Transcript
Speaker: Hi it's Dan here for Dusty Discs Radio and this is the podcast with Liner Notes revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Today I'm very honored to have as my guest Betty Ann Keller best known as a music promoter and award -winning supporter of the arts in the Waterloo region of southern Ontario. She has quite a story to tell so we'll be talking about her many musical adventures and we'll get some insights into the Canadian music scene from someone who's been part of it for many decades. So thanks for joining me today Betty Ann how are you?
Speaker: umm bri I'm really great. and When you say many decades, it's a bit daunting because I shudder to think how many. That's okay. that's ah It's experience. you know It's one way linear. so That's right. Sounds like you're doing fine. Yes, so indeed. Were you born in Waterloo? Yes, ah born and raised in Waterloo and attended the University of Waterloo as well, which is go where the um music my music um business story really began at the University of Waterloo in the 60s. I graduated in 1968, so I was on campus at the University of Waterloo for 65 to 68. At a time when the music business in Canada was really exploding, of course. Well, yeah, it was an exciting time and and mean music was a ah big influence. did Did you ever try playing music yourself?
Speaker: Yes, and it ah failed abysmally. It requires practice, as you know. Yes. what did What did you try? Did you take some lessons? I tried both piano and guitar. and um and yeah yeah I just really don't have the patience. and i It has given me a great gift, which is to really, really appreciate what musicians bring to the table.
Speaker: Well, fair enough. and And I mean, most people try an instrument or try to play, and then if it's not really their jam, then they they move on to other parts of it. But certainly there was lots of genres and influences back then. What what was your what was your main jam? like What did you like mostly in the music? I came from folk because um when I was ah very young. um My parents rented rooms in our home to university students. And so as a 10, 11, 12 -year -old girl, there were these interesting 18, 19, 20 -year -old men in the house. And they' they brought LPs and played them on our stereo. And it was mostly folk. It was Peter, Paul, and Mary, in the four tops. And one of them, actually an apocryphal story for me, if I can launch right into a story for you,
Speaker: um When I was 13, one of the boys in the house, very shy fella, but he really wanted to go see Peter Paul and Mary at Massey Hall and he did not want to go by himself. So he requested my father's permission to take me to Massey Hall to see Peter Paul and Mary. And it was a big deal. It was a big deal for me. And ah I can still bring up the memory of sitting in the nosebleeds we were literally right beside the follow spot at Massey Hall with this big hot thing yeah right beside us and the vision of the three of them on stage. So then fast forward to um the 1990s when I was working for Lorena McKenna and
Speaker: We did a show at Massey Hall with Lorena, but before the show, I walked out on stage at Massey Hall, you know that quiet moment before yeah the soundcheck, and just stood there and looked up and remembered the 13 -year -old girl who had attended her first concert and watched Peter, Paul and Mary from The Gods at Massey Hall. It was a powerful moment and I thought, yep,
Speaker: This has been your life girl. And that was the start of it. Yeah. Well, interesting though, the reason I asked about the genre is because obviously there was a whole soup out there at that time. There was the acid rock and the psychedelic and the heavier stuff. And then, but the folk thing was, it was huge. And and that to me, I don't know if you'll agree with this or not, but that was the true singer songwriter, the people like the, like the Woody Guthries and the people that were living that experience and then singing songs about it.
Speaker: Yes and i I have to admit that that's that's really still where my heart is with the music that I purchased tickets for today. ah The most recent one that I attended was the Bruce Coburn concert at Memorial Hall in Guelph and there's a guy that is an incredible songwriter not just for lyrics but man he can play the guitar and as always says several guitars on stage so musically and poetically um that turns my crank for sure still yeah to this day. Yeah and and it but in it's the heart of it as well because they're feeling from their experience right it's the true singer -songwriter because that that word gets bandied about quite often now singer -songwriter but
Speaker: Those guys were very influential in writing from the heart and singing about like Murray McLaughlin's of the world and those guys, right? Yeah, and still producing songs. yeahp well That's great. so yeah so they You got a BA from University of Waterloo and you became a high school teacher. as I did. wish that was so It was what you did when you were in your 60s and your parents were paying for your education. you had to be You had to say what you were going to be when you grew up. right That's right. I'm being asked of that a lot for sure.
Speaker: And so I did teach English for three years. But um when I was at university, my boyfriend was Joe Risha. And then we were married in 1969. And Rock This Town tells the story of how Joe became a music promoter um as a sort of sideline to his work as an engineer.
Speaker: But I taught for three years, but at the time Joe was having so much fun promoting all these shows. And I thought, no, this is this is not how I want to spend my days. And so yeah ah shift did yeah I shifted to become his assistant in the music promotion business. yeah And then by about 1974, I was running the shows.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, and that is really, so you mentioned the documentary Rock This Town. It's fantastic. I watched the whole thing and of course took notes on it so I could ask you some questions about it, but I often ask my guests, you know, how much of what you did was planned or happenstance or just straight up accident. And in your case, it comes out very clearly that it was just an opportunity. I guess the door was open and you both walked through it.
Speaker: That's right. it was It was a question of timing. And I was still in high school when Joe was starting to promote shows on on campus at the University of Waterloo. And and between about 1963 and the 1980s, that was our business, right? Our activity.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's fun, right? My old manager used to say that all the time. Everybody wants to be involved in show business in some measure. And if you can't play, then you get to eat. There's an excitement. I mean, it comes out in the documentary very well. There's a whole buzz. It's exciting. Like when Joe's and doing the interviews, he's smiling almost the whole time. Yeah. Well, you know, when I set out to make that film,
Speaker: It was the pandemic that inspired me to look around and see what was happening with all my musician friends in Waterloo Region. and it was really I was really concerned because I've always considered myself an advocate for the arts. and as I had just retired in 2013, so I was in a good position to start you know to to start to do something specific about the live music scene here in Kitchener -Waterloo. and um And I thought, you know somebody has to remember what
Speaker: rich history we have here in, in kitchen honestly any university town in Canada yeah was involved in presenting live music in the 60s and 70s and it was the changes in the music business that that changed how musicians chose to make their living. But I really wanted to get at, what I wanted to get at was what is it that motivates people to risk their money and their time and their effort and put themselves on the line to promote live music? Because there were years when I didn't make a whole lot of money doing it, but I i was still,
Speaker: enthusiastic about bringing musicians together with audiences. And I could see the impact that live music had on an audience and saw the value of it, you know, the intrinsic value, not just, let's see how much money we can make selling tickets to this band. It was, let's see if we can actually shift something in all the people who came to see that act. You know, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Supertramp,
Speaker: Those are acts that transformed people in the audience. but yeah and I was blown away in the in the documentary, some of the names, and I'm going to ask you about some of those as well. but I was just totally blown away, but yes, you're right. and There has to be an element of loving what you do because there's a rush that happens when you get a full audience and and the audience is buying what the musicians are selling and it's just a symbiotic relationship, I guess you'd say. You ought to know.
Speaker: rush ah but well there and I've worked with lots of promoters and and they have to love it because it's a blood sport at times. I've seen them lose their shirt and ah you know and i mean I've seen them lose money on on shows that they thought were going to be good. so yeah it found and and You come across well in that as well in the sense of being strategic and and doing it carefully like like Joe being an engineer, right?
Speaker: yeah It's a very left brain. So, so he's, he's kind of calculating it out and put some metrics to it and say, okay, we got to make this work. But that's, that was something great that he brought to the table because if you just go willy -nilly, I know people who have mortgaged their homes to put on big festivals and lost everything. Yep. So its very he was smart. It's bizarre actually. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So that comes out as well in the, in the documentary, which is great. And then, so I just wanted to ask you about it. you know So you're, you're young, you've got these young aspiring musicians that you're bringing in. So the neat thing about it, you know, I often ask my guests how much of what you did was a function of the time in which you did it. And it's pretty clear, you know, you've got these people on the cusp of, of becoming big stars. And then you mentioned that. So the, so the Elton John story just blew me away. Yeah. yeah Can you recount that a little bit? Isn't that crazy? you know yeah when um when i was making When I was doing the research for the film, I was determined to make sure that all the facts were straight right and looking for evidence. And i I combed every student newspaper and the local newspaper, and I could find not one reference in print to Elton John appearing in the pub.
Speaker: well before he played California. But it's, you know, I have to believe that Joe, Joe's memory was reliable. I mean, how can you make something like that up? And then yeah the story of the pinball machine that comes later when, elton you know, we had a a bit of a sidebar here. A lot of the big acts that we were able to bring to Kitchener happened because we forged a partnership with them promoters in Toronto and Montreal. Michael Cole at Concert Productions International and donald K. Donald or Donald Tarleton from DKD Productions in Montreal. They approached us and other small -town promoters
Speaker: to say, look, we want to we want a bid on getting big international acts and we want to be able to give them 10 dates in Canada. And to do that, we need you to be the partner be our partner in Kitchener. And there were you know there were people in London and people in Winnipeg and all across the country so that they could make those deals.
Speaker: And in the 70s, that was one of the reasons why there were of these big touring acts in Canada. I certainly can't take credit for getting getting those acts into Kitchener. As a matter of fact, I had a phone call from um somebody at Donald's office one time asking me if I wanted to present Julio Iglesias. And I said, who?
Speaker: I had no idea who will you replace Jesus. So that was a missed opportunity, shall we say. yeah Well, i was I must say I was taken aback at how many, you know, I thought, okay, Kitchener Waterloo, I mean, normally you would go to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and then here in Kitchener Waterloo, you've got this whole extended list of of all these A -list acts that came there and and more than just came there, but had a connection according to what Joe said, right? That this Cooper Tramp connection where they played it at your house.
Speaker: Well, we were very friendly with um their road manager. um He had been a friend for many, many years. And so and then out um plus Joe had worked frequently with their agent it out of New York, Alan Fry. And we'd had ah we'd had Alan at at the house during our college conferences. That is also a little note in the film. but um So there was it went beyond just business. there was We were very friendly with the band and with their management team. So yeah so they they would needed warm -up dates for big Toronto shows quite often.
Speaker: and That was the year that they sold out the CNE stadium, and which was a massive show. But coming from overseas, they wanted to warm up before. So yeah, yeah they they liked us. They came to the house. it was It was a fun night. Joe may have exaggerated the numbers of people at the house.
Speaker: Well, there you go. but but it's definitely enough yeah four hundred a said four hundred yeah It speaks to a greater point because you know when you when you're touring, when you're out of town and stuff, you know there's a lot of nameless, faceless people. There's just a lot of people around. Oh, it's brutal.
Speaker: When you find ah friendly faces or people that you know or you have some affinity with, it it really makes a big difference because you feel homish or homey, if you know what I mean. you yeah I do know exactly what you mean. A local shout out to a wonderful restaurant here in Kitchener called the Charcoal Steakhouse. The band loved the ribs from the Charcoal Steakhouse. Every time they came to Kitchener, we had to get ribs.
Speaker: Yeah, there you go Well, that's funny because it so so this morphed into like like joe tells the story or you tell the story through the documentary Which you produced by the way, right? We should we should say that it was your your baby. yeah You put it together and produce it. So it comes out in there that that uh, basically there was no one else to to put these dances on they were at the university and he started putting the dances on and it quickly morphed into a pretty big deal. I mean it's it You're talking about bands again on the cusp of of making it or or right when they did make it. So you had Chicago when they were called the Chicago Transit Authority. yeah You had them. I saw the the video footage. I'm not sure if that footage was from the Kitchener Waterloo show, was it? No, a lot of the footage in um and Rock This Town is was downloaded from any YouTube sources we could find. We made an effort to um
Speaker: what's the word I'm looking for, too, the that the footage was authentic to the time that the story was being told. right yeah So a young a very young Elton John, a very young Chicago Transit Authority, um yeah but they weren't necessary. There were some segments that were indeed footage from the Kitchener Waterloo shows, but but we used a lot that wasn't.
Speaker: Well, the reason I brought that up is because, you know, you, you're a few years older than me, but not much. But, uh, back then, you know, you forget to film things. Nobody has a video camera. You don't have cameras. Like we've done tons of things that were never documented properly that were never filmed or, or even snippets of of things. So I was wondering about how much, when you go back to do the research, it's hard to find stuff, right? Well, a I had a couple of good things in because this is a a local film, right? it's It is the Kitchener Waterloo story. um ah There are so a couple of
Speaker: really good archives. One is the archive photo archive from the local newspaper called the Kitchener Waterloo Record and the other is the student newspapers which are kept in an archive at the university. So it was actually my first um retirement project in 213 because I knew I wanted to do something with history of the music business as a retirement project and I spent hours sitting in the libraries at University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and the public libraries just looking at old material yeah and pulling data out to confirm, yes, Led Zeppelin played the Kitchener Auditorium in November of 1969. Because there's the ad.
Speaker: Yeah, no good. Well, so that so you make a good point because the at least the the newspapers, you had enough of a buzz that the newspapers would come down and take pictures and not not video. Exactly. You didn't take much video back then. No, so but there was a little. There was a little. It was the student newspapers that were really the most um adventuresome when it came to documenting things. Yeah. Well, it's funny because an old promoter said to me one time, he said, you know,
Speaker: band Big bands, you know, they have this hype about them, but they're all looking for work, right? They want gigs. And he said, if you've got the money and you can set up the event, then you get you get the band. Because the first thing that struck me is, well, how did you get all these international acts? Like, did you have connections? Did you have just a big checkbook, somebody with a big fat checkbook? I mean, it seems counterintuitive to me.
Speaker: Well, at the university in the sixties, every student paid a student activity fee. And so there was this pot of money ah that the student, so -called student council, it was called the Federation of Students. um And Joe was, ah I mean, he obviously demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit early on and The president of student council took him aside at one point and said, look, let's give these people some value for the student activity fee.
Speaker: And he was encouraged to book acts and sell the tickets at like $3, $3 .50, $2 .50. I think Alice Cooper was $5. I mean, it's just nuts, the the ticket prices. And the irony was that after several years of running concerts for the students, they made money. Like,
Speaker: it It didn't make any sense, but there was there was actually, when Joe graduated from the university in 69, there was a big pot of money that they had to deal with. And they ended up giving it to to a charity. there was ah okay There was a big confab. and but so it's the So thiss to answer your question, this it was the fact that student fees were collected in the 60s that made the difference in Waterloo. And it's when I talk to students now in 2024, and they say, well, why don't we have any music on campus? I don't understand what's happening. I'm like, look at the student activities fee. There is no one, there is no organization that is willing to be that risk taker, that entrepreneur to actually make it happen.
Speaker: So there are other entrepreneurs in the community that do these things, right? And yeah that those were some of the people that I interviewed in the film, or to make it their business, to set up a jazz club, to make it their business, to have a blues festival. ma you know Paul Maxwell at Maxwell's Music House is is a permanent music venue, and he does it as a business. That's his business. okay and And because he's selling liquor, he's making money.
Speaker: So I really applaud that and that that spirit of let's just do it. you know yeah But they be strategic about it and don't don't risk you know the the farm as they say. Exactly. exactly exactly I talked to Ron Sakamoto. I had a great talk with Ron Sakamoto on the podcast and he was very much that way. Very strategic and ended up making good money, but had to make some, be be smart about it and yeah and do the right show. so So back to Led Zeppelin though. So you had Led Zeppelin right when they hit. Yes. Perfect timing. We had a break down and babe, I'm going to leave. and um The sound was awful. It was the auditorium. It was the you know the hockey arena.
Speaker: and the reason we were there and involved at all was because Joe was managing the opening act, Copper Penny. okay and And so that's the only reason we were at that concert. Another promoter had brought in Led Zeppelin. We can't take the credit for that. okay and um And the audience wasn't that big. I remember that there were only about 400 people, but there are many, many people who claim to have been at the Led Zeppelin concert.
Speaker: Well, I mean, that album came out, the first album came out in 69, right? So that's right. I mean, that would have been a few months earlier that they hadn't quite hit yet as they would in the next year or two. I was going to say the auditorium staff and it was the city of Kitchener really that operated the building. They loved the success of those rock concerts. They liked, they loved seeing those numbers come through their building because otherwise it's just a nice palace, right? Yeah, that's right. So we had a lot of support from them. Well, you bring that out in the documentary how the venues were, you were filling their venues. So they were happy. Yes, exactly. They were all ears, right? What do you got? Yeah, exactly. So then the Emerson Lake and Palmer story is very funny where they rolled up with what, 16 or 18? Yeah.
Speaker: crazy yeah So tell me about that. what was What was the venue there and what was the deal with that? That's the that's the the ice the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. again that's the ice ah So that's the biggest venue in that area, right? Yes, was it was 6 ,000 seats. and i think If I think about it, it's probably the only, um it's ah but it's still the biggest venue, indoor venue in okay Kitchener -Waterloo. There are outdoor events that that draw more people than that, but I'd love to see a bigger venue, frankly. We have we have a population that will be a million within within the next five years. And I think it's scandalous that that we can't accommodate major touring acts.
Speaker: um But right bigger minds than mine. But ELP showing up with 16, 18 tractor trailers. That must have just been a mind blowing. It was fabulous. i have to When I think back to those big bands you know I don't even know what to label them anymore but Supertramp, Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake and Palmer are probably the three most outstanding oh concerts in my memory. I appreciated them the most. right um I love that big orchestral sound you know.
Speaker: Well, yeah, and and plus these are world class acts and they come in with that attitude, right? They're like, we're, yeah you know, one guy said one time about, we saw big and rich. And he said, they came out on the stage like, we're the greatest band in the world and we're going to prove it to you right now. That was their attitude. And I thought, okay, there you go. No, they were, they were very civilized people. ah the The, the only major act I think that was a bit, um, full of himself was, and I,
Speaker: In hindsight, he's probably just shy, is Bob Dylan. no know when When Bob played, and i we didn't get into that in the film, but when Bob played um the auditorium, it was an interesting show because um he was he was experimenting with his is so songs with a Christian message.
Speaker: right he and he is yeah And he had only recently gone electric. And there were people who walked out, you know there were people who shouted and you know were angry and left left the venue because they didn't want to listen. So i've lost I've thought back to that show many, many times over the years, because here's an artist that just said, this is who I am.
Speaker: take me as I am and if you don't like it don't buy a ticket or don't buy the record but this is what I'm going to do and I really really admire him for that and I admire you know the band and Robbie Robertson and that whole gang that that just They were true to, they have been true. The artists, I think this is what I'm trying to say. The artists who have been true to themselves are the ones that I admire the most. Because those are the ones who have something to say.
Speaker: Yes, and i get and and for Bob Dylan, he at that point, he could probably do what he wanted, but that crossing the genres, like they knew him as the the brilliant lyricist, the folk artist that really spoke to that generation in a serious way. like You listen to the words too, you know some of his songs are pretty excellent you know they're not pretty excellent but they are excellent and you know and and uh and then he switched to electric so heavy criticism for that and then and then try to infuse you know if somebody becomes whatever a Scientologist a vegan a Christian whatever and then infuse that into your music it really is a disconnect for people that i kind of understand it's hard i get it i get it it's hard for people to follow along but um
Speaker: yeah a nice Yeah, so I get that criticism. i mean I'm a Christian myself, but i don't we don't say a prayer before we start our shows. you know what i mean right you know't You're just there to play good music and yeah and not sort of preach at people. so yeah So I can kind of see the criticism was fair enough from the people, what they expected and what they wanted. but yeah but if you're um you're either a you're either a fan or you're a devotee. And I you know i' i think I'm in the latter category. i just I'm so taken with what an artist is capable of doing. I'm just like, show me what you got. Give it to me. Yeah, you make a fair point. That's a fair point because you want to evolve with the artist and you're willing to go on a ride with that artist, right? He's going, hey, let's check it out. After the music business changed dramatically, I worked for
Speaker: individual musicians for many years. ah um ah yeah I guess on a management side of things from about 89 until 98 when I went to work for the city. And that was a very fulfilling time for me because I do admire there ah the creativity that professional musicians can give me. yeah It's exciting to me.
Speaker: Oh, for sure. And so so speaking of that, in in the documentary, Randy Backman says that he wrote American Woman at the old curling rink there. Isn't that true? Well, Randy says it is. Well, I remember i remember the show. So, um yes, the guests who did play, the it was a roller rink at the time. Oh, the roller rink, okay. He remembers it as a curling rink, but that story has been told many times.
Speaker: and um Burton tells the story as well. Burton thinks that it was ah someplace, and ah they they both agree that it was an ice palace of some sort, right? Like it wasn't a theater. It was some sort of weird rink.
Speaker: and um Burton thinks it was Mississauga, although Burton has been known to say it was Hamilton as well. But in that band, Randy was the only one who never did drugs or drag. yeah So I'm inclined to believe Randy. ah Yes, fair enough. but i had john john anderson John Anderson has written two books about Randy and he said his his stories do evolve and change.
Speaker: said it depends that's it is so Anyway, we're claim we're definitely claiming it. and There's a plaque in the hardware store. Okay. for Yeah, that's right. Cause it's a home hardware now, right? That's right. Yeah. And then, uh, that's funny, but, uh, you know, I guess everyone wants their piece, right? There's there's a very funny story about a place in Montreal where Burton went in and had too much to drink and threw up on the second level. And they have a plaque there where Burton coming through.
Speaker: but's do good
Speaker: That's very funny. yeah This is i mean this is so so much more interesting than teaching English to high school students. oh well yeah Honestly, why would you do that? So then, well, tell me about the Neil Young connection then. because he he and The funny thing about Neil Young, every time I've read his book and stuff, he bounced around all over the place. Man, was that guy mobile. and Yeah, but he's and he's another one that's in in my category of the real thing. He's provided many, many perspectives on things.
Speaker: neil um There was a stable of artists that ah that came out of the Bernie Fiedler, Bernie Finkelstein connection. Those those two in Toronto were partners for many, many years. and manage and then the riverboat was the other piece of the puzzle yeah in Yorkville. um So Neil would have come to Laurier through the Finkelstein -Fiedler connection and that's how that's also how we got Joni Mitchell which was a very memorable night for me because
Speaker: So, yeah, so Neil Murray McLaughlin, Bruce Coburn, Joni Mitchell, that was all part of that ah True North stable of artists. Yeah. Yeah. And for for our listeners, if they realize how big those artists were at that time, they were still emerging in some sense, but they were also big stars by then as well. Right. Yeah. so Well, the jo the Joni Mitchell concert is very memorable for me because she came with a big big noisy band called Tom Scott and the LA Express. And it was such a departure from
Speaker: this beautiful blonde woman with a guitar and singing folky things. And suddenly there's this big sound coming off the stage. It was spectacular. And the show didn't do very well, but musically it was an incredible experience because you could see where she was going with this. She wasn't gonna be a little folky on a stool.
Speaker: I guess, but you're more, you're more with the artist and evolving with the artists. if If you go see Joni Mitchell, you're going to want to hear her hit songs played. She's a brilliant acoustic player too. Yeah, for sure. she's such a She's such an icon. Well, yeah. So was there a letdown? Was the audience somewhat let down by that?
Speaker: I just think they didn't know what to do with it. You know, they politely listened and, um, but it was, she was doing what she wanted to do. And what a treat to see and Tom Scott, the l LA express. That was a bonus. And what venue was that? It was a basketball gym um at Wilford Laurier. Can you imagine? yeah Yeah. So you had lots of different venues. How did you decide which one to use? I mean, usually capacity you know what's the capacity that we need yeah for a particular artist okay yeah because some of those like you said some of those old tin shacks you know I've had Kim Burley on from the Stampeders lots of times yeah a couple times on the podcast and stuff but I mean they played every tin shack hockey arena from here to Timbuktu and back 50 times and they're just there's just not much you can do in there that the sound is rattling off the tin roof and but it was
Speaker: You know, it was a gig for a musician that had to keep playing. Yep. Played lots of them. So i I know that I know the drill, but you know, you just make the best of the venue if you can. And and people were, I think more forgiving. I think more nowadays I would say people are more discerning about the sound than they were back then. They were caught up in the buzz and the PAs and some bands didn't have proper monitors. and I would have to agree. Yeah. I have so many questions for you, you know, because you're so just still a working musician. I think about, um,
Speaker: yeah I think about what it must be like now, right? Because I'm watching um all the artists that are touring again, because it's the only way they can make a living, right? yeah So audiences have a chance to catch to see some pretty memorable acts.
Speaker: Yeah. And I'm pretty much the poster boy for someone who made a living. I was born in 1960. Absolutely. I played my first professional gig in 76 and I've been a full -time musician since 82 and made a good living and raised my family, bought a house, went to school, put my kids through. I mean, I did the whole thing, but I really insisted on it. But it's not, in my view, it's not that much different in the sense that um There's lots of competition you have to be willing to sacrifice you have to really really want it So I did a seminar one time on helping bands find better paying gigs and one of the things that I pointed out was You have to love doing it because if you don't you're competing against somebody who does
Speaker: yeah And that guy's going to get the gig because he loves what he does. and And I love what I do and I'm thankful and I'm having my best years ever. Last year was the best year I've ever had. This year match it or be better. But it's from tenacity, insisting on doing it, improving, caring, being astute business wise because a lot of musicians are very good musicians, but they're not astute ah financially or in the business world. So they're still doing gigs for a hundred bucks, you know?
Speaker: and the And who see the audience? Is it is it Boomers? or is For me, you know I play mostly retro now. I do ah acoustic music, which is mostly 70s, so all the Gordon Whitefoot, James Taylor, Jim Crochet, Cat Stevens, all that stuff. People love that. Even the young people love that. You play Moonshadow, you play Time in a Bottle, you play Cats in the Cradle. I don't care what age you are. Those songs are multi -generational. People love them. Classic, absolutely.
Speaker: Right. And they get it. Even if they're hearing the song for the first time, they listen to Cats in the Cradle and they get shivers. I love hearing this. This is fantastic. So I do that. And then we do March Hare, which is mostly 60s, 70s and 80s. We do some show bits. ah We do corporate events. I just stay in my lane. I'm not going to play Drake or Justin Bieber. I'm not interested. I'm too old for that anyways. And then I do that. And you have original material.
Speaker: I do have ah an album out, but i did that was a labor of love. I didn't expect to make money from that. So the people who are putting their eggs in that basket, you know I knew lots of people back in the 80s. They did what we called the starvation tour. You get in ah in a station wagon and you head to Halifax and back to Vancouver twice, play all these small venues with 50 people in them. It doesn't do much for your career and your starve.
Speaker: um yeah So I say work on your songs, try to find events that are going to make sense for you to do, and then try to get a song. Every artist, I don't care who it is, as soon as you mention an artist, if I say Jerry Doucette, the first thing that pops in your mind is mama let them play.
Speaker: Yeah. Unless you get that connection, you can play every club from here to Timbuktu till, you know, hell freezes over, so to speak. And you're not going to get the connection that you're looking for. So people like Brian Adams and Loverboy, they understood that, right? Brian Adams understood that clearly. I need a hit song. I need a song that people are going to go. And you mentioned Brian Adams. You think of Summer of 69.
Speaker: So I think a lot of the bands that did the starvation tours back then didn't didn't play it strategically enough. And now um for the last 10 years, I've been doing a Bob Seger and a John Fogerty show, because I knew that the tributes would be big, especially now that Bob Seger is retired. um So we try to do a 70s Bob Seger. And those have been selling great. The theaters love them. And and I'm doing lots of those. I got many too. I am amazed that a lot of the so -called professional theaters are presenting.
Speaker: tribute bands as well. I saw one recently in Toronto for Fleetwood Mac. right Yeah, so there's lots of those out there. yeah I'm fortunate in the sense that there's not a lot of Bob Seger's because it's very challenging to sing and I look enough like him and sound enough like him that I can pull it off. But let me tell you this, it's a lot of his music is multi -generational. We have grandmothers that are 80 years old that bring their grandkids to the show.
Speaker: And they all sing along, they know old time rock and roll, they know like a rock, they know Turn the Page, they know Hollywood Nights, they know Against the Wind. Like these songs are multi -generational songs and it's from the golden age of of rock, you know, the 60s, 70s and into the 80s. So I've been able to, I don't want to say exploit in a negative sense, but I've been able to use that to my advantage. You're meeting an appetite in the market absolutely for sure. say yeah And I'm very thankful to be able to do that.
Speaker: When I ah get into my um preacher mode for um the importance of live music and, you know, what can we do? What can we do? What can we do, Betty, to make it better? I always ah talk about the the free festivals because that's where the, that's in Kitchener -Waterloo, that's where the intergenerational stuff happens. And I think it happens in um other mid -sized cities as well. if um you know if you can If you can get that 80 -year -old woman bringing her grandchildren to attend the concert, that plants those seeds. and Fantastic. there's nothing There's nothing more powerful than, and this is where my you know faith in this comes through, is it's it's an amazing experience to sit and listen to a band or a single musician. It's transformative.
Speaker: And just give people the chance to do it, you know? yeah um i get I have ah six grandchildren and I just despair at the amount of time they spend in what I would call solitary activities on their screens, right? yeah And so I'm the one saying, come on, let's go. Because their parents don't have time.
Speaker: There's so many distractions now. Exactly. Right. I mean, there's so many other things. And one of the things that I say about shows, ah people aren't quite as willing now to sit and and sort of take in a show with the lulls and the ups and downs of a show and the talking and and those kinds of things. So one of the things I often say is imagine that your audience has a, everyone has a clicker in their hand.
Speaker: And they're going to go fast forward or they're going to go on to the next channel. and And unfortunately, that's the way some audiences are. So the way we defeat that is we do a show like we'll do ah a John Fogarty Bob Seger show, but we do short 45 minute sets and they're packed full of hit songs. So it's like a knockout, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Speaker: I love it. asking me Yeah, they're they're not asking them to to be patient while you talk or while you tune your guitar. We're just we're just going for it. and and I want you to bring your John Fogerty show to the Registry Theatre in Kitchener.
Speaker: I'd love to. i you know i was I was going to mention I was i was born in Guelph. I'm from Guelph and was so around that area for about 10 years before my parents moved out here. But I don't know if you ever heard of the band The Hourglass in the 70s, but my Uncle Bruce and my cousin Phil, they played around. They were based out of Guelph and they did quite well in Southern Ontario as a You know, they played pubs and they went down to Daytona Beach and they did an album and they put it out and it did quite well for them. And and they were based out of Guelph and they played all around that region and area. And I would have done that too, except my parents moved out to Vancouver, so I had to go back there out here. That's a whole other thing.
Speaker: So let me ask you a couple other things. You have Frank Zappa there too, which Frank Zappa was very famous for just getting in his bus and traveling everywhere. I mean, that guy did the road. He was a road warrior, which ah not everyone probably understands or realizes, but he was a really interesting artist for sure. Yeah. Tell me about him. What was the experience like there?
Speaker: Well, you know, the the political um atmosphere at the university during the sixties, and this may have been true elsewhere as well, was pretty far left. and And Zappa was seen as an anarchist. And so that show drew all the all the hippies from like the campus. and And so, I mean, i' okay I was pretty conservative, you know, sweet sweet little Lutheran girl from Waterloo attending the University of Waterloo. So I didn't ah categori and categorize myself as a hippie, but I could see that that's where the audience, that's who the who was in the audience for that show, for sure. And um I liked that, looking back, you know, I liked that sense that
Speaker: The music that we were presenting wasn't strictly for entertainment, you know, the Sean -Ana and Tiny Tim could not be described as political in any way, shape or form, but Frank Zappa was. yeah And so I feel proud that that was part of the programming for sure.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, I often ask my guests, the musical guests for sure, you know, was there a message in your music, you know, guys like Bruce Coburn, who you brought up and, and there was other, other artists, who use some of the protest songs or some of the, you know, dropout kind of songs drop out of society and at the anti -war stuff in that category for sure. Yeah. Yeah and so so some of them are are they're not preachy per se but they they have a message that the music is a vehicle for sure and and I think that's okay. I don't like it when you see a concert and then the guy goes into a big rant. I've had that happen a couple times where they go into a big anti political rant or something. I'm there to hear the music but if if it's in the music
Speaker: then that's fine. so yes I also like artists that are that are very um they have their feet firmly planted on the ground and they're very close to the working class. of you know the pretty ah Once again it's a bit left but Stan Rogers was like that. I never presented Stan Rogers but I've always admired his music and he's in, there's a brief segment in Rock This Town because Denise Donlan at the University presented him and then she has a good story about that. um But I went, one of the artists that I worked with after after I stopped presenting concerts locally was I went on the road with Rita McNeil for
Speaker: um 10 dates or so in Ontario and what an experience that was because her you know her band and herself just salt of the earth honestly and the you know I was recruited by Reed's manager Brooks Diamond and he played me ah a cassette tape in his car of working man before it was released. And I was, I was a mess. I was like in tears listening to this song because my father worked in a dirty old rubber factory all his life. And he always made it ah his business with me and my brother that we would go to university and we would not go to work in the factory. So Rita's ah relationship with a working class audience
Speaker: was so powerful to me to be on tour with her and see who was coming to listen to her songs. and Well, that yeah, that was much that was much of her appeal. It's funny, I studied counseling for many years and I asked a professor one time, well, what is it what's your goal in counseling? He said, you know, we want people to be authentic, be true to yourself, and then be transparent about it. Let people know that. And people like Rita McNeil, it was exactly that. That's exactly what you see is what you get.
Speaker: She put, yeah she was so stage fright. She had so terrible stage fright. I stood with her in the wings and she'd be shaking like a leaf, but she'd put that hat on her head and out she'd go, right? The hat gave her the courage to. Oh, good. Well, and what a genuine person, yeah you know, so that was good. I was going to ask you if you did any touring and I think you did, ah you did that tour and did you do any other tours?
Speaker: Yeah, the ah the Rankin family as well. I was on the road with them for a while. And um and then I worked for five years with Lorena ah McKenna for in her office doing her touring. But I have one story about Rita to tell you. the yeah place is We were on the bus and you know moving the gear down the road the whole. We played Kirkland Lake. Talk about terrible venues. This is horrible old hockey arena.
Speaker: in Kirkwood Lake, but that is a mining community. And it was a packed house of 4 ,000 people that came out to see Rita. And after the show, she did did a concert, the audience was very polite. After the show, she always sat down to ah autograph CDs, because of course they were selling CDs as well. And I got to tell you,
Speaker: I think all 4 ,000 people lined up at that table and they all wanted to tell Rita a story. wow We were there for hours while she listened to every story that came past her table and I ah walked with her into the dressing room afterwards. and She burst into tears and I said, oh honey, are you okay? She said, oh, Betty, the stories, the stories. And her heart was just broken listening to all these people. But that was Rita. but She had a heart. Oh yeah, that's the real thing. That's where
Speaker: the juices for me. yeah that's good and that you know Where music has that kind of power and to be in the presence of someone. You can listen to the recordings. The recordings are great and I love to listen to recordings too but to be in the same room with somebody that's Making that magic. well Yeah. And that's a good point. I think that comes out in the documentary, right? You can record the live event. People do it all the time. I haven't done a gig in the last 10 years where somebody doesn't have a phone in your face or recording it, but it's not the same vibe or buzz or of energy. it's It's good, but it's not the same, right? So so it's funny how you you became by default, you became an old school promoter. I've i've talked to a ah couple of different guys and and people in the industry, but
Speaker: Back in those days, when you started promoting, did you have a hammer stapler? Were you a staple of posters to the telephone poles and stuff? Did you go out and make a phone call? Well, it was hard to reach people, right? i mean It was before the internet, honey. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we can reach thousands of people now with one click on the on the computer. But back then, I mean, we promoted shows ourselves and we we bought a hammer stapler and a bunch of staples and got 500 posters made up and just went out. and Yeah, fostered the it's true. So and then other other tricks of the trade back then I guess you were phoning connections and and like a ticket dealer, I guess. Well, I was not only a concert promoter, I was also a mother. Right. And, um i you know,
Speaker: the In 1976, when um ah when i was I was presenting KISS at the Kitchener Auditorium and the day before the concert, I went into labor with my son. Oh, geez. You didn't put that one in the documentary. That wasn't it.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: wow And when I did Supertramp in 1979, I was about a week from delivering my daughter. chief and so um yeah so for the you know In the 70s, between and 1979, I had a little boy who came with me everywhere to visit the radio station, to make the deal, to ah pick up the tickets at the printers, to distribute, I didn't actually put up a lot of posters because I paid somebody else to do that because I had this little boy, right? But yeah, yeah so it's, um yeah, it's been interesting. At Supertramp, it was July and it was so hot. And Roger in the band, um he and his wife had just had a baby about a week before, you know, in
Speaker: in California, the the baby was born in a trailer behind yeah behind the venue and so he sees me waddling around you know in this horrible hockey arena in stifling heat and he was very sympathetic. Bless his heart. So there I was with my briefcase and my sensible shoes.
Speaker: presenting Supertramp. There we go, went crazy. And then the other thing that comes out in the documentary, which is cool, is that you had the college and university circuit. I mean, some bands like the Dave Matthews band, for example, but there's others that tragically have other bands. They came up through that circuit, right? And you guys talk about that. And that was a really big deal because you could block up these dates. I think of all the things that we did in, it's one of the things I'm most proud of actually, because it really was a game changer for the Canadian music business to to have the universities fully engaged in being promoters, right? And um yeah, we ran that conference for several years and the last one was 76 and we were at the Harbour Castle Hotel but there's some memorable stories from
Speaker: local hotels in Kitchener and started at the university and then we it grew of course so we were getting participants from all over Canada and and the American ages quickly clued in that there was some interesting action happening. um But my favourite story from the conference was we were at the CD Motel in Kitchener called the Coronet Motor Hotel with the conference. they they It was a live music venue. They also did strippers but we booked the hotel for the conference this year and my friend and I are in the office and we're doing the business thing as we did and I hear this ruckus out in the hallway and I sort of stuck my head out the door i and looked down the hall and there was Ronnie Hawkins running down the hall and he is wearing his boots, his hat and his guitar and that's it.
Speaker: Yeah, he's got the reputation for being a one. And that's Ronnie Hawkins, yeah yeah. So he was part of that whole circuit, I guess, as well. Yes, absolutely. And you worked with you worked with the band as well, right? The the guys from... only Yeah, only peripherally because it was a concert in Guelph, actually, at the University of Guelph. There you go. We booked them, that was it.
Speaker: My grandpa owned a big piece of property that was right on the back of the University of Guelph there. So I spent lots of time around there when I was a kid, of course. but So let me ask you about Denise Donlan because she's featured quite prominently in the documentary and has lots to say. I mean, she's got a good reputation, but she ah certainly saw the whole arc of the music business.
Speaker: She really did, yeah. And it's it's so rare to find another woman who was involved in the business, right? That I was really pleased when she agreed to do the interview. As a matter of fact, Jo and I are mentioned in her wonderful book called um Fearless, ah which is a wonderful memoir that Denise has written. nice But yeah, she's um She's really an interesting person and the fact that she's married to Marie McLaughlin, she's she's she's another person I think like me that really, really appreciates the artist. um It's not just about business for her. there's it's something the The value of what of the work that we do goes beyond um a big salary and profit.
Speaker: it's yeah We really feel like we're doing good work. commut yeah i think of I think of myself as a community development specialist through the live music experience. um And that's that's why in the film I say that I'm more interested in what's happening in the audience than what's happening on stage. I appreciate the music, but the reason I'm doing it is because of the community that grows. I like your word. yeah well if There's a connection between the artist and the audience.
Speaker: And because music, you know, there's an old saying that's the suits destroy the music business. But my old manager used to tell me, he said, Dan, find people who love music and love musicians. Cause if you can work with people like that, there'd be less inclined to exploit you or to take advantage of you because they respect the music and they respect the musicians and you know, the audience as well, because that's what you're doing. No audience, no, no business. So I always took that to heart because I, I've worked with people who were exploitative by nature and sort of treat you like a meat puppet.
Speaker: And I just gravitate away from those people. I have no time for that. I want to deal with people who care about me. Take care of yourself. Well, Denise's stories from the time she was at much music as a video.
Speaker: Vijay, I think the expression is, she did a fantastic job and it was because she appreciated the people that she was interviewing, right? Yeah, for sure. And she went into labor on on the air too, by the way. Oh, wow. yeah Crazy. and Well, that's women in the music business. Yeah. And I've had Christopher Ward on and Erica Am on the podcast as well. So yeah cool lots of much music stories. and So a couple other quick questions. um Canadian Bandstand was filmed in Kitchener. I did not know that. um yeah Do you have any connection with that or do you not know the history of that? I don't i only know that that it is such a critical part of our what I would call our music culture ecosystem here is that everyone everyone's got a story about
Speaker: um being on Canadian Band Centre, meeting Grantley, or um you know being aware of ah of of how that fit into the picture here. And they had a they had a fairly broad, um what's the word I'm looking for, a broadcast network, like that show,
Speaker: was exported to a lot of other cities in Canada, so it was a chance for local kids to have their moment of fame on Canadian Bandstand. yeah I mean, I found it worked, you know it worked for people.
Speaker: and Tom Knowlton, who is the narrator in Rock This Town, came out of that CKCO community. And so we were able to get tremendous archival footage from Canadian bands that day. And Grant is still alive and well and did a very nice interview with us as well. But to I love the Rush story in St. Catharines and the footage. That's right. That was their old drummer, ah John Rutsey. Yeah, that's right. But Dettie, oh my gosh.
Speaker: And that's another wonderful biography too. yeah My F in Life. What a great book. What a great story. yeah I haven't read it, but it's funny because when I first heard Rush, you know we thought it was a girl, right? We had to listen to it because we had such a high voice and he had too. But that's funny, that's right. he was presented We presented Rush a few times actually because they were um you know part of that stage at the agency. And we booked a lot of bands through the agency. And what venue? The same same venue in Kitchener? Actually, Rush played um rush played the, ah what I guess you'd call it the theater auditorium at Wilfrid Laurier. Okay. And it's like a high school gym, you know, with the proscenium stage it went in, parquet floor. They're all horrible rooms.
Speaker: Well, yeah, it's it's a challenge. So but again, with Canadian Bandstand, it's kind of counterintuitive that it will be filmed and in Kitchener, or Waterloo. But, you know, you'd think that it's Toronto or the CBC would have got involved or one of the other networks, but it worked out fine, right?
Speaker: Having lived here all my life, i I've had so many conversations with people about the mystique of um how music fits into the history of this region. And it gets it gets a little cheesy because everybody remembers the so -called Sangerfests, which were a German tradition when Kitchener was known as was actually known as Berlin and was had a new name after and after and during the Second World War. But yeah um the German tradition of people getting together and singing together. And then Charles Steele, the band director, um organized these massive marching band festivals and then factor in the music department, the highly regarded music department at Wilford Laurier University.
Speaker: And for many years, we were a small town that had a very successful professional orchestra called the KW Symphony, which is now bankrupt, sadly. oh But my point is, it's almost as if music is woven through the fabric, the cultural fabric of this community, because there's such a long history of um music as part of celebration or celebratory music or gatherings for music. Raffi Armenian was the conductor of the um KW Symphony. He made it his business to get a beautiful acoustic hall built. That's the center in the square, 2000 seats, which was built in the 80s. And I think I have distinction of
Speaker: presenting the first rock act that played at the the center in the square and that was Ozzy Osbourne. What year was that? 1984.
Speaker: eighty four okay and the um
Speaker: The staff were a freaking out a little bit because Ozzy had a particular kind of reputation at that time. And part of the seating at the center in the square was, is mezzanine seating with chairs, freestanding chairs, instead of seats that are bolted to the floor, right? yeah So i was I was not allowed to sell seats to the mezzanine.
Speaker: oh because the staff thought we that the audience would throw the chairs over the railings. right yeah yeah So it was a little weird because you know the theatre was built for a particular kind of audience and i was there I was being disruptive and bringing in Ozzy Osbourne.
Speaker: um Well, it was fine. yeah It was fine. Nobody died. Yeah. did it and it sure I'm sure it sold out. I mean, he had - Of course it did, yeah. He had a hot Sabbath and blizzard of odds and wow. Yeah. Okay. Well, very close.
Speaker: So let me ask you a few, a few rapid fire questions if I can here. Sure. Okay. And just as we wrap, and so the the golden age of music, the 60s, 70s, 80s, like the music business has changed, right? A lot. Absolutely, yes. Are you optimistic, pessimistic? What's your thought? Well, I i have faith that um that live music is a critical part of a cultural experience and There's evidence all over the world about how important music is in every culture, every culture in our globe. So I'm not i'm not worried about ah the music business per se. It's just going to evolve into something very different.
Speaker: Okay, that's that's fair. And I mean, that's the reality. that's That's the history of the world anyway. So just go with it and kind of find your way. yeah um The other thing is Coral Andrews, I think she's the one that that suggested that we have you on and I've had her on and she wrote the book about the the back door, I guess it was, she was very prominent in that area or or active, I would say in that area. And yeah, ah sorry, are you friends with her? Do you know her? Coral and I have been friends since she was 16 years old and a high school student in a school where I was teaching English and French. ah well And she thought I was a pretty cool teacher and I thought she was a pretty cool kid.
Speaker: you go And we've been friends ever since. That was my last year of teaching, so i could I could not be like a human being after that. I didn't have to be a moral paragon. and There you go. Well, very nice. Well, I really enjoyed talking to her. and she's she's sort of You guys are parallel in the sense of your energy and what you bring to the table and trying to promote and grow live music. I would like to think I'm as hip as she is, but I don't think I am.
Speaker: So did you reach the level of success that you wanted? Did you leave anything undone that you would do differently if you could go back and do it again? Um, well, I'm not done yet. yeah Um, so I'm, I'm not too sure if I've peaked to be honest. okay Um, when I see the success I'm having with this film, I, I kind of thought we might sell a thousand tickets to see rock this town. I released it in March of 22, just as the pandemic was lifting. And, uh, I budgeted for a thousand tickets sold at the theater.
Speaker: And as of ah last month, we had another seller at the local theater and our audience is now up to about 6 ,000. So very nice yeah so it's it's really interesting because the film has really has legs. And I'm not entirely sure why, except that it's just it's a great story, but I also think people are um hungry for that sense of making things more exciting in our communities, you know? Like, I think people are ready to start leaving their computer screens and their iPads and their phones and have a face -to -face experience again, looking for that one -on -one a human connection. yeah And so that it sort of harkens back to your earlier question about, you know, what does the future hold? the I really think there's a ah
Speaker: that it's It's a return to the arts and culture yeah because that's where the that's where the juice is. That's where humanity is. yeah And that that speaks to the AI or to the gamers. When my son was growing up, I said, look, don't overdose on anything. You've got to live your life. like If you play video games, sure, play video games for an hour or two, but don't sit there for 10 hours playing video games. That's no life. That's just exactly orange brain stuff.
Speaker: How old is he now? Well, he's in his 30s. Now he's 37 I think now. so ah But but like that worked well. yeah My kids are 48 and 46. And they're parents and busy and all the rest of it. So it's really fun for me to see how they are coming back. you know They've been really busy just building their careers. right and And now that they're approaching, you're both approaching 50.
Speaker: They're coming back to the stuff that matters. That makes me so happy. Well, good. and and And I often ask my guests about the AI and how that's going to be a problem. But most of them almost to a person say, look, you know, the real human connection is between artists and audiences. And that's yeah not going to be changed anytime soon. because And I absolutely subscribe to that belief. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good.
Speaker: And well, that's cool. And and so i I usually ask my guests too about the whole sort of drugs and booze scene because some of the musicians got caught up in it. Some of them avoided it completely. And how did that factor into any of the shows that you did and any of the issues that you had over the years?
Speaker: Well, I was always the one with the money um and the business and the, you know, making sure the box office was correct. So you were sober -minded, you were clear -headed. I was always very, very straight. But ah when um when we did shows at the auditorium, we hired um off -duty ah firemen for um for the security because they you know they have the safety training built in. So if anybody was in trouble, anybody in the audience was in trouble with drugs or something else, they were there to provide the rescue. So we paid them to be our security staff. And after the show, we went to the pub.
Speaker: yeah So there was there was me and all my firemen friends at the Lancaster's pub for a beer after the show and that was my opportunity to debrief and I always felt very safe with the the receipts from the concert in my briefcase because all these firemen are there. yeah so more nice yeah yeah So that was my little adventure before I went home to my kids.
Speaker: Very cool. Well, it doesn't sound like you sacrifice a lot either, because I often ask my guests, especially the musical guests, you know what did you sacrifice to do what you did? And some of them you know have a fairly sad story to tell about sacrificing family and kids and and other opportunities in life. And it sounds like you were able to do it all.
Speaker: I was actually, the sacrifice was that I um i spent, my you know, in the years when most people are building their income, I was not. I was a stay -at -home mom. So I did not i did not start building um any sort of a stable financial picture until ah until after 1989 when Joe and I separated and that was when I had to find real work. So getting the getting the gig with Lorena was very nice because that was a salaried position for five years.
Speaker: yeah yeah yep Well, that's good. So, yeah, I mean, managing to do it all, that's that was kind of my goal. I thought I i don't want to stop playing music, but I don't want to sort of have my kids. I mean, I know I know guys who literally their kids don't talk to them. Oh, because because they were just ah weren't there and they were involved in things they shouldn't have been involved in. So, you know, i to be able to do it all and then come out on the other side of it and and look back and go, yeah, that that worked out pretty good. So it sounds like you're in that position.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's a happy ending for sure. yeah I feel very privileged. I feel quite fulfilled. Yeah. Oh, very good. And Rock This Town has exceeded my expectations for sure. and It's an excellent capacity. It's excellent. It's very well done. It's the right length. Like you said, it it can't be it could it couldn't have been shorter, but it's not too long. It was a great watch. It's very well professionally produced. So it's not like a handy cam documentary. It's excellent. No, no, it would have been if ah if it hadn't been for
Speaker: the filmmakers, Paul Campsell and Tom Knowlton, it would have been pretty rinky dink because I had an earlier version that was just me with a camera, haha. Right. ah But Yeah, it's very entertaining. And I think, the the um although it's a Kitchener -Waterloo story, I think that any mid -sized community, with especially a mid -sized community with a university, will be able to relate to this story because yeah yeah the phenomenon of what was happening in the 60s and how
Speaker: the You know, the Boomers were all at university at that time and looking for fun. Right. Yeah. And ah quite often it was it was live music that provided that ah entertainment or fulfillment. And the list of people like the Stevie wonders and all like all these names, there's name after name. And these are Hugh Jacks who either were just breaking or or had just broken. And it was just excellent. So I highly recommend Rock This Town. Thank you so much. This has really been fun.
Speaker: Many thanks to my guest, Betty Ann Keller, for being part of the Line of Notes podcast and sharing some insights from her many musical adventures and accomplishments. More information is available if you email bakeller11 at gmail dot .com. ah You can get a hold of this Rock This Town video documentary. I highly recommend it. It's well worth watching. 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.
Speaker: 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 Dan Harry.
