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.
Speaker: Enjoy. Today I'm very honored to have as a return guest author and music historian Robert Lawson. He wrote the book Wheatfield Empire, The Listener's Guide to the Guess Who. And today we'd like to expand on that a little bit and discuss the current controversy with the rights and the usage of the band name and all the fallout over the past decades.
Speaker: So a couple of things i want to ask you about what one is that you you did the the guess who book as we talked about last time was a was a kind of an annotated discography and you give lots of information and you talk about you know the ins and outs of the bands but your your books are more informative than they are evaluated. Yeah the the idea is really like a chapter by chapter look at a band's output where i look at every album every single music videos radio broadcast uh, TV appearances, bootlegs, basically on, you know, if, if you're looking in for some information about a certain band and about a certain album, you could flip to that particular chapter and get as much information as possible about it. And I, I interject little, you know, things in there of my, my own personal tastes occasionally. And, and, and I, I try to have little elements of humor.
Speaker: your Guess Who books. Excellent. And I highly recommend it. It's called Wheatfield Empire. You're pretty even -handed. I mean, you're you're pretty fair. like We talked about that last time. Sometimes you have to make sort of an eval you have to make a value judgment on some things, but not sort of harshly. You just you just kind of say, this is what happened and this seems to be why.
Speaker: Yeah. And I also, it's real important for me not to just be fawning over, you know, any artist, you know, no matter how, how much you love somebody and how great they are. There's got to be a few missteps along the way. And anyone who's had a career that's lasted 30 or 40 years, there's going to be valleys as well as peaks.
Speaker: But it's okay to to call call them out on some of their missteps. But sometimes you know it calls for a value judgment. And so this current controversy for the listeners that that don't know, ah Randy Backman and and Burton Cummings have decided to sue the band that is performing and touring as the Guess Who in the States, ah primari primarily in the States. and you know So I wanted to get some of your thoughts on that and and the perspective.
Speaker: Cummings folded the band in 75. Bachman had been gone for five years already. So he said yeah their interest in the Guess Who name was really almost in a sense forfeited at that point. They walked away from it. Well, that that's true. I mean, yeah, the ah Randy was fired from the Guess Who in 1970. The band broke up in 1975. And then in 1978, Jim Cale, sort of with Randy and Burton's blessing, went back out on the road with a version of the Guess Who. But that version to me is somewhat legitimate. You know, he had Kurt Winter, probably the greatest guitar player to ever be in the Guess Who and songwriter. And he had Donnie McDougall on guitar and vocals for that first
Speaker: nineteen seventy eight version of the that you know there would be any value to to the name, the guess who, right? We, you know, we didn't have a classic rock culture at that point. Right. You know, so so that's a fair, that's a fair point, but they didn't care then. So they only care now, which is a little bit, uh, like there was no parameters set, put on it back then. They said, Oh yeah, sure. Yeah. Go, go and do your thing. They even put out an album. Didn't they post? Yeah. They put her an album called guess who's back and yeah it's, so it's okay. It's not great.
Speaker: But the landscape has just changed. i mean So you know then they did a second album, with which then Kurt Winter's not on. And then after that, Don McDougal's not there any anymore. so So yeah, everything kind of changed from being the lesser -known Guess Who lineup, but still somewhat legitimate to then turning into what is now basically a cover band. Yeah, fair. And again, I'm not, I'm not unsympathetic to that argument. It's just that when there's no parameters sort of put on it, it's going to morph into whatever it morphs into. Sure. But I mean, nobody knew in 1978 that guess yeah years later, people would we' be buying all these records over and over again, and that there would be a classic rock, uh, revival.
Speaker: You know, there's no way to predict that. And in the same way, Jim kale didn't know that that was going to happen either. He decided he was going to go out on the road a little bit and make a little bit of money. He didn't know that decades later, he'd still be doing it because there there was no precedent for it at that time. The idea that, you know, this is at a time when bands would put out an album, go out on tour and almost play the entire album because that's what they were promoting. That's very different from.
Speaker: but the landscape in concerts has been for the last, I don't know, 10 or 15, 20 years where the band puts out a new album. They go on tour, play one song from it, and the rest of the set is greatest hits. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. You make you make fair points there, and and it is it is a different, the whole thing is sort of the whole business has morphed, I guess, as well. So the the band morphs, but the business morphs as well, which is your overriding point. So Bachman and Cummings, their beef is over the use of the likeness and and the music, right? So they're using old pictures of the using old old songs and stuff but the thing is if you're using that brand you can never divorce it from those things and you have no control over it half the time the promoters are gonna use the old songs are gonna use the old pictures i mean there's almost nothing you can do about that well
Speaker: part of the Part of the lawsuit, and I've seen some information about this, is that yeah, it's not so much about the name, the guess who. I mean, it's not like if Burton gets the rights to the name, the guess who, he's not also going to change you know his band to be called the guess who and go out on tour as the guess who. It's more about kind of a misrepresentation that fans are being um being led to go to the shows thinking that guys like Burton and Randy and maybe Donnie MacDougall are going to be there and there's no no chance of that happening. How much of it is the band and the band management and just promoters? I'm not sure, but I know that it it did ramp up during the pandemic that now if you go to um like Apple Music or the Spotify streaming service and you want to listen to
Speaker: the guess who's a So long ban on time album the band picture that you're gonna see is of the current lineup So but doesn't that doesn't that hit both sides of the argument? They don't want them using the old images, but they have a right to that name now They're using the new images, which is also a misrepresentation Because those aren't the band members that played those songs, right? right so the so the lawsuit is is suggesting that you know they they they don't use the Guess Who name and it's some sort of a tribute act. you know So it could be the Guess Who show featuring original drummer Gary Peterson. that That would be totally above board in the same way that you know ah Carl Dixon was in the Guess Who for a little while and he does an occasional show called Carl Dixon Sings the Guess Who and he has
Speaker: ah bill wallace who' is ah ah basis from the original a of the guesss who and they tell stories and they they do an all guess who kind of hits right show but they don't call themselves the guess who and Well,
Speaker: Yeah, so my my problem with that, I guess, is that, you know, everyone rides the fine line. Like, I was i was part of a tribute show that did a tribute to Roy Orbison and and i I just had one segment in that show and I have pictures. It's called Remembering Roy. I got my glasses on my and my picture and everything. And then the promoter made the album up or made the poster up and he just put a picture of Roy Orbison on there.
Speaker: but I said to the guy, well, what I sent you pictures. Why wouldn't you? Oh, well, it's just a tree. Roy's dead. Everybody knows he's not going to be there. It's just that we wanted to use an original picture. I'm like, well, you can't do that, but they do it. right They want bums in the seats. They don't really care. So you know that promoters are going to ride whatever line they have to ride to get bums in the seats. They're going to use old Burton ah audio for sure i mean they're going to have these eyes and undone and all that's going to be burton's voice even though burton's not going to be ah within a thousand miles of that gig well i mean maybe maybe this is the kind of thing that the
Speaker: i mean i don't even know i don't think this thing' is going to go to court i think it's going to get settled but fair um maybe this is kind of thing that the band will have to be just just more serious about making sure that this kind of stuff ah you know doesn't happen. I saw a clip the other day and it it was like a state fair, I don't know, somewhere in the States and it was ah it was a video ad. So it was an ad like on Facebook. yeah And it was some sort of a some sort of ah ah summer festival or something. And it was it was listing the different bands that were going to be playing there, all kinds of different people. And every time it listed the band, and you would just see a little clip of that group performing.
Speaker: you know, whoever, I don't know, Colin James and I don't know, all kinds of different guys. whatever yeah And sure enough at one point it said the guess who, and it was a closeup of Randy soloing. oh oh So there's no way he was going to be at that show. Yeah. Well, but again, so the band can divorce themselves from that and say, well, I'm not the promoter. We got hired. We got, we, we negotiated the contract and then they promote it in that. And however they choose to do that has nothing to do with us. And and that's kind of a good point because it's almost true a hundred percent of the time.
Speaker: Well, if I mean, if they can prove that, then that's probably something that they're they're going to try to, you know, that that that would be one of the their defenses, I guess. Singer, songwriter, musician and composer, Edmund Pilling, best known as founding member and lead singer for the 1970s pop rock band, Flood. I've been a big Flood fan for many years and it's great to have you on and be able to talk to you about it. Being in England is an important time.
Speaker: with that music just exploded on all sorts of levels. And I just thought, God, this is exciting. Come on, Brian, let's play over here. The buzz around the business was huge in that area. Oh, stunning.
Speaker: Yeah. I'm so glad I grew up in it. And then so how much of what you did over there was planned and how much was an accident? I mean, you obviously got you, you immersed yourself in the scene and then, and then you had some good breaks over there, right? Well, what we did, um, a friend of mine down the street that I knew all my life still do, uh, he was a musician too. And we tried, so we got talking about putting a band together and, uh, you knew a great guitar player and this guy and the other guy.
Speaker: and uh... brian played this guy would lead to a player and uh... we all got together and we worked uh... believe this not and went to john bottom one night that's one of them and uh... later on uh... and uh... you could be just have a job so we got to get a gig you know i'm running fifteen pounds a week thirty bucks and uh...
Speaker: I just got to play. And so I said, okay, to that. But he could have actually been in the band in England called the places and with us. Wow. That would have been pretty crazy. Yeah. And and yeah your point is good because he, that was right before Zeppelin and, and before he made it big, he would have been in his twenties. He was a young guy at the time too. Right. So yeah, he just wanted to play drums yeah ah to make some money. Wow. Well, very cool.
Speaker: It was a very ordinary time. yeah the but It's very hard to explain because it's even hard to realize sometimes. We were just 16 years old, wanted to play music and that was it. and and I loved the perseverance of everybody. just it would We just all wanted to play, and that was wonderful. And everyone's looking for that sort of magical formula or something. that I mean, there's lots of musicians around that want to play, and you're looking for, and Bonham fell into the the Led Zeppelin thing, obviously, it worked out for him, but everybody else was doing basically the same thing, right? Trying to find something that works, that will click. Well, the combination, as you well know, in a band, the sparks that go, something can happen, and it does. And the magic of that,
Speaker: It's quite extraordinary. And when I know when John, I spoke to him, he was a friend and Robert plant in the early days, we're all kids playing around. And when they got him in the band, they literally had to tell him to play quieter. I remember him telling me this story and he says, I'm not playing quieter. So they learned in those early days to record a drummer,
Speaker: who you know tenacity yeah and sound. and They have to learn to accommodate him. he's I think he's the greatest drummer of all time, the greatest rock drummer. He's um he's my favorite by far. I agree with you. But I've got to say, on the other hand, Ringo, I admired, especially as a drummer too. He was so clever and he did play in the orchestra. He was a one of those kind of players. yeah you know When a guy stands up,
Speaker: It needs to triangle at the right time. but yeah Well, that's the kind of drummer Ringo was when he played a part. He played the part that did the tune and precisely and came out with some great drumming parts. Yeah. Did you ever have an association or get to meet any of the Beatles guys? No, I wish I had. yeah And well, especially when nothing first came trying to Toronto and I went down with my brother and Greg. got and see them just cause you know, a couple of them were friends and, uh, John was wonderful. You know, oh nice. and i'll never great Yeah. um with a great night And came back and I slept on the couch, uh, the great, I'm talking about the whole day. It was pretty funny. So you ended up.
Speaker: in in Birmingham playing with Cat Stevens, which is kind of counterintuitive, because he was like a folk sort of acoustic guitar guy. How did that all come about? Well, we were from there, and the music scene itself was just blasting away. And Dan's going to find out for me, apparently. How Cat Stevens ever found out about us and wanted us to do it. I've never understood it. Oh, so you don't even you don't even know? No. Oh.
Speaker: Okay. I have no idea. He heard about it. Um, and we're pretty flamboyant and yeah he didn't, he didn't like stage at all. He's, he's a brilliant songwriter. He doesn't like performing. Okay. But he needed some excitement. behind So I've been with, with that. Well, interesting. And, and again, so you immersed yourself into a pretty,
Speaker: you know, crowded space, lots of bands. I'm sure every other house on the block had a band and everybody was vying for attention over there and you got some. So that speaks well of you just in that, that you were able to sort of cut through that and and have some modicum of success. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that because you're right. and People in every movie theater's bar everywhere. yeah The amount of people playing music,
Speaker: This is bloody mind -boggling. We left that night at 3 .30 in the morning from our house in Birmingham and went to join him. He's pretty much. We had a couple of days to rehearse his music and play it for him. He loved it.
Speaker: Well, it was is pretty much. Well, and looking back, and it from where you are at this point in life, looking back, you're just just kids, right? You were just not even 20 years old yet. You were just young guys over there, 16. Wow. So there you go. Yeah. So then how did you end up back in Toronto? What happened was obviously the whole thing on the cat was a great idea, but he was not a stage performer.
Speaker: he didn't like being on stage he loved her he was a great writer and uh... so when we came back from Paris and you're doing this thing with him uh... he didn't he didn't talk and he speak he just put us in there and played great he paid for us to live uh... we were dying we were like incest playing and we weren't doing anything okay so we we We can't do this anymore and couldn't go back to Birmingham because we've been booked for a year and a half, being so popular there. And we just left the per agent there. And so we decided then we have to split the band up and the three boys went back to Birmingham and Brian and I came back to Canada and eventually started blood.
Speaker: I'm Lori Dean, Program Director for Dusty Discs Radio and one of the producers of this podcast. Now, regular listeners know that Dan Hare is the host of this show, but today we're turning the tables a bit because Dan is this week's very special guest. Dan Hare has been in the music biz for over 40 years and he fronts the March Hare Band, which has been a top show band since the late 90s.
Speaker: Dan is also a very accomplished singer, entertainer, a polished acoustic guitar player, and an impersonator. He stars in different tribute shows, mainly one for Bob Seger and one for John Fogerty, and they are fantastic. But today, Dan has some other exciting news. He has a new album called I Love This Life. Welcome, Dan, to the other side of the microphone, and thanks so much for agreeing to be the guest today.
Speaker: All right. Well, thanks Laurie boy. That was quite the intro. I appreciate that. And, uh, yeah, I just, I'm like the energizer bunny, which kind of fits with my name. So I just keep going and going and going. Dan, the album is fantastic and I was very honored to have received an advanced copy from you before you actually did release it publicly. So again, thank you for that. So, um, let's maybe just kind of start with an overview. How did this whole project come about at this point in your career?
Speaker: you know It's funny, i've I've recorded lots over the years and you know it's always a budget issue and a time issue, and of course, I've been a full -time musician. so Pursuing a life of original music and touring was something I thought I wanted when I was in my early 20s, but then I quickly realized as I had a family and I had other things I wanted to do that I was kind of pursuing a life that I didn't really want to live.
Speaker: but didn't want to be a touring road musician playing original music and a lot of my friends went on the what we call the starvation tours you know they put out some songs and record some music and then they go out and you know basically do the starvation tour and try to promote the record and and that has really minimal success it's it's a fun boy scout trip i suppose in some ways but Really, in terms of building your band, it's a very, very, as you know, small fraction of people who ever sort of get to where they think they want to be. Right. And so I did lots of demos, I put out some CDs and stuff, but the you know the production and and those kinds of things was never quite, it was just never quite what I wanted it to be.
Speaker: It sounded good, but it wasn't great. It just wasn't quite right. So I just, you know, it it wasn't really a top priority for me because I had other things I was doing, but I've always had these songs. So then earlier in 2023, I woke up one morning and I just had this epiphany and I thought, you know, you're not getting any younger. You've got some songs that are pretty decent. You just need to go and record them and let people hear them, you know, a premium version of them, so to speak. Right. So that's what I did.
Speaker: So the songs themselves, they're not something you wrote specifically for this album. They're songs that you've been writing over the years. Well, that's the thing, you know, like a lot of did the old saying how it goes in the music business, right? You have, you know, 10 or 20 years to write your first album and then you got a year or two to write the second album. Right. So because, you know, you, you gather songs and then you get to pick through. So, and something that Ian Thomas said when, when I interviewed him for liner notes, he said, you know, what we would do in the boomers is we would make the best demo tape we could. And then we'd go in the studio to record the album and try to beat the demo.
Speaker: okay and That was always their goal. and I thought, what an astute observation for him to make. and and and It really stuck with me because I thought, that's right. you know You want the best version. You can write a good song, but have an underrated or under -produced version of it.
Speaker: which is what i I suffered from, I suppose, in some sense. I had some good songs that I thought that sounded good. so But you can comb through your whole catalog and say, well, which 10 songs do you think would maybe jump out or you think people would like to hear? Then you pick those and you treat all your previous recordings as a demo, basically. And then you go into ah a real studio with a real guy and say, look, let's do the best versions we can with these players. So that's how that came about.
Speaker: The songs themselves, well well for people who haven't listened to the album yet, it it seems to be the story of your life, a reflection of of the various aspects of things that have happened over the years of your life. So I'm just curious as these things might have come up, did you write in the moment or is this something you reflected on and then years later you you wrote about it?
Speaker: well I think it's a combination because you know songwriters and and poets in general try to write things that resonate with other people so you have ah an experience and then you may take some artistic license and embellish that experience so that it becomes a common experience for lots of people. you know right Loss or you know getting up in the morning and thinking you should be doing more, you should be accomplishing more. like Everyone has those kinds of feelings so you try to reflect that in the songs.
Speaker: And of course, they're based in my experience as well. So this this album in a lot of ways is the songbook of my life because I've taken some experiences and written songs around those experiences in a way that I hope resonates with other people. And I think i think it does. The initial feedback I'm getting has been strong. So I'm thankful for that.
Speaker: Yeah, I would agree. It definitely resonates with the listener because like you say, there are elements of these songs that we can all relate to, even though it's based on things that have happened in in your life specifically as well. You know, when when you interview the guests, a lot of times you talk about what the artist perceives as their musical style of musical genre and how that can be different from what the record company might see so i'm just curious as to would you categorize this as a rock and roll album or do you even give it a category.
Speaker: Well, I did think of that. Of course, I think anyone who's serious about putting something out to the market has to has to consider that at least. I'm fortunate in the sense that it's an independent release, so I'm unencumbered. I don't have any anyone breathing down my neck saying, we've got to do this song and we've got to do this genre. right So basically I called it Don Hayes Music Dash Retro Rock because I wanted to put the description of what it is in the actual title. So every time you see the the music or if you go on Spotify or whatever, it's Don Hayes Music Retro Rock. So people know what it is. I'm i'm ah basically ah grew up in in my teenage years in the 70s and that's the kind of music I relate to. So this is Retro Rock Pop.
Speaker: And I think having the descriptor in the title kind of helps people realize what it is. And and what I found is I've done a boost on it. And a bunch of people who I don't know have listened to it and enjoyed it because they kind of get a feel for what it is. So it's not hard rock. It's not heavy rock. It's sort of down the middle. So it's kind of rock pop, I would say, said yeah retro rock pop.
Speaker: Retro rock pop. I totally agree. When I was listening to it as well, I thought it's rock and it's very retro feeling. You and I are roughly the same age, so I think we grew up listening to the same kinds of music, and it certainly had that retroy feel for me as well. Before we I get into the next question, you mentioned Don Hayes, and I know when we talked way back when, you explained how that came to be. But since it's all ah connected to the new album, can you once again tell the story of Don Hayes? Okay, well the joke is, so in in the late 80s, I had a band called the Dan Hare Band and I had a big sign on stage. It was 12 feet wide and it said Dan Hare, D -A -N -H -A -R -E. And so we're, I remember it's clear as day because we were playing in Cranbrook and this woman came up to the up to the stage and she goes, so so who is Don Hayes anyways? And I said, wow, there's only seven letters out there and you got two of them wrong.
Speaker: but Maybe she needed some glasses. I know. I was like, at holy cow. So it became a band joke. I have people that still call me Don Hayes. Because like guys that I played with, because it became a standing joke. anyway so So when we went to form our music company, um we called it Don D -A -W -N Hays, like the Hays at Don. So I had a music company called Don Hays Music. so And the reason it's called that is because I have four different entities and I have to keep them separate. So Dan here is my acoustic music and I do lots of those shows, very active.
Speaker: March Hare is the band, is our show band, and of course that's very active as well. And then American Rock Legends is our John Poggity Bob Seger, we do a Springsteen show with Brad, and and we've got a bunch of other stuff there. So those three entities have to remain separate, so I needed and another name to call my original music.
Speaker: and it it was really obvious to call it Don Hayes Music because I i have donhays .com, donhaysmusic .com, and I've had this as a company for almost 20 years. That's my music company. so That's how the name came about. and When you were ready to go to the studio, how did Mike Fraser come into the picture? um He was a guest on Lighter Notes, I know at one point, but how did you two connect to the point where he said, yeah, I'll go to the studio with you?
Speaker: Well the thing with Mike is interesting because he and I have a lot of mutual friends because he went to school. He's will be a year older than I am but he and I had lots of mutual friends from school so I knew of him and I had spoken to him maybe once or twice in the past and then we had him as a guest on liner notes and I just really clicked with him right away. He and I were two peas in a pod. We had very similar experiences, of course him much greater than mine with all the the bands that he had worked with and so I just related to him so much and had so much respect for him and I thought If I'm gonna do a real album in a real studio with a real guy, he was my first call. So I just sent a message and said, hey, I want to do an album, career entertainer here. and Would you do one with me? And he said, well, yeah, let's meet and have lunch. So we had lunch and he said, sure, I'd love to work with you. And then everything just went from there. I mean, I just can't say enough.
Speaker: about how much love and respect I have for that guy. He's he's got the perfect ah temperament and sensibility, musical sensibility, experience, but we really clicked as people and so we co -produced. I said, are you okay if we co -produce this, which means you know we both get an equal say in what we're doing.
Speaker: And he said, fine, um you're the music guy. He said, I lean more to the technical side. You lean to the music side and we'll we'll work it out. And it just worked out perfectly. Like we agreed on almost everything. um He deferred to me on the musical stuff because I have more experience in that regard. And I deferred to him on the ah technical stuff because he's you know his resume is three miles long. And it just worked out great. and And honestly, we'll be friends for life, you know, after this said whole recording experience at the Armory. And then we did a whole bunch of overdubs at the smaller studio here. And I just can't say enough about it. It was just fantastic.
Speaker: singer, songwriter, musician, composer, ah Jimmy Bertucci, best known as the founding member, bassist, and songwriter for the 1970s pop rock band Abraham's Children. So you go by Jimmy B, but you're you were born in Italy, so you're a true Italian that came to Canada. True Italian, yes. Actually, for anybody that's interested, my name is Vincenzo. Okay. So I know it's a mouthful, that's why. Actually, it was um a friend of mine that his name was Jim Brown. Okay. And he, uh, he used to be the trainer, the, the supervisor at the park where a Harvard park where I, where I grew up and and lived. And he asked me what, what my name was. And I said, it's Vincenzo. He goes, Oh, whoa. How about we call you Jimmy? That was his name. Really? I said, Jimmy, Jimmy, you know, I was, I was just off just,
Speaker: landed on ah in Canada or something. wow I said, Jimmy, jimmy yeah, that doesn't sound good. So I went home. My, my mom called me vin chen to go wash, go wash up for dinner. I said, no ma, I'm Jimmy. Well, that's cool. So you were young when you came to Canada, but did you speak English at all or did you have to learn? No, I had to learn. Okay. I think I was about six yeah and, um,
Speaker: it It didn't take long to learn though. No, I mean, you know, yeah so with the, with the music, did you have formal training or did you just have like family influence and and what was the deal there? How did you get started in that? How did I get started? Well, actually my, uh, my, uh, my parents were, or were very involved in my, in my musical career. Nice. We took a walk down on college street and for anybody that's familiar.
Speaker: With College Street. It's it's the Italian district or it used to be the Italian district, right? Yeah, and we went by this music store and I looked in the window and there was this beautiful beetle base sitting there yeah and I went wow and My mom said let's go in and and see it. I said, okay so I went in and the owner of the store his name was Julio and came over and said, ah, little Vincenzo, how are you? I said, I'm great. He says, do you like the guitar? I said, yeah, it's really nice. He goes, it's yours. He had ordered it for me. What? How did he know that? How did he know that? My mom went in there and ordered it. Oh, okay. Wow. Yeah. And that will, for the listeners who don't know the Hofner bass is the beetle bass that Paul McCartney played in the early Beatles stuff, right?
Speaker: and still playing it. Yeah, there you go. Wasn't that special. So did I read correctly that you won tickets to see the Beatles? I did. on um I believe it was Chum at the time. Wow. Yeah, I won two Beatles tickets for at the CM at Maple Leaf Gardens and I took my sister wow with me. She was a young she was lot younger than me. So what was that experience? like great Lots of yelling. oh did they get Did they get to play? Because back then they had no monitors and the crowd was yelling so much you could hardly hear the band, right? That's right. That's exactly right. um Yes, they did. They they ended up playing. you know I forget, they probably did about a half to dozen half a dozen songs or something. And it was really funny because now when I look at that concert then,
Speaker: They were using columns. Do you know the columns? Absolutely. Speaker calm, sure. Columns and trainer columns. That's what they were using. And, you know, now I think I would go, geez, in the gardens, you know, it was like awful yeah anyway. Well, could you, could you hear the band at all? I mean, was the, the crime. Yeah, you could actually hear the band. I mean, you know, there was a lot of screaming going on and.
Speaker: yeah You know, that that was in the way, but no, you could actually hear the band, you know, yeah, it it was pretty good. Well, good for you well to to have the chance to see the Beatles. And of course, you know, ah you don't have to you could never overstate the influence or the impact that would have had on you. Right. And you got into music heavily right after that, I would assume. Yes. Very, very much so. um You know, they were just perfect as a band.
Speaker: And you know I remember after a while, after listening to the songs and when I was on my way home, I was going, they they were great songs. yeah They were just really great songs and and they really made an impact on me. And you know and I think ah I just went home and I decided to start writing. Yeah, no, good for you. Well, I have to say that, you know, the Beatles, that the melodies that they wrote and the people that were influenced by the Beatles, that's the one significant thing that I think came from that is that they tried to write good melodies. And I think that would be in your case as well with some of the the Abraham's children music and stuff, their melodies and harmonies and their, their Beatle influence, but not Beatles. If you, if you can. Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, even the Beatles themselves probably didn't realize the impact they were having at the time. you know They were probably i mean enjoying it. You could see they were having a good time because you know they they they had this perpetual smile on their face at the gardens. So it was it was interesting. It was very interesting. But the frenzy the frenzy must have been just unbelievable. like everywhere the Your life's coming at you at 100 miles an hour for those guys. and yeah Well, yeah, it was it was pretty hectic. It was well, actually, you know, it's not too bad We had that kind of experience at a place in um Hamilton yeah a place called Iverwind Stadium. Okay. Yeah, I was born in Guelph. So I'm I'm afraid from that area originally anyway, oh so we were scheduled to play there and I remember and I like it's it's very big but
Speaker: um We were on stage, we started playing, I think we started playing Goodbye, Farewell. That that was the song we started because you know it was the bass starting and yeah and all of a sudden the crowd just came at the stage. oh wow And and so our manager's going, let's get out of here. Come on, let's go guys. So we got in, we got actually got in the car, they jumped on stage and started taking the equipment. Wow. so it was it was it was but It was just amazing. and
Speaker: We got in the limo and then, you know, we just, we took off and we, we didn't even go back to play. Wow. It was, it was just an experience. Wow. Well, yeah, you got to experience a little bit of what the Beatles went through. I think they had to get helicoptered out of a gig. Wasn't that in Vancouver where the the yeah crowd rushed so much, they it took a helicopter to get them out. Crazy. So what happened in your journey? Like, did you have a defining moment or how much of what you did was planned or just sort of happenstance and accident? No, we actually had.
Speaker: You know, we had a little bit of structure. our I wasn't really thrilled with our manager. I have to admit that, you know, which was the same manager that managed Teenage Head. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Of course, yeah. Teenage. Yeah. Okay. um Yeah. You know what? I think as we grew as a band, you know, my partner at the time, ah Ronnie, the guitar player, yeah we You know, we started writing a little bit more progressively. So it was like, you know, we were, we were, we were noted as a bubblegum band. Okay. Because of Hot Love that came out, that was in the late sixties, right? Right. Uh, because of Hot Love and then, and Goodbye, Farewell, which was a follow -up to it, which was, you know, became a monster hit for us. Great songs. Great songs. And then Gypsy and Thank You. Yeah.
Speaker: when these songs, you know, and i and I was getting tired of it. And I told him that, too. I said, you know, we've got to maybe we could write, you know, it was at the time of like, yes, was around. And, you know, and I thought it'd be really good to be able to to to sort of write like that. yeah And anyway, it did it did cause ah a bit of a frick ah bit of friction in the band. And, you know, that was ah my decision that came to to sort of take and a different avenue. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because, you know, a song like Hot Love, which was, you know, a big hit, I remember that well, and and it was just ah a great song that people really related to. So that kind of, I guess, pigeonhole might not be the right word, but you get known as that kind of a band, right? That's your big signature song. yeah I guess that was the first one, right? The first one that really put you on the map.
Speaker: And then, so that kind of, I guess the record people and stuff are going, well, this is what we want. This is the kind of band you are. So they kind of yeah put you into that. But I mean, that's not bad. What the heck? I mean, it's it's a great song. You got songs on the radio and you're doing what you thought you wanted to do, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt. I mean, you know, I think as as far as a band, I mean, I think we were a fun band. I'd say we, we let's say,
Speaker: We weren't looking for our fame or anything like that. We were just, we were out there and we were playing, we played a lot. Oh God, we played a lot. good for you yeah from you know From British Columbia to to the East coast and the United States. I mean, we did a lot of touring. We did a lot of touring. I don't think people realize that. yeah I think they just thought maybe the band was just like a recording band or something, but they never, you know, we we did a lot of playing.
Speaker: 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 Harris.
