and stuff? It was just kind of a natural progression.
Speaker: You're exactly right. Yeah, I was getting to know the guys in down child sitting in with them They know that I could you know that I could do it when that job comes available You know, I get the gig. There's no on no audition It's you know, I happen to be available at the when it when it came around to my turn to be a down child Jim millen the original bass player. He'd been gone for a while and out of the band. And he was my real good friend. So there's no way I could be in that band while Jim was in the band. I couldn't, you know, but keeping there'd been a couple of bass players before I came in. And I was on a real low period of my career. I was driving cab to make ends meet. And I dropped a fare off at the Isabel Hotel.
Speaker: This would be 1979. I'd been with in that band. I'd been in Morgan Davis' band prior to that. I'd had some stuff going on, but I hit a real wall where nothing was happening. And it's 1979, you know, it's kind of, we're still in a bit of the disco area era and punk rock and new wave are coming in. yeah And the blues is kind of getting a little bit pushed aside. I go into the Izzy.
Speaker: ah drop a fair off at the Izzy and go in for a quick beer before hopping back into the cab. And I run into Tony Rondellone who was down child's sax player at the time. And he says, what are you doing? I said, well, tonight I'm driving cab. He says, no, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm not doing much. It's just nothing's really going on. He said, call Donnie. We're doing a record. We're making a change. You know, we're getting it. We need a new bass player. So I phone Donnie up and Come on over. I go over to his house and, you know, we have a meeting and I'm in the band. Yeah. Two weeks later or three weeks later, we're at Grand Avenue Studios in Hamilton, recording the record that became We Deliver. The engineer and the owner of the studio is Daniel Lanoir. Yeah. And the producer is Billy Bryan. So it's like, wow.
Speaker: crazy. Your life flipped in, in ah but the the point you make is a good one because inside the music business, when you're looking for new members, you don't you don't put an ad in the paper typically. You look around the people you already know and say, well, who would be a guy that would be great to play with us? And we've done that many times, you know, let's get Jack or let's get Johnny. He's played with us lots, you know? So so you kind of, your audition and your your let's say your cache is something you build over the years. And then when then that comes up, they go, you know, come on, let's go. Yeah. And you don't, at that time, I didn't even really realize that, that all of the work I'd done prior to that and just being around and being part of that scene led me to be, become part of that band. And you know, they'd,
Speaker: They had a new record deal. They just, they were benefiting then from the Blues Brothers connection with with Danny and Danny Aykroyd and John Belushi. And they'd got a new record deal and the the gigs were coming back and the money was going up and, you know, it was a good time to be in that band. I stayed at that point. I thought I was going to stay forever. Of course, i you know, I'd got a gig in my most my favorite band this is perfect for the rest of my life but after about three years I had to get out I had to get off the road i and I you know my daughter at that time was becoming a teenager
Speaker: I'd always been the gone dad, you know because my gigs, from the time I started making my living playing music, my gigs were mostly on the road. you know If I was working, I was on the road. And if I wasn't working, um I was at home. you know So yeah I left Downchild in 83.
Speaker: But still, like before I joined Downchild, I still retain my friendship with Donnie and with any all the guys in the band. i could ah There's been 86 people in Downchild, musicians. I could probably name all every one of them. And a lot of them, you know, acquaintances are friends of mine. And then in 95,
Speaker: um The guy who was playing bass before me, Gary Latimer, started calling me to sub for him. And prior to that, you didn't sub out a down child. So I thought that was kind of weird. But I started doing gigs with him. And the band had changed. It was a different band. You know, Chuck Jackson was singing, and Pat Carey was on tenor sax. Michael Fonfero was there. um And of course, Donny always. um So I started doing gigs with them in 95. And I'd been to their 25th anniversary celebration. I played one night on that in, I guess. It'd be 94 then, right? 94, I think. Yeah. And when I left that, I walked out the door of Grossman's and was thinking, well, what if, you know, if I ever had the chance to do this again, that sure felt good. But nah, it's not going to happen. They got a guy. But when when I started subbing in, um
Speaker: I realized I'd missed, the music was all different except for, you know, what we call a big three, almost snuck on blues and flip flop and fly. All of the other music was was new. The guys were new. They were all really good musicians. I knew all of the new guys that were in the sort of new guys. They'd been there for a while. I knew all of those guys. So it wasn't like I was walking into a band of strangers. And it was it felt good, but, you know, I was a sub. and then ah I got a call and it would be at around February of 95. I got a call from Pat Carey, the sax player. They were down in Florida using some guys from down there to round out the band. And he he called me and he said,
Speaker: Latimer quit on New Year's Eve. He didn't even tell us he was quitting. He just, he quit the band. He moved to Calgary. We need a bass player. When we come back to Canada, could you sub for a while until we find a guy? I said, yeah, sure. And then hung up the phone and I thought, maybe I should tell Donny I could do this again. yeah So when they came back and the first gig that I was subbing and on, I said to Donny, you know, Hey, you know, I can do this again.
Speaker: And he said, don't you and I have a problem? I said, no, we don't have a problem. He went, OK, you're back on the bed.
Speaker: Well, I get you, I hear you about the traveling thing. I mean, that's what killed me. I i traveled and I did some tours and stuff in four weeks, six weeks and stuff. And I was away from home. I had a wife and a couple of little kids at home. I just, I could never have lived that life. So I just made a living around here. I still do little trips out of town, but, but short ones, I just couldn't be a touring musician and you could spend your whole life out there. I have friends that have done that and it's just not the kind of life I would want to live. So I hear you on that. It's not healthy.
Speaker: It's not healthy. When I got back into down child, the number of gigs per year was la were less. Touring was different. yall You only went out for maximum, maybe two weeks. Yeah. um There were a lot of, you know, fly out for a weekend, fly home. Yeah, those are fine. Those are fine. It's just doing 300 dates a year or 250 dates a year. That's that's what kills you. Especially my first go around with them was like it was constant. And yeah, it was it was wreck. I was wrecking myself and I was wrecking my my home life, you know, um
Speaker: I was drinking too much. I was just doing all the wrong things. you know And I needed to get back to some stability, get myself together. And by the time I got back in Downchild, my daughter was in her 20s. I'd stopped drinking completely to never do that again. you know I'd really cleaned up. I had accomplished a lot of my own before rejoining the band. you know i'd i had I realized that you had to get up. If you wanted to be a full -time musician, you had to get up every day and go to work, meaning yeah you had to get up every day and work on your career. Not exactly go out the door, but you had to prepare yourself for whatever other things you were doing in music. You had to work on it every day. You could just wait around for the phone to ring, so to speak, you know? Oh, that's 100 % right. And you got to say yes a lot. when When opportunities come up, you got to say yes. I mean, yeah, say yes, and then figure out how you're going to do it. Exactly. That's exactly right, though. That's. Yeah. Well, so I was curious, let me interject here then with the Kendall Wahl band ah the way we was. So I watched that documentary as well, which is very well done. And so when you got out of Downchild, you were kind of
Speaker: try to figure out what you were going to do. And then you walk through in that documentary quite nicely, I i might say, ah but the whole process and the thinking behind it and what you were trying to do and what eventually came along with Cashwall and the Kendall Wall Band. and And that was significant, too. I learned a lot from that. So tell me a little bit about that. That was a really good period of my life ah that lasted from about 83
Speaker: I guess I was out of down child. I didn't know what I was going to do. um You know, God, am I going to have to go back to driving cab and delivering mail and doing all that shitty stuff? You know, it take a job but working quality control for Yorkville sound testing, amplifiers and things like that. But I formed the Kendall wall band. And that grew into something really good, as you know, as you mentioned, the documentary. And it became really good for the period that I was in. It was a great part of my life.
Speaker: We got to play with all of these fabulous blues musicians that were passing through Toronto. And then we would get hired to back them up on their own gigs. Sometimes people like Snucky Prior and Eddie Kirkland, Cash McCall, Phillip Guy, you know, we sort of became one of these bands that have had ah A blues guy was coming through town and he needed a pickup band. We'd get the gig because we knew how to play that traditional blues, you know. Yeah. Well, you're so familiar with all of it and you're playing it all the time. So you're in game shape. Yeah. And that was a great period. So that documentary, when that was done, what happened with that was the band ended eventually like all good things have to come back, come to an end.
Speaker: Unfortunately, but, you know, everything kind of petered out with that band. Some of the guys wanted out of the music business. And, yeah you know, I had a sort of an interim there where I was trying to get by the time the bat band had folded, I'd also developed a side career in ah booking clubs. I had, you know, Black Swan, Silver Dollar Room in Toronto, booking blues clubs. I became like a talent buyer to subsidize my career. So I had lots of stuff going on. I'd learned how to be a publicist.
Speaker: ah besides a flare. So when that band folded, you know, and eventually, you know, a few years after it folded, I was back in Downchild. But all during that period, people would come up to me and talk to me about the great times they'd had with the Kendall Waugh Band and our Saturday after matinee and afternoon matinee at the Black Swan and all of these great blues musicians that we were backing up, that they were discovering through us.
Speaker: Because they would come to our gig. They wouldn't go to the Albert's Hall where they they were playing, like Snucki and all of the people we had there. so And I would always think, yeah, you know that was such a good time. And you know we'd done ah we'd we'd had a recording we did that that you know wasn't finished properly. So I had you know a recording of them that was not not good. like you know We hadn't really finished it correctly. and just people talking about what a great time it was. And I i was thinking like, geez, you know, there's no way to preserve this. I should...
Speaker: dig into those, you know, now technology in recording had had come along where it was actually possible now to take the old tapes, digitize them and fix everything that I did wrong the first time, you know. Yeah, and you walked through that whole process, right? Yeah, that was like I started out first just to re -release the Kendall Wahl Band recording. So this was like years after, almost 25 years after the band had had its life.
Speaker: But I knew that the record that we recorded some good stuff. We just didn't finish it properly because we didn't know really how to produce or do any of that stuff. So I started working on the recording and and it was now I knew that I was going to be able to re -release and all of the Kendall Wahl Band recordings and I just put out a little press release ah that I sent out to some media. ah is ah and Essentially, it was asking the question, is there a story here? well The guy Christopher Darden who did that documentary, he had introduced himself to me at a gig and he was doing a documentary on Richard Newell, King Biscuit Boy. He wanted to know if i if he could interview me,
Speaker: about Richard. And I said, yeah. I said, who else are you talking to? And i he gave me a list of people. and I thought, oh, you're missing a lot of people. So I gave him every name that he would need to actually dig up information on Richard Newell, King Biscuit. And through that, we struck up a friendship. So when I sent out the press release on the Kendall Wall recording saying, is there a story here?
Speaker: He got back to me. He was a few other people did and all of their thing was, yeah, good luck. You know, yeah, this is great. Nobody offered to, you know, write a story or do anything other than give me encouragement. But Christopher Darden got back to me and said, I think there's a story here and I would like to film it. You know, originally it started out, it was going to be like a filming the process of what happens when you take old tape recordings and digitize them and re -release them. It was going to be like a documentary on that only. But he was too young to know the Kendall Waugh Band or any of that history. He just knew me. So as we got into filming the process of rescuing those recordings, he came back to me one day and he said, you know, I've been interviewing different people about this recording. He said, I think there's a little bit more there than that. He said, I wouldn't mind
Speaker: doing this about your matinee gig at the Black Swan and and that whole band and everything you guys accomplished with that band and then end the documentary by going into the process of saving those recordings. well I said, no problem with me on that.
Speaker: I've been trying to find a way to preserve that part of my life, which was a good period. So that's how the documentary and all all that stuff came together. It was like a godsend that fell out of the sky into my hands. Well, and let me recommend it too. I watched it and it's it's great. It's really well done. and And you interview a lot of people, you got some old video footage and and just just excellent the way that the contributions that everybody made too. And the one thing that struck me from that is that you had all these great players, and there were some real magical moments, I'm assuming, in on the Saturday afternoons. But it wasn't sort of recorded and then you like in ah in a sort of professional way. And then you go into the studio, and the studio is kind of a sterile environment, right? So if you talk about that in the documentary, how
Speaker: You got this magic and then you're trying to take it into the studio and recreate it and it's kind of hard to do. You don't have the right producer and the right sounds and it's not coming out quite the way. So my question was, do you regret not recording the live stuff? Because you you know, people are sweaty and they got a couple of beers in them and there's just magical moments that you just wish, well, if we could have recorded that, that would have been perfect. We did a live recording around that time as well.
Speaker: And I've never done anything with that. I actually, not all that long ago, I was reorganizing some stuff here and I found all of these tape these tapes, quarter inch tape. And some of them are from a live recording we did at the Horseshoe Tavern that Mike McDonald recorded. and We did release as a cassette on those as well that, you know, that didn't do much either.
Speaker: the cassette actually at that time sounded better than the studio recordings. But recently I've been thinking about taking, you know, trying to find somebody with tape machines these days. I did get in touch with Jimmy Bosco recently because I know that he's got ah a studio with lots of analog gear ah down in the part out area. And i I still a few people around. Yeah, I contacted him a ah month or so ago and He was repairing some of the stuff. And of course he was busy with Blue Rodeo and and all of the things that that Jimmy does. But we did, you know, he was really interested in hearing ive got all of these tapes that are, there's no nothing written on them or anything going on. Reels of tape. I want to go out to his studio, find out what they all are. Because there might be some other stuff in there from my career that I recorded years ago. I'm not sure. But definitely I want to get into the Kendall Wall Live recording and see if I can do something with that.
Speaker: Well, so there are two track tapes though. so So my point was what I was thinking when I was watching it is that it's just, it would have been too costly and too cumbersome to do, but if you could have sort of taken a splitter off the mixer and had the each track, because, you know, when you do those blues jams, there's there's magical moments that that happen, right? Where you're just going, okay, that was just fantastic. And the crowd and the the atmosphere, and you miss all that when you go in the studio and try to rec recreate that. That's been a problem for me for my whole life.
Speaker: Yeah, you sure do. You sure do. And you know, back in those days, we didn't have the connections. um I say to remember a remote recorder coming by one day to the Black Swan and recording some stuff for a local cable channel.
Speaker: I have no idea. Whatever happened to any of that. winner Some of the, but we had, we had that happen one time and I went back to get the tapes and they had raced them all. They didn't even have them. They recorded over them. Yeah. So yeah.
Speaker: But it's good that you got to recapture what you did and you got some good recordings out of it and you took that studio stuff and and redid that and revamped that. And then you did a nice tribute to Cashwall, which was nice because he passed away obviously yeah you know a few years ago. so So I thought that was nice what you said about him and and the recording that you did. Yeah, yeah. And you know i we the recording really...
Speaker: Yeah, there's been a lot of musician friends of mine like that that, you know, they really were really good and they did make a contribution to, you know, Canadian Blues history and and then they were gone, you know, and I just feel that that little, that recording, releasing the Kendall Wall stuff and the documentary,
Speaker: um You know, that would that was a way of kind of keeping his legacy. No, it's good. I like it. I like it. I get the whole the whole vibe and what you're trying to do. and and And I have to ask you about, is it Rita Shirelli? Right. Boy, she sure is good, eh? Yeah. Well, one of the good things that came out of working with Chris Darden was I had all of these VHS tapes from the Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto.
Speaker: where we did a show where we backed up ah Tony Flame, Mel Brown and Rita Shirelli. And it's not in the doc, there's just little snippets in the doc. Chris took, it's up on YouTube, Chris took a song ah with Mel Brown, a song with Rita and a song with Tony Flame, the late Tony Flame, who was one of the downshot singers.
Speaker: Uh, and he did, uh, he put them up on, on YouTube for me. So he really did save a lot of that stuff for me that I would have, would have been lost completely. Yeah. No, that's, that's nice because looking back, you know, and then, then you think about it, I often ask my guests about the timelines, you know, everything seems so short when you're looking back, right? You play for a few years here, you're a few years there. And then looking back later in life, you go, gee, the timelines were quick. Everything went fast.
Speaker: Yeah, I know when I when I look at those those old videos of us is hey man that looks so young and so skinny. yeah go I have to ask you about that pink bass, too. is I don't know what color it is. Fuchsia or whatever your bass is. It looks like a jazz or a pre, or said like but it doesn't have a Fender logo on it. But you've been playing that same bass for years. I've been playing that since 1986. There you go. As a matter of fact, I was just having some work done on it yesterday. It's a parts bass. I've got an old yeah
Speaker: That's what I thought. A Fender Precision. It's 1966 Precision that I played for the first 20 years. It was the only bass I owned. And then I wanted to have a second bass and I wanted a jazz bass. And all of the older ones, because I didn't want to get a new one, I wanted to get, you know, a sixties one. They were all beat up and overpriced. So my friend, guitarist friend and collaborator, Teddy Leonard,
Speaker: He said to me, you ever think about building one? I went, well, yeah, that's crossed my mind because he was building tellies at the time. yeah okay And I said, yeah, you know, that's sort of a, it's crossed my mind. And then a little while later he came, he was working part time at Ring Music in Toronto and he came to me one time, called me up, but he said, hey, listen, there's this bass body here, jazz bass body. He said,
Speaker: I think they'll take your old, I had an old Dan Electric guitar and it was just before Dan Electros became popular again. Nobody wanted them. I couldn't sell it for a hundred bucks. And he said, they'll they'll trade your Dan Electric guitar for this body. ah Okay, I'll be right down because I wasn't doing anything with the guitar. So I got the body, took a while to find the neck and everything and the the right pickups for it, but eventually we slapped it together and the actual color is called dusty rose. So I call that dusty. Okay. And we put it together and originally it had a switch for active and passive. Okay. The black swan had a terrible buzz and interference. Stratocasters were almost unusable. So I had a set up with active cause I thought it was going to buzz.
Speaker: but So I started playing it in the active position. It didn't sound all that great. Didn't feel all that great. You know, I wanted my old precision. I kept on, you know, putting it down and picking up the old P bass. And then one day I flipped the switch to passive. It didn't buzz and it sounded good. So I started using it. And after a couple of weeks, I so i just switched to Gailey and Kruger amps at the time, too. After a couple of weeks, I'm getting all these compliments on how great my sound is.
Speaker: Okay, so that bass became a keeper and the old precision is retired. It's actually sitting behind me right now on a stand. It's you go the bass I play at home, but the the Dusty Rose Jazz yeah is the one that i has been my working bass since 1986.
Speaker: Well it's I mean it sounds great and every every live I watched lots of live videos of you guys and you can hear every note your articulation is really good too but you can hear every note and it's it sounds really good so I did notice that and so you got it dialed in there really well. Yeah it's a good bass it's it's older now and it's The neck is always seems the last few years, ah it was so such it was a solid base where you know maybe once a year I might have to have the intonation tweak but
Speaker: Now it seems like a little more regular, like that neck on it. But I don't want to change anything. You know, I took it to the guy who works on my stuff yesterday and because it the the action had gone up a little too high. my It was hurting my hands to play the thing. And it was feeling like a cheap bass. It wasn't feeling like a good bass, you know, in my hands. And I said to him when he was working on it, I said, maybe it's time for me to put on a new neck.
Speaker: And he went, Oh no, no, no, I can, I can save this. No, no, you don't want to do that. You don't want to do that. Forget about that idea. Wow. Well, cool. No, it sounds real good. I, yeah I did know and you know i dont people say to me, is that a fender? And I always say, no, it's a fluke.
Speaker: Yeah. Because I didn't expect it to be as good as it turned out. I think my investment in that base with the trades and the buys and all of that stuff is under a thousand dollars, maybe about 800 bucks. Well, it looks like ah I mean, it's got obviously a jazz body and a sort of a pre -looking neck. It's got the Fender headstock on it. So yeah, it it does look like it just doesn't have the logo on it. That's why I noticed it. So yeah, the the neck is somewhere between. It's not like a jazz neck. It doesn't taper down.
Speaker: It's kind of a little between a jazz and a Fender -style neck. i mean It's a La Cido. So is the body. They were both made by a company in Quebec called La Cido. And I found out later on, I'd had it for quite a while, I was in the 12th fret music store. I guess i'd maybe I'd taken it in there for some or something work or I don't know. And one of the guys there said, oh, yeah.
Speaker: He said, you got the, you got the jazz bass body. He said they made, you know, made a Strat, a Tele and a jazz bass with a experimental finish. They're all that color, like your bass. They're all that dusty rose color. And I went, oh, really? He said, yeah. He said that they made, only made three. And it's, you know, I've had that bass since 86.
Speaker: And that it the finish is really strong. I mean, it has a few nicks and stuff on it, but it's yeah any other instrument that old would have wear, you know, work there all over it. Battle scars, as we like to call them. but Yeah. So I found out that, you know, after all this time, I'm thinking that you know, Jesus, that bass is one of a kind. yeah yeah You know, like there wasn't any other, it was just, it was the only bass made that color. I did run into the guy who had the Strat, Jerry Markman, he was taking a guitar building course and he ended up with a Strat, the same color. okay But yeah, that's an interesting story about instruments. yeah Yeah. So let me ask you a little bit about the down child stuff and ah just
Speaker: I'll just riff here a little bit, but tell me about Hawk. You knew um Hawk Walsh and obviously we're in the, he's the one that sang on the hits, right? Flip, love and fly. And and the hit song, it's funny, I get i got everything I need almost. I sing that to myself all the time. That's kind of a,
Speaker: It's just tongue -in -cheek sort of feel -good music. And he just had that voice that animated that in such a great way. But just tell me about him a little bit. Well, Hawk was yeah a great blues singer. And yeah, he sang on the most recognizable Downchild songs. um he you know his His period in the band wasn't all that long. you know They had the difficulty of brothers not getting along.
Speaker: And, you know, he was, he only did, uh, geez. He, he was on bootleg, he was on straight up. He was in and out of the band. He came back later and did some recordings, but I don't think he's only on about three albums. Terrific blues singer. I never worked with Hawk in Downchild. Cause he was gone by the time you came in, he was going to 79. But I would, I worked with Hawk.
Speaker: numerous times, backing him up when he would have his own gigs and Hawk would guest with the Kendall Wall Band. ah So I knew him well. I knew all of them really well. I became, I was their friend before I was actually in their band.
Speaker: yeah But yeah, when I joined the band, Tony Flame was the singer the first time around. And then, of course, when I came back in in 95, Chuck Jackson was a singer. And Chuck is the singer that's really put in the most time. Like yeah Tony and Hawk love those guys, you know, fabulous singers, and but difficult people to work with. yeah They were always getting fired, you know. um Yeah. Well, I noticed the dynamic of, you know, like the big brother that like I played with my brother for a while too. And I had a little bit of big brother syndrome, but just trying to run things and trying to make sure everything worked out the way it needed to. And Donnie's obviously that way. But then, then the little brother can be a little bit of a rebel too. So it's, it's a bit of a push pull. That you got it exactly right. That's exactly how it was.
Speaker: Donnie was the boss because he realized early in the beginning if this thing this thing had some possibilities and somebody had to take charge. Otherwise, he'd just be a bunch of hippies hanging around down on Spadina Avenue, you know, doing nothing. And he jumped on it and he took control. And he he was a hard ass. And he ran the band with an iron fist. He's lightened up a lot in his, you know, as he gets older. But He was a tough guy and it was, you know, you wanted to be in his band, you did it his way or you're not in the band anymore. And he fired his own brother, so that tells you where he's at. Fired his own brother. northern Fired his own brother more than once. There you go. But it sounds like it was, ah that was sort of an even Steven sort of thing from what what it sounds like. But yeah, you know, like the in the documentary, you know, don they asked Donny about that and he says,
Speaker: You know, it would it would have been nice if it could have been perfect, but that's life just isn't that way. You know, it would have been great if the two of those guys, you know, could have continued to work together forever and ever. But geez even in the early days, you know, just around the flip flop and fly days and stuff like that, you know, I'd go down to see the band maybe playing at the Elma combo or somewhere like that. And Hawk wouldn't be there. Tony flame would be filling in for him.
Speaker: you know for whatever reason, he didn't come. you know or he um So there was ah right from very early, there was I guess it was the problems of those two guys getting along. i mean they you know they they were They were something else. When went when I first ah became a you know a fan first, they became my favorite band and it was that.
Speaker: combination of Donny and Hawk, you know, that it was something I'd never seen before. I'd never seen a band that was like that. These guys, they weren't, um they definitely weren't hippies. um They were a little rough around the edges. They weren't like the rock bands that I'd see around town or, you know, they weren't like the popular band pop bands of the day. They were very different working class looking guys.
Speaker: ah and But boy, when they played the blues, you know, they played it right. um But that's the thing. That's the other part of it is that the blues wasn't, ah you know, it's a smaller demographic, right? I mean, to try to be a blues band and compete in the space that they were competing in was just a challenge in itself. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah The folk and the pop bands that were so popular and all the great songs, like for them to come up in the middle of all that as a blues band is ah is a pretty big feat. I don't know if people realize how how much of a feat that was to pull off and how ah much pressure probably Donnie felt to make that all work out and keep it all together.
Speaker: Well, you know, in the early days, you know, like I mentioned, he was a tough guy. I mean, when flip flop and fly became a hit by accident, you know, it was a song on an album that DJ started to play. yeah And then they made a single of it. And when they made the single,
Speaker: Jane Vasey wasn't in the band when they recorded straight up the album that had Flip on it. yeah But when they put out the single, she was in the band. So they went in the studio and they added her piano ah to the single. So if you hear it on the radio and it's got a piano, it's the single. And if you hear it without a piano, it's the album cut. oh But by then she was in the band and she really brought something huge to the band. Like when Jane came in the band, they moved up a couple of notches. you know Well, just an incredible talent just for our listeners. So they know Jane Vasey was a piano player, highly trained, joined the band and then sadly passed away very young in 1982, I assume. Right. She was only 32 years old when she died. She's terrible. But she was brilliant and just a really great person, you know, aside from being beautiful, you know, a very attractive woman, she was just
Speaker: ah fantastic person and she classically trained and then she discovered Otis Spann. Her girlfriend Diane Roblin, a jazz musician, gave her a copy of an Otis Spann record and that was it. She was hooked on Blues and she mastered that whole Blues piano playing technique. When I came in the band, Jane was there and she'd been in the band for a while. I knew her as you know, like because as I got to knew all of the down child people, when Jane became a down child member, I got to know Jane.
Speaker: Joining the band, you know tony flame by then was a singer Because by then hawk was gone for good. Unfortunately, you know Hawk flip -flop and fly became a hit in canada for the band and hawk wasn't in the band anymore So tony had to go out and sing Flip and almost and all of those songs, you know, but he was a good singer too, you know, he was a great singer and a good frontman so and Jane and Donnie were a couple at that time as well, too. And then she got sick, I guess he explains in the documentary. She had leukemia and then it just took her so fast and so young. Yeah. Well, it went into remission. It wasn't all that fast. Good story on that one. When Jane came into the band, she was with David Woodward, the sax player. Okay. But eventually she ended up with Donnie. A little weird, but you know,
Speaker: Canada's answer to Fleetwood Mac. music is you know yeah and but she i think I think the leukemia first came on in around 77, 78. When I joined in 79, she was in remission. okay And then it came back in about 80, 81.
Speaker: And it when it came back, it came back strong. Like it was hard. yeah But she played until ah every so often she'd have to take some time off for her treatment and we'd have to use a piano player sub on some tours. um yeah But she played right up until three weeks before she died. yeah And that was tough. she We were out on the East Coast doing a tour of man. she was She was, you know, it was hard. And then she had to be sent home in the middle of a tour because it was really it was taken over. It was really getting tough. And, you know, I went to see her after we got back from that tour and god she was gone and within a couple of weeks. You know, jeez, we were playing a gig the night she died, if you can. That's how things were those days. There was no there was no stopping, you know, play, play, play.
Speaker: Jane passed away and we just continued to work. Nobody knew anything about grief counseling or any of that stuff, you know. Yeah, I guess you just you just go into the music. I mean, and the the thing about that, though, is that like the thing about Downchild, for me, being having been a fan since the 70s and listening to their songs, it's sort of happy blues, if you know what I mean? It's bouncy and it's tongue in cheek and it's just feel good kind of music. Right. So there's not a lot of the boring sort of slow, you know, my baby had done left me stuff. There's some of that, but it's bouncy and fun stuff. Yeah. Well, Donny has a line where that he used to
Speaker: numerous times over the years was, you know, we don't play this stuff to, to get down. We play this stuff to get up. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Good times. guarantee Yeah. And that comes out really clear and you you do the, um, in the 40th anniversary, that was the, um, the documentary. That's the one that I watched, uh, the flip flop and fly documentary, yeah the 40th anniversary. And now you're on your 50th. Um, or sorry, the, uh, that was in 2009.
Speaker: Yeah. And then so because the band started in 69, right? that Yeah. So the 2009 was the 40th. That's when that documentary was done. So now you're over 50 or 55 years now. That's correct. And you're doing your your final your tour. The band is is going to be done by the end of this year. And in November. Yeah, we're heading for the finish line. It's. ah Yeah. Well, tell me about that. How does that feel? Well, we've known for about six years that the end was gonna have to come. okay But now we're at the point where it's it's real. yeah And um I guess I've personally, I can only speak for myself. I've had time to prepare for this. Downchild has been part of my and adult life since yeah since I first saw them playing in 1970.
Speaker: became a fan. And then, you know, joining the band in 79 and all of the history, you know, I've been on 11 records and three compilations. as As a sideman, I've played on more records than anybody that's been in the band ever. um Yeah. Yeah, it's. um And I'm looking at your schedule here. You just played in my hometown, Guelph. I was born in Guelph. Yeah. And then your last show is going to be in London, right? That's right. Yeah. November 29.
Speaker: That's right. Yeah. I mean, it's I don't know. It's ah I guess there's, you know, there's that feeling of melancholy, you know, yeah in some ways you want it to go on forever, but then you have to come to your senses and realize that Donnie has to call it a day. Yeah. You know, I've got I've got plans for, you know, where I'm going with the Maple Blues band and other things that I'm involved with and you've got all things going on in my future. But to not have Downchild, you know, there was a period when I left and in where, you know, all of a sudden I wasn't in Downchild anymore, the band that I thought I could be in for the rest of my life. And I dealt with it then. And I'm going to have to deal with it again.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, fair enough. And I guess, you know, what do you want out of life, right? You got, you know, the the band lasted over 50 years, over half a century, did well, played lots of music. And you're right, you know, and you have to kind of resign yourself to the fact that we had a good run and we're calling it a day. And that's good. It was good.
Speaker: Well, I'll always look at myself as being, no matter what, after you know after we play the final show, I'll still look upon myself as being a member of the Downchild Blues Band. Yeah. You know, because there's a history there, there's a legacy, and i and I'm part of that, and I'll always look at it that way. I'll miss i'll miss doing the gigs, you know, I'll miss seeing and Donny all the time, but I do work with,
Speaker: Other members of that band, you know, the yeah the drummer and I, Jim Casson, are in the Mighty Duck Blues Band and the Maple Blues Band. ah Pat Carey's in the Maple Blues Band with us. And Chuck Jackson, Pat Carey, Jim Casson, myself.
Speaker: We're in the Hawk -Tone All -Stars together. you know we We have all these groups that were spin -offs from Downchild, really, um that we're all part of. And but we know we'll all continue to to develop as time goes on. And I definitely will keep my friendship and contact together with Donnie Walsh, and we'll see him as often as possible. and you know get together. I'm sure we'll do all of that. But yeah, it's it's. I'm going to miss it. Yeah, well, you still have plans or you still have things going. Are you still involved with any bookings or the Maple ah Blues Awards or any of that stuff? You still know, um I don't do any of that anymore. The Maple Blues Awards, I took the band, the Maple Blues Band yeah that I had for 24 years doing the Maple Blues Awards. I took the band.
Speaker: Got a record deal with Cordova Bay Records released ah in 2023, released a great album of instrumental music that we composed over our time yeah at the Maple Blues Awards. And I have been doing a little bit of touring with that and and plan to do more.
Speaker: Good. So you're not you're not hanging it up yourself. You're going to keep playing. I mean, that's the nice thing about music, right? Oh, yeah. No, no plans. No plans and and in in in this house was with with me. I don't know what I don't know how to say the word or spell the word retire. ah But yeah, no, I have plans. I'm going to keep moving on with the you know, I'm always um one of the things that was great when I rejoined Downchild in 95.
Speaker: I saw that all of the guys in the band had other projects that they worked on around Downchild. They could do other stuff. So I jumped onto that. And right now I have the Maple Blues Band, the Hawktail and All -Stars, the Swing and Black Jacks, and the Mighty Duck Blues Band.
Speaker: yeah plus a freelance career where I get called just to play. Like this Friday, I'll be playing with Chicago musician Johnny Bergen. nice you know So i just I'm just going to keep doing that. I mean, the Mabel Blues Band is my own personal project that I have control over, the composition, the recording, the producing, the touring, all of that. The Hot Tone All -Stars is a little more of a collaboration with Chuck Jackson and Pat Carey.
Speaker: The Mighty Duck Blues Band is a collective unit that really only plays, you know, a house gig once a week. But I'll just keep a swing of black jacks. That's Matt Allen's band. I love playing with Matt and and his drummer, Adam David. They play a mixture of rockabilly blues and old time country. I'll play with that band whenever I can. I got lots to do.
Speaker: Very cool. No, that's nice. It's nice to hear. It's an inspiration. and And again, like the word retirement, when you're a full -time career musician is not even in the cards, you can taper off, you can exercise different options and do whatever you want, which is very a very nice place to be because, yeah and you can do it as long as you want. So that's the one advantage when you've been a committed sort of full -timer, like I've been doing it, like I said, over 40 years now. So I'm going to do the exact same thing. So I'm i'm with you on that.
Speaker: Yeah, Dan, I, you know, we're, we're definitely on the same page there. Like I, I realized, you know, when, oh geez, I was probably in my late forties.
Speaker: um that I wanted to do this for forever, but at the same time, I wanted to be able to do it forever. So I changed my lifestyle and and I started taking better care of myself and exercising and eating right and keeping staying in ah is good shape physically and mentally, because I do want to ah continue as long as I can. You know, maybe there'll be a point where The phone will stop ringing and the emails will start coming in or maybe something will happen to stop me physically. But I'm going to be 77 in about a month. And I feel like I can go on forever. Good for you. Well, but no again, that's inspirational and and I'm right with you on that, you know, that taking care of yourself, being healthy, doing the best you can as long as you can. That's what I always say. I'm going to do the best I can as long as I can. That's my motto. And it's worked out well for me too. i
Speaker: but That's a good model. I'm going to steal that line if you don't mind. Go ahead. Yeah, I can as long as I can. Well, it's it's true. I mean, that's that's what I always say to people. Pick your path. You know, I know guys that have been in the music business that totally abused themselves and well into their fifties and stuff and they're paying for it big time now. Exactly. And I started noticing when I changed my life, I was noticing that in some of my musical friends that they were They were aging beyond their years. yeah And because of their ah problems, nobody wanted to work with them anymore. And I didn't see that in my future. you know I thought, well, I got to do whatever I can to preserve this because I like it. like I'm sure you feel the same way. you know We like doing what we do, right?
Speaker: Absolutely. And I'm thankful and the gratitude kicks in, especially as you get older. I thought, you know, my career would go down as I got older, but it's been the opposite. I'm doing as well or better than ever. And I'm very, very thankful for that. And I think well when you're thankful for what you're doing, you're just better at it.
Speaker: Sounds like you and I are on similar past, you know, I think all these things that you're saying is like, it's like, I know this guy. yeah he's got He's got the same approach as I do.
Speaker: so No, I appreciate that. i did it's It's very um pragmatic, I guess. You go, well, this is what I want to do. This is what I like to do. This is what I'm going to do. So I got to make sure I got all my ducks in a row and and your health and and just being comfortable in your own skin too. Like I often ask my guests, you know, are you happy? And sometimes I say, yeah, not not so much. You know, I toured too much. one One guy said to me, he said, you know, I left my wife and kids. I traveled all over North America. Now I have a map of North America wrinkled into my face and I have a lot of regrets.
Speaker: You know, that's that's the truth. And i I'm, besides being grateful that, you know, I still have a career after all these years, 60 plus years in, um I'm grateful that i've I've somehow managed to keep my i hope my relationship to with my wife and my daughter um yeah together, my family life, it's played a big role in my longevity for sure. and I don't think if if I didn't have, I've always had a place to go home to when the party was over, you know what I mean? And um or when the gig, you know, the party or the gig, when I say party, I mean the gig. I've always had a place to go home to.
Speaker: and You know, someone said to me one time, at Maple Blues Awards, you know, I'd won a bass player the year. I've won it numerous times. One of the years, somebody said to me, so what are you going to do tonight after this is all over? And I said, I'm going to go take out the garbage. Yeah, exactly. You know, I'm going to go back to my real life, you know, and go home. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, you make an important point to be grounded. i've I've been very fortunate in that respect as well that, you know, you have a wife that my wife's not involved in a music business at all. And it's that stable place that I can go to that's that's my home. And that's always meant a lot to me. um You know, it just gives you that anchor.
Speaker: as opposed to other musicians who haven't had that anchor. I mean, I i asked one guy in an interview, um you know, what sacrifices did you make to to pursue your career? And he had a whole list of things. And I said, was it worth it? And he said, no. Huh. So it's like, well, that kind of gets you, you know. Yeah, sacrifices. Yeah, I don't. Yeah. Well, you know,
Speaker: I have put my family through some hard times dealing with having me, you know, as part of their lives. But yeah fortunately, I pulled out of all of that bad behavior and managed to to save it. And I was with the right, you know, like you we were probably both with the right person, you know, yeah supports what what I do. And, you know, and and in return, I support what what both, you know, my my daughters, you know, yeah I've got to be a woman himself. I support what the two of them do and they support what I do. So it's, it's worked out pretty good. No, that's good. No, that's a good story because the thing is you can talk about music all the time, but, and it's great and it's a part of life, but it's not your life. If you're not happy at the end, you know, and ah to me, that's an important part of it. You got to put a bow on it. You know, if, if, if you're got all these successes and accolades and everything, but you're not comfortable in your own skin, then have you made it? Where have you made it to?
Speaker: yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah, I mean, my my biggest accomplish is accomplishments have been. being able to play the music I want to play. Like, you know, I didn't pick the best career path. I mean, a blues musician in Canada. enough Yeah, OK. OK, you know, I mean, I've done everything you can possibly want to do in the music business, except make a lot of money. But I've always been financially secure, you know. Yeah. But I've kept my my marriage together and I've kept my relationship together.
Speaker: with my daughter and and her son, my grandson, who is 27, now working in the film business. It's not always perfect. you know We all have those periods where we're not exactly getting along and we're not exactly seeing eye to eye, but that family stays together.
Speaker: Well, that's right. And and and it's a counseling professor said that many years ago, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. yeah There's another line I'm going to steal. Totally. If you have a good life, and a but nobody gets perfect in this world. right So don't let perfect be the enemy of good because you know you don't get that. So that's kind of what I thought too about her it. I thought, yeah, that's that's right.
Speaker: you so Well, good. Well, thanks for sharing all that. I like to to talk a little bit about life stuff too, because it's ah it it is a big part of it. You know, when you're up on stage, you were talking about, you know, you're trying to be ah jovial and you're trying to create the music and stuff. and And it's better when you're coming from a good place, when you can just smile and be comfortable and know that your life's on track and you can play and sort of exchange that that feeling and you're selling it and they're buying it and it's coming back to you.
Speaker: that That to me is is where the magic is for me. Yeah, you you you can't you can't do a good job on stage if everything else in your life isn't you know and and at least under control. if you know Yeah, I agree. that that's can be perfect Sometimes it can be perfect. you know like Life can be just the greatest and other times life is challenging, but it has to be at a certain high level so you can go up on the bandstand and clear your mind of everything else and and be able to play correctly and and have a good time up there. You know, Snooki Pryor, one of the blues guys that I worked with, it's funny, I always refer to Snooki as, you know, the older blues guy that I worked with when, Jesus Christ, when I worked with Snooki, he was younger than I am today. But anyway, Snooki used to say to me, you know, Gary, we got to go out there and cheer him up.
Speaker: Yep. And that was, you know, that was his thing. You know, he got up there on on the bandstand and for the few hours, uh, the people in that room, it was his job to make them feel happy and we give them a good time. you Well, and and that 40th anniversary show, it's called Flip Off and Fly for our viewers. If you want to watch it, it's excellent. But the vibe is great. You got Colin James up there. You got James Cotton up there. Danny Ackroyd shows up and he's doing his Blues Brothers dance and stuff. It's just great. Like it's just a feel good thing all the way around. You're playing great and the sound is good. Everything's just magical. It was really good.
Speaker: Yeah, Danny is ah all of those guys that, that you know, come around and and support us. I mean, Danny's been great. I mean, ah you know, he's, we all knew Danny before he went on to New York and L .A. and and had his huge success. ah yeah He used to run this, so he had a booze can called 505.
Speaker: with his couple of guys that were all sort of in the theater, Marcus O 'Hara, Mary Margot O 'Hara's brother. They had this booze can and we everybody, would the theater people and musicians, garbage men and cops would all go there you know for after hours illegal drinking. And yeah that's where he became a friend of Downchild. And of course he did a big favor where they, you know, used Downchild as one of the influences to start the Blues Brothers. Curtis Salgado was another, I think Curtis was.
Speaker: more of a Belushi contact, whereas ah Dan's contact was Donny and Hawk. And that's how the Blues Brothers came together, that skit that turned into a... yeah And of course, and they had Paul Shaver was part of it too. But Danny, from then that point on, he's always been in Downchild's Corner. He's done stuff for the band over the years. you know we Every so often we do shows with him. I mean, the last one was the live album that we did.
Speaker: at the Toronto Jazz Festival, which was the actual last Downchild record to be released. You know, he was part of that and Paul Shaffer was part of that along with other. And he's a decent harp player, too. I didn't realize that. Yeah, he's always been like, you know, he's always had a harmonica going and.
Speaker: ah You know, he's a true blues fan. I mean, went down at there at their boost can, you know, they were always playing old stacks recordings and old blues stuff on the stereo they had there. nice ah He's the real deal. And, you know, he's he's supported not just Downchild, but he's supported a lot of blues people over the years, like when they made the Blues Brothers movie and their record, the record company, all of the people like right on the show basically told them that, you know, you can take the publishing and all this music. And they said, no, I'll give it to the musicians who wrote the songs. So everybody who was on who wrote a song that was on Briefcase Full of Blues and every all of the musicians that were part of the movie, they all made a lot of money. Nice. Because in a lot of those cases,
Speaker: the people and at the top yeah and the people that are running the show like Dan and and and John, they could have grabbed a big chunk of the publishing. That's right. yeah And they made that part of the deal and just said, if we don't do it, then we're not doing it. Yeah, they yeah they they made sure that all the musicians kept their publishing and came out on top with that. They made sure that everybody was treated right, better than right.
Speaker: you know yeah no i outside on He's a good guy yeah good guy and he's very sincere about blues and roots music and he's a funny guy.
Speaker: that oh yeah yeah He's one of those naturally funny guys. but and Well good, well thanks for all the stuff you shared. This has been an excellent, excellent conversation and ah just appreciate to all the things that you've done and all the things that you shared and just, yeah, excellent. Really enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching the ah documentaries as well. So I recommend that people have a look at those because they're very well done. Well, I mean, you know, thank you. And if you want to catch some of my current stuff, MapleBluesBand .com is the future for me right now. Yeah. OK, cool.
Speaker: Many thanks to my guests, Gary Kendall, for being part of the Liner Notes podcast and sharing some insights with many musical adventures and accomplishments. More information is available at GaryKendall .com. And of course, he's got a YouTube channel, Gary Kendall Blues musician.
Speaker: ah downchild dot .com has some information on it as well and then mapleblues .com. So check those out. We hope you enjoyed the podcast and invite you to subscribe to it and share it on social media so others can enjoy it as well. And we also invite you to listen to Dusty Discs Radio Tuesdays and Thursdays to hear music from the Canadian artists you're hearing on this show. So until next time, I'm Danny.
