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 honored to have as my guest the incomparable Mark Jordan, an icon of the Canadian music scene, a prolific and enormously successful singer, songwriter, and producer who has written hit songs that include Living in Marina Del Rey, Survival, Rhythm of My Heart, and many others. His songs have been recorded by a number of well -known artists including Diana Ross, Rod Stewart, Cher,
Speaker: Bette Midler, Chicago, Amanda Marshall and Josh Groban. It's an impressive resume by any measure. I want to do a plug early in this podcast to let people know that really consistently active you've been for decades and your body of work was, I was pleasantly surprised actually. I didn't realize that the bulk and the body of your work and quality work too. So I want to encourage people to go to markjordan .com
Speaker: If you haven't listened to Mark's music for a time or if you haven't revisited his catalogue, I would suggest that my listeners do that because really, really impressive. It seems like you're a workaholic. You don't have any gaps in your career that I could find. Is that right? Dan, I love what I do. I often go into my studio before I go down for breakfast in the morning. I really can't wait to
Speaker: create stuff, plus the fact that I'm dyslexic, quite severely dyslexic. Music is something that I can do and painting is something I can do and I understand it. I guess your dad was your main musical influence. Yeah, he was a Montreal -born classical singer and he moved to New York
Speaker: And he sang with big bands and orchestras. And then he was offered a show when television first came to Canada. Or pretty soon after that, he was offered a show on CBC. And he did that. So he came back to Toronto. I was born in Brooklyn, but I basically grew up in Toronto. So you dropped out of film school to pursue music. And then I see here you played with Bobby V.
Speaker: Oh, very early on, yeah. I joined a cover band and we played and when Bobby V came up to Toronto to play the circuit up here, he hired us, I don't know, I guess for an agent, I'm not really sure to this day.
Speaker: Yeah, it must have been fortuitous for you to play with somebody who had already had a name, right? That must have been a good end to the business for you. Yes, it was. It was great to talk to him and to get his insights into what you had to do. And we stayed up late many nights and talked about it. And it wasn't too long after that, maybe five or six years that I went to LA.
Speaker: So then you got, you got to go in the studio and do Marina Del Rey, which is obviously very, very well known song. Any of us that were around at that time, which I was, I mean, that was the ultimate summer music, right? The feel good kind of stuff. That was the fastest song I ever wrote. And I, that was the only song I wrote when I was in California. It had all the other songs written. Okay. When I was on my way to the hotel from the airport.
Speaker: we passed a sign on the highway that said next exit Marina del Rey and I thought oh what a Marina del Rey what a great name that is you know so I I went to the hotel I literally wrote that song in an hour
Speaker: My dad, he was a classical singer, but he loved all kinds of music. But he used to play a lot of orchestral music on the record player at home, and I got real tired of that. So I would hum alternate melodies over the orchestrations. Interesting. I learned to improvise that way. So when I write, I listen to the chord melody of what is the backing track, and I write something contrapuntal to that.
Speaker: which is not a usual thing for pop. You gotta just dig into yourself and write about what affects you as a human being because if that affects you as a human being it probably affects other human beings. We're more alike than we are different. I listen to what the track is saying. It'll already have a vibe. It'll already have a kind of point of view because it has a chord melody.
Speaker: song has a essentially a chord melody. So listen to it and then you have to, so it has to adhere to that initial direction and then you build on that. What I was able to do was write really, I think, very good songs and they would go into this big pile of Mark Jordan songs and then the publishers would present them to
Speaker: artists, you know, to artists that they thought could do them. You did those two albums in LA and then what happened after that? Well, my deal was over and then, so what did I do? Oh, I was, I starved. I remember sitting in my apartment. It was a little house, little rundown house near Hollywood Bowl. And I was, I had no furniture. I had a black and white TV on a cardboard box.
Speaker: And one of those plastic shaves lounges for outside and my ass was falling through the webbing and I thought I'm I'm gonna have to go back to Toronto and just as luck would have it I I ran into a guy named Ronnie Vance and Ron Vance's brother was the guy who discovered Steely Dan in New York Kenny Vance and
Speaker: Ronnie was a big music guy and, and he was a fan because he used to come down to the sessions for mannequin. So he said, I've just been, uh, hired as vice president for Warner chapel publishing. And he said, do you want to, do you want to write some songs for us? I thought, well, hell I'll try it. It went on for about 18 years. Clive Davis Clive signed me.
Speaker: to just a little singles deal. Yeah, it was a 45, right? Released under Arista, I think it says here. Yeah, when he was president of Arista, I met with Clyde, and I think he wanted me to, as a songwriter, more than an artist. I had a million deals. I'll tell you, I had an Arista deal, you know, I knew Ahmaud Ertegan because I wrote for Men At Transfer.
Speaker: And he wanted me to write pop songs for Manhattan Transfer. And he goes, you know, Mark, you know, I'm not from the jazz stuff, I'm from Manhattan Transfer. He said, even their fans hate it. You know, they got to do some more pop stuff. It was absolute bullshit. But God bless him. He was a sweet man anyway. And I loved hanging out with those guys.
Speaker: There were guys like Ahmet and Jerry Wexler, they were all gangsters, but the thing was, they were all so brilliant. They actually loved music and they understood it and they knew what was good, but they were tough hombres, I'll tell you that. Stewart over the years, I'm still writing for him. The story of the rhythm of my heart is interesting.
Speaker: The demo was sent to England in about 1983 or four on a cassette. And the head of Warner Chapel Music in London heard it. And he thought, this would be a great song for Rod Stewart, but not now. Because Rod was making records like, do you think I'm sexy? Right, he was in the 80s phase, right? Yes.
Speaker: So this guy, Rob Dickens, who was the head of Warner Chappell said, timing is not right. So he put the cassette on the shelf of his favorite cassettes. And then he, Rod wanted to get out of that kind of genre of music. He wanted to make more serious records again. And he came to Rob Dickens. He said, I want to make a real record. I want to get back to
Speaker: you know, more meaningful songs. And God bless them. Rob pulled out that cassette, played it for Rod. And the rest is history, right? But it was the right time in Rod's career for that song. That's fantastic. That's a nice story. It's nice when those things happen, but you're right. You know, people talk about writing a hit song, but I think there's lots of potential hit songs that never see the light of day. Everything has to line up.
Speaker: time for the record at radio. It has to be the right time in the artist's career. So did you do a lot of touring and traveling? Do you like that? Do you like the touring and traveling part of it and the live shows? I love them. I never used to like it. The whole time I was in LA, I didn't play live once and I was there for almost 20 years. So how many live shows do you do now in a year? Do you do lots of live shows? Do you still tour or no? Well, I have my own band and I probably do 20
Speaker: dates a year with that. And I sing with a songwriter band with Ian Thomas, Murray McLaughlin, and Cindy Church. Oh, nice. Yeah. It's just like a folk band. And it just started with one show and we were only going to do the one show and that was 20 years ago. So we do about, and I do another 20 or 30 with them. So about 50 new shows a year, which is enough.
Speaker: Today, I'm very happy to have as my guest, Will Miller, singer, storyteller, humorist, TV personality, thinker, painter, and one who has lived an inspired life. Will Miller is best known as a member of the iconic band, the Irish Rovers, and he has left an indelible mark on the Canadian music scene.
Speaker: For the first 30 years of my career with the Arizores, I was the leader of them and led them around the world. We had a very, very successful career. It wasn't like we were a major hit making band, but over the years we started with a unicorn song, a little bit of trivia for the unicorn song that interests your readers. We went down to California and we lived at Hermosa Beach and we were playing all the
Speaker: California folk clubs, Wollongan in San Francisco, the Troubadour Club in LA, the Hungry Eye. We played all those folk clubs in those early days. And we finally got a deck of record man to come out and listen to us. And he said, well, maybe I can do a St. Patrick's Day album with you guys. Fine. So we did a drinking pub album, a cheapy version in the Ice House in the club live.
Speaker: And that was the first album. But the producers all came and they listened to us. And one producer, he said, have you guys got any other kind of song that other than the Irish pub song that we could just slip into an album?
Speaker: I said, well, I have this kids song I sing to everybody seems to like, it's called The Unicorn. I sung it to him. He says, that's it. We're putting it on the album and all the boys said, what? The day that we recorded it in LA, who was doing a recording in the other studio but Glenn Campbell, great guitar player. Bud knew him, so Bud invited them in to do an intro and do the music for The Unicorn song.
Speaker: And that became a classic little lick. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
Speaker: And just driving along, listening to the radio, and the guy comes on and says, this is Don Lanigan from Albuquerque, New Mexico, 500 ,000 merits. And lo and behold, the unicorn came on the radio.
Speaker: Well, cause we had just, they just released it and pull the car over to the side of the road, woke the boys up and say, Jesus, boys, wake up. Our songs on the radio, turn the volume up full. And just at that time, this is a true story, by the way, just at that time, one of those smoky, smoky in the band that type guys with his patrol car pulled out along beside us with his lights flashing, came out of the car and I got out of the car and those days you could do that.
Speaker: I was looking into his belt bottle. Buckle, I think. And he says, what the hell are you guys up to? I said, it's just a minute. That's our song. It's on the radio. So he came over and he stood by the car door and he's listening and he opened the boot of his police car. And then he bring out a Martin guitar out of a case. And he, he sang us a couple of little country songs. You want to get in the car and come with us?
Speaker: I was going to ask you about that, Will, and the touring. You guys went everywhere. I mean, I looked at your dossier and all the places you've been in it. Did you ever get tired of the traveling? Did you like it? I loved going off to Australia and New Zealand. We went to New Zealand numerous times. I got tired of those dreary Midwest towns living in holiday ends.
Speaker: We were always there, of course, in March because of St. Patrick's Day. We were always full up halfway through February until after the middle of March. We were always busy.
Speaker: those winter weary towns of Pennsylvania and Detroit. The great crowds, they loved the Rovers, lots of good money there. But I really got tired. And I think I got tired when I finally found the woman of my dreams and we had our first son. And that changed everything because I moved out to Prince Edward Island and we bought an old farmhouse out there. And my dear wife, Catherine, she lived in that farmhouse
Speaker: with a little one -year -old baby in the dead of winter while I'm phoning her. When I'm phoning her from Australia saying, oh my God, Catherine, it's so beautiful and warm here. I wish we were here. And she said, piss off and hung up. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker: You came from Northern Ireland, I guess, is where you were born. We came from the town of Ballamina, which is the same town that Timothy Eaton, the famous Canadian shopkeeper came from. And in later years, Liam Neeson came from Ballamina as well. So we emigrated like a lot of people did in the mid 50s.
Speaker: A friend of ours opened up a folk club in Calgary called the Depression. And oh my God, it was too. It was a basement downstairs of an old building in Calgary, but it was the greatest fun of my life, I think. And I was down there singing my Ari songs. And so my brother, who was like 15 at the time, George and Jimmy were both in Toronto.
Speaker: And they had formed a little Irish band of their own in Toronto with my dad and my mom. I mean, my sister, they were singing Irish songs and they sent me some tapes. It said they sound pretty good. So I talked to my brother on, he says, when you guys, why didn't you guys come out in a holiday? So they did. And I don't want to say fortunately or unfortunately, they came in an old school bus that somebody offered them a ride to Calgary if it split the gas. And there was a bloody,
Speaker: cage of chickens in it. There was three screaming children. The man was a bit of a drinker driving the bus and so George and Jimmy had to stand behind him singing songs to keep him awake. They arrived in, I picked them up and the Irish Rovers were born.
Speaker: When the boys came out to join me, I was singing in the daytime to children. And at nighttime, we'd don our black turtleneck sweaters and we became part of the beat generation. And we went down and we were singing all these Irish drinking songs as the Irish Rovers. And that got really popular.
Speaker: At one time in Canada when the Irish Rovers finally got on to Canadian television, every Sunday night, we had for two years the highest -watching audience of anything on CBC. You know, we had such a huge audience for such a long time, and I guess the hit songs were not long. Not many of them. We had the Unicorn and then we had Wasn't That a Party a few years later.
Speaker: And more recently, who could ever forget the classic, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer? A big part of our stage show was also our comedy. Jimmy was a very funny, natural comedian, and so was my brother George in his own way. They were both funny guys, and that's why we created three leprechauns on our weekly television show that became really popular.
Speaker: I remember it well. I used to laugh more at them than the audience did because it was a typical three stooges in a way. I was a straight man and Jimmy was the buffoon, the fat buffoon. My brother George was his little ignorant sidekick.
Speaker: It's funny, that show went on and then we ended up doing one of our specials. And to my wonderful amazement, CBC gave us such a big budget in those days because the show was very successful. They let me write a script. I'd say to the producer, I want to go to New Zealand and see my old relatives. Let's do a show in New Zealand.
Speaker: Lo and behold, a Canadian crew and us were flying down in New Zealand to do a one hour special. Of course, we went to Ireland about four different times. That brought it all home finally. If I'm singing a song about moonshine whiskey in Canada on a stage, it doesn't seem
Speaker: But when I take it into the glens of Antrim, where I grew up, an old moonshiner, the king of the glens, Mickey Mechelhatten, sets up his still, gets out the fiddle, and me and the boys will sit around the still while it's bubbling away, and we'd sing a rare old Mountain Dew or something. So I was in heaven with those shins.
Speaker: We played in Carnegie Hall once to a sellout crowd. We played in the Sydney Opera House. It always became like a giant kitchen party and I think that's why people liked it. It was amazing because, I mean, you were hugely successful. Did you have any idea that it would be so huge? I mean, was it a bit of surprise? Like were things surprising you as they came along? You know what, Dan? I think to this very day, my life is a friggin' surprise.
Speaker: I think that's what life is all about. You just have to roll with it. And I never, I never in my wildest dreams thought that first of all, we'd ever get a hit record when we released that unicorn song. What a life. It was great.
Speaker: Les voters an icon of the Canadian music scene and someone I've had the honour to work with many times myself. He's a living historian of sorts, of the business and has basically done it all, starting out as a successful artist and then moving into management and promotion. So lots to talk about today. Thanks for joining me, Les. How are you, my friend? Just fine. And lots of people are interested in the history of Canadian music and the music makers. And you have an advantage point that most people do not have because you've been active, I guess, since the late 50s, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it was 1958 really when things started to start a little bit, got going a little bit there. In 1960, when our record went big time locally, it was very helpful.
Speaker: We recorded a demo for Alan Parker, songwriter that called himself Sipson P. Kloop, funny name. But anyway, he'd get groups to make demos of his songs and then he'd try and sell them to the marketplace. We did it in 1958 and it founded a home in 1960. The Blamers came out and became a number one hit in Vancouver.
Speaker: It's kind of fun, you know, you're a bunch of young guys, you get together, you like to sing and you're from Vancouver, so you put this thing together and then all of a sudden you're off to the races with this song and the fluke phone call, I guess, was what happened, right? Yeah, it was, Jack Cullen was the announcer of the day before Red Robinson came along and he had a show called
Speaker: the owl prowl that came on late and we phoned his radio programmer or one of the girls actually at our rehearsal did it and played us over the phone and he got such a good response to that he brought us in the studio and he recorded in his radio studio a bunch of stuff with us and started playing it like we were on the phone anyway that's why we called ourselves the prowlers
Speaker: We had a record out that we thought was very good. But Red Robinson at CKWX or wherever he was at, I forget where he was at, he wouldn't play it because they deemed us competition from another radio station because we were called the prowlers. And it was disappointing. And anyway, when the blamers
Speaker: was scheduled to get released. We did it with just my name. Besides, the band had broken up by then. Okay, so became Less Vote or the... Less Vote, yeah. That's all that was on the record. And I teamed up with a local band that I'd kind of been playing around with anyway on the weekends here and there and whatnot. We became Less Vote and the Blamers because of the record.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean you're young guys. It's exciting, right? I mean you songs and you're on the radio and you you end up charting and and I guess you knocked off Elvis out of From It's Now or Never that was the song and then you got your song on there and we were number one for 11 weeks So you didn't have managers. He said there wasn't a lot of organization, right? I mean, it sounds like he started your own organization with the record company. Yeah, there there was no
Speaker: route to follow, no rules or anything. We couldn't copy anybody else. There wasn't a manager or whatnot for us to just go to. We had to figure it all out ourselves. So that's why it was a slow process. And really, there wasn't a living to be made in the business at the time.
Speaker: Even with the hit record, it wasn't a business that could afford me raising a family or anything. Basically, I delivered milk as a milkman and worked on the weekends with the band. That's how that went.
Speaker: And I promoted our own dances, really. I learned how to make posters and distribute them. And I had a mailing list, much like you do on the internet today.
Speaker: So you were working a day job and you were promoting your own dances and starting to get into the promotion side of it because you really had to, right? Eventually what happened for me was I got calls from the places we were playing asking if I knew of any other entertainers or talent bands that they could hire. And so that's how I got into being an agent.
Speaker: I started to get some of the other groups around into the places I had played and I took a commission. So I basically started a booking agency. That's how it started.
Speaker: So your singing career, I mean, you had a smooth voice in the vein of the other male vocalists at the time and a nice tone and good, good voice control and good vocal control and stuff. And, you know, you had a viable career from what I can see and you had a hit song and, but you just didn't carry on with that. No, uh, I never had the confidence really. Uh, in fact, when we recorded, uh,
Speaker: Teenagers Dream in Seattle, Joe Bowles had a song that he thought suited my voice, and he asked me if I would come down and record a song for him. I wasn't confident enough to do that, and I refused, which was a big mistake because the song that he wanted me to do was Come Softly to Me, which was The Fleetwoods.
Speaker: And it was just a studio manufactured song. It wasn't a group. They were looking for somebody to sing, you know, a lead vocalist for that song. And when I heard it, I thought, wow.
Speaker: you know, it really suited me. It was something I should have done. So, you know, when people ask me, as they often do, you know, what, you know, do I have any advice for up and coming performers, et cetera? I always suggest, you know, they take advantage of every opportunity that comes their way and I tell them the story.
Speaker: Once you got into the management side of it that you preferred that was more an affinity to the management and the business part of it, which you're excellent at. So it seems you were drawn to that rather than chasing the next song or chasing the next live show for yourself. I think so. By the time I got successful and of course success always breeds more success. So I just didn't think about it anymore.
Speaker: After a little while i was never comfortable on stage totally and that i think had the most to do with my reasoning was i wasn't comfortable.
Speaker: You were moving in so many different directions. You had your own band, you were still singing and playing, you were booking and promoting other shows. You eventually got into running nightclubs and teen dances. You were moving in a lot of different directions. You also had a lot of balls in the air at that time. I did. I had to settle on letting some of it go because it was affecting my proficiency.
Speaker: I bet, yeah. Roy Orbison was what got me out of it, a lot of it, because I had an opportunity to work with him. We brought him in
Speaker: scheduled a dance at the gardens. We were doing dances, Red and I, so it had to be after 61 when he came back. Sixty -two, you had him at the garden during 1863, is what I got right in there. Sixty -two. There you go. We had him at the gardens. It was scheduled to be a dance, and we found out that there was an old bylaw that said he had to be over 18 in the city to dance, and so it came back from the early days when you
Speaker: when dancing was in kind of cabaret like things with a shelf under the table and you brought your own bottle and they served classes and pop. And it was for over adults. So really, really that's what a dance was. So they brought that old bylaw out to battle rock and roll. And they, we had to change it to a concert. So the Roy Orbison Dance became a concert.
Speaker: We had 2 ,000 people paid and it was a sold out concert. Super. We're now in the concert business.
Speaker: You formed a somewhat of a partnership, but in a friendship with Roy Orbison, right? So you knew him well and you went to England with him right after it was involved in this? Yeah, at that time, the following year I went to England just to hang out with the band because they were touring and they knew me and we liked each other and so I was able to hang out with them. We went to a
Speaker: The Bag of Nails Club there, which was for entertainers. It was kind of interesting. Tom Jones was sitting at Roy's in the band's table. I was with them, of course. And Lennon was there. John Lennon was in the audience and they wanted to meet him, but they didn't
Speaker: Didn't know how to go about it, but anyway, he went to the can, went to the washroom, so they followed him in. They were going to just accidentally bump into him and say hi, you know, which they did. And hi were Roy Orbison's band and Lennon said, yeah, so what? And they were going to invite him over to the table. Anyway, they came back to the table and just said, I don't know if I should say this. They said what an asshole he was.
Speaker: Joey Gregorish is a pioneer in the Canadian music industry, a singer -songwriter based in Winnipeg. He had some AM success in the 70s and is perhaps best known for writing and recording the wedding song. He's multifaceted as well, having worked as a radio DJ and children's entertainer with a popular TV show and as an MC at many events. It's an impressive resume by any measure. So thanks for joining me today, Joey. How are you? Hello, Dan. I am good. Thank you very much.
Speaker: So you're a Winnipeg guy and you stayed in Winnipeg while other people left. What's the deal with that? Well, you know, I mean, yeah, I guess ideally a lot of entertainers would like to move at some point. I was born here, raised here the whole bit. And, you know, Winnipeg's like, for me, it's like an old shoe. It's very comfortable. And, uh, you know, when you get out and travel a little bit,
Speaker: Winnipeg just felt very good to get back home to every time you went out on a tour or something like that and you know after really my career was like from 70 to 75 as far being active you know touring and stuff like that and you know after it was over I just I just felt comfortable here and there were you know when one door closed another opened
Speaker: I actually started with them the casinos of Winnipeg in 1999. That was a continuation of my career there. It really was a surreal career for me to get an MC job. Now, when I approached that job, when they said, could you come in? Would you be interested in being our house MC? I said, I'd love to.
Speaker: What i did was approach that job a little differently in the fact that i really really study up on the entertainers and i find stuff that maybe you know would be a little bit of a departure from a normal intro.
Speaker: And I found too that a lot of entertainers were really gun shy about an MC starting their show. And the one story I can relate to was Crystal Gale and her manager. And he said, listen, can we talk before the show, before the introduction? I understand that you're the house MC. I said, sure.
Speaker: So we went into my dressing room and he goes, I don't know how to say this, but I said, oh, you're kind of afraid of what I might say and maybe I'm just kind of a make some noise out there everybody. He goes, yeah, that's kind of what we're worried about. I said, what I do is I create an intro
Speaker: And i committed to memory but i also printed out and i give it to the manager or the road manager and i need your approval to say this reads my intro and goes oh my god i will absolutely punch you out if you don't say that you know.
Speaker: So that's, you know, and every, every entertainer, uh, I, I treated that way. And I mean, it was surreal for me to be able to intro, uh, my musical heroes and some of them have become really good friends. Well, good for you. I mean, it's great that you got to meet these guys. And of course the casinos have the budget to bring in the acts that you want to see, right? The classic acts like that.
Speaker: You know, Dan, I'll say this and I've said it over and over and again. I never get tired of saying it. And you know this for a fact. I wish the kids today could have what we had because we had such a fantastic era of music. The Winnipeg 60s here was like absolutely fat. It was like little Liverpool. I called it Liverpool.
Speaker: Nice. I mean, a lot of stuff came out of here and I just wish the kids could have what we had. We had a place to play every weekend. The worst thing that happened in those days is you broke into your dad's liquor cabinet.
Speaker: Let me ask you, what was your musical background? You wrote all those guys, sort of similar in my experience, too. You tried everything, where you played drums and organ and singing and just did everything. My first instrument was actually the violin. The violin, because my dad was, you know, like he was like the kitchen party player. Yeah, the fiddler, right? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I think that's where my, well, I know that's where my musical influence came from because him and his brother and my auntie Marie would gather in the kitchens here in Winnipeg like a lot of people did and they'd play all these fiddle tunes and then my auntie Marie could do justice to a Patsy Cline song. When I was growing up, I thought, wow, this is so cool.
Speaker: And so one day I said to my dad, you know, do you think I could play the violin like you do? And he was good. And that lasted three months, Stan. It's a tricky piece to play. It is a hugely hard instrument to play.
Speaker: Of course, the Beatles came around, you know, I thought at that time, well, I don't see any one of them playing a violin, you know. And so I took up the drums. I thought Ringo was very unique as a drummer. So I took up the drums and I drummed with my local group, the Mongrels, for a couple of years and then things started to change.
Speaker: We had a lead lead singer that was very much like a little Mick Jagger and, uh, you know, moved around and everything. And, uh, he, he really didn't have that terrific of a voice, but he, you know, he'd make up for it in showmanship. And so we're playing at make believe community club and his parents had warned him, look, you've got to get your grades up.
Speaker: Or you won't be in a band and he, you know, kind of a flaky guy, laughed it off. And, um, so we're playing at make believe community club. And 45 minutes before the gig, his brother shows up his older brother and hauls him out of the band.
Speaker: And we're going, what? Dave, you can't do this. He's our lead singer. He said, sorry, he's been warned. The parents, mom and dad sent me out to pick him up and he's not playing anymore. So there we were 45 minutes before the gig.
Speaker: And so we had like an urgent meeting in the band says, well, Joey, you must know most of the lyrics because you kind of sing along with Jeff or provide backup harmony. And I went, I'll do my best. We got through the night and then they said, look, why don't you just become our lead singer and we'll find a drummer.
Speaker: This would have been obviously around 65, 66 when this all transpired that I went, started singing. Been singing ever since. No, that's good. And you got the personality for it and you got the demeanor for it, right? So that counts a lot too. Just being able to speak and just being an upfront guy, right?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, upfront and going, here's a song we like to do because we do a lot of good songs. How much do I owe you for these compliments? I mean, I don't think I can afford the payments. No, it's good. I never, I never blow smoke. I listen to it and I see what I think. And if I don't say anything, then that speaks volumes. So it was good.
Speaker: When the Mongrels got established as the last formation, the group that was in the top five top groups in Winnipeg, Randy Backman came a calling and
Speaker: Our manager at the time was Lauren Safer, so he's Burton's manager now. And Lauren arranged this meeting with Randy. He said, Randy has got some songs. He's writing songs that you should listen to and we'll do some recording. And so we got together with Randy and he had four songs that were really quite interesting. I was told after. So there is some credence to this. That was the beginning of the guess who being
Speaker: the rest of the group being a little bit okay what are you doing writing songs for everybody else and you know that kind of became a little bit of a disturbance within the group that's what i was told so we recorded we went down to sound eighty in minneapolis.
Speaker: And the engineer at that time was Tommy Jung. And, you know, just a great guy, nice guy to work with. And Randy came and produced us. So we did these four songs. And sitting in the station was one of them. And Randy had originally written it for a Tom Jones kind of singer. And it was like, here I sit, I'm the only one, you know, like that.
Speaker: So we changed the melody, here I sit, I'm the only one, made it more of almost a middle of the road rock ballad. But the song that we had the most success with was Funny Day. And Funny Day found its way on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.
Speaker: So here it is. It's a Saturday night. I guess American Bandstand ran around five o 'clock in the evening here. So here's Dick Clark. We're going, we can't believe this. We're all just huddled around and Dick Clark goes, so now we're going to play Rate the Record. Here is a group from Canada. They call themselves the Mongrels. And let's listen to Funny Day. And we're just like on the moon. So they play Funny Day.
Speaker: And then they asked the kids, OK, rate the record. What do you think? And the kids hate it. Oh, really? They didn't exactly hate the song. They said, well, you know, it's you know, it's too fast to dance to. So then they have this lovely sound effect that goes, you know, so we played at River Heights. That was the Mecca.
Speaker: The mecca of playing community clubs in winnipeg here at river heights is where i mean the guests who played river heights and burton comings and the devarons and So, you know, that was that was the big gig So we went to play river heights that night and I stepped up the mic and sang, you know, we look to do a song that's out right now It's called funny day and in the audience you hear
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 Hare.
