As The Years Go By ... Conversations With Canada's Folk Rock & Pop Pioneers

By Randy Ray and Mark Kearney

Anyone who grew up in Canada in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, knows how amazing Canada's music scene was in those magical decades. Etched in the musical memories of millions of music fans in Canada and around the globe are great tunes, television appearances and live shows featuring The Diamonds, Lighthouse, Steppenwolf, Mashmakhan, Patsy Gallant, Skylark, Bobby Curtola, Edward Bear, Susan Jacks, Terry Jacks, Denny Doherty, The Five Man Electrical Band, The Paupers, Moxy, The Raes, A Foot in Cold Water, The Esquires, The Haunted, Keith Hampshire, Charity Brown, Fludd, The Bells, Michel Pagliaro, and many others. In their 10th book, best-selling authors Mark Kearney and Randy Ray compile in one place, detailed newspaper articles they wrote in the 1980s and 1990s about hundreds of Canadian music personalities who years earlier had chased musical stardom. Many stories have been updated or offer web links to additional information. Several connect to YouTube videos that show the performers belting out their hit songs. Most are accompanied by photographs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randy Ray
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370654734

Randy Ray

Randy Ray and his co-author Mark Kearney are veteran freelance writers and authors with 10 published books to their credit. Both are former reporters with The London Free Press. They have sold more than 50,000 books. Ray lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Kearney lives in London, Ontario.

Book preview

Introduction

If you grew up in Canada in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, attended high school dances, quaffed a few pints at a favourite local bar, or managed to scrape together enough cash for a show at one of Canada’s concert halls, you know how amazing this country’s music scene was in those magical decades.

Great tunes and television appearances and live shows by Lighthouse, Mashmakhan, Patsy Gallant, Skylark, Bobby Curtola, The Diamonds, Susan Jacks, The Paupers, Moxy and Michel Pagliaro, among many others, created lifelong memories for you and millions of other Canadians.

Who can forget close dancing in steamy high school gyms, bouts of temporary deafness after high-decibel evenings in smoky downtown clubs and live shows in outdoor pavilions next to shimmering cottage country lakes and rivers?

Long before YouTube or the Internet, music was played on hit radio stations and once a song had run its course, you might not hear it again unless you spun the ‘45 or album on your record player.

Occasionally, a station would play a golden oldie or two, but from the ‘50s through to the first part of the ‘80s, the format was usually Top 40 or deep cut FM rock focused on current music.

But things started changing in the ‘80s as the first wave of baby boomers pushed the ripe old age of 40. Nostalgia for old songs led to the rise of oldies stations that started playing these songs daily much to the delight of a new and older audience.

The two of us were no different.

Finally, we could listen to some long-time favourites and often forgotten songs, rekindling fond memories. It prompted us back then, while sipping a few beers on a dock in Ontario’s Kawarthas region near Peterborough, to conclude it was an ideal time to ride the nostalgia wave and re-acquaint Canadians with the people who wrote, sang, produced and promoted the memorable homegrown music they’d listened to and danced to years before.

For about five years in the latter half of the ‘80s we spent hundreds of hours interviewing more than 300 musicians, producers and managers to capture the trials and tribulations they encountered as they pursued the dream of hitting the charts or connecting with a larger fan base.

This was decades before Google, of course, so part of the challenge was tracking down performers who’d been away from the stage for many years. It wasn’t easy — but it was fun and very rewarding for two 30-somethings who years earlier had bought their LPs, played their ‘45s, and on many occasions, watched them perform at school dances, downtown clubs and legendary concert halls.

We weren’t there when their tour buses broke down; we never hauled tons of equipment up and down stairs, nor did we do sound checks and set up lights before a gig in a cramped church basement or at a major venue like Maple Leaf Gardens. But we found these people, some of them out of the limelight for quite a while, and we happily and enthusiastically lent an ear to their stories.

We asked them about their beginnings, the ups and downs, the highlights and lowlights. Our main purpose then was to take a where-are-they-now? approach to reconnect them with their fans. In a way we were lucky. We caught these musicians in rare reflective moments. They were far enough removed from their heyday that they could look back with clearer and perhaps wiser eyes at those special times in their lives.

Some hadn’t performed in years while others still had a hand in the business, sometimes writing or producing or making new alliances to see if a new band could catch more of the old magic in a bottle. Others were pondering the idea of reuniting with bandmates because their newly-nostalgic fans were eager to hear their music again. And some were out of the business, working in a variety of pursuits far removed from music, including advertising, roofing, carpentry and driving limousines and trucks.

Our conversations with folk, rock, R & B and pop pioneers allowed us to capture the memories shared by so many Canadian fans. We published these stories back then in dozens of newspapers across the country, but there was never the opportunity to gather their tales in one book — until now, which just happens to coincide with Canada’s 150th birthday.

More than 25 years after we sat down with these former stars, we’ve brushed off our files and data to bring their stories and photographs to a wider audience. Most are narrative accounts of how they got into the business, the trials and triumphs, and their thoughts on their careers. For about a dozen we went for a shorter, more point-form style that depicts highlights of their life on stage and in the recording studio.

If you spend days and nights surfing the ‘Net you’ll find some of this information, but you’ll be hard pressed to uncover many of the details we lay out in these pages. That’s because we interviewed just about everyone we have written about, often in person, sometimes over a beer at a local pub, and if we were lucky, in their living rooms next to walls lined with gold records and musical memorabilia.

We went as far as Nashville and Vancouver to talk with them and if that couldn’t be arranged we talked by phone (ahh, to have had Skype or FaceTime back then). Our purpose on this go round is to show you snapshots of that time rather than worry about where they are in the 21st century.

That being said, whenever we could dig out what happened with some of them after we first chatted, we’ve updated their profiles.

Some have their own websites, Facebook or Linkedin pages, and we’ve scoured those for some additional nuggets of information. For music aficionados who want to dig deeper, we’ve included URLs that provide up-to-date information about what these people are up to now.

In several cases, of course, some of those we spoke with in the ‘80s are in rock ‘n’ roll heaven, including Denny Doherty, Terry Black, Shirley Matthews and Bobby Curtola. We consider ourselves fortunate for having had the opportunity to speak with these and other now departed legends.

You won’t find every Canadian musician from that ‘50s to ‘70s era in this book. Some like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Guess Who and Gordon Lightfoot were still very much in the public eye when we started interviewing and have had their stories told in countless other books and compilations. As for other Canadian musicians who were at their peak in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and perhaps have since faded a bit, well, that’s for someone else to write about.

One theme that emerged from our interviews was the significance of the government’s introduction of Canadian content rules in the early ‘70s, which forced reluctant radio stations to play music by Canadians. We may take it for granted now, but in these pages you’ll read about many musicians who faced difficulties in getting their songs on the air in their own country despite having a large fan base or success on American charts.

You’ll read about promises never kept, doors slammed, huge egos that led to band breakups, and poor management. It seems as if it were ever thus in the music business.

Another theme was how the music scene of the era was one giant interconnected web of talent. A performer might sing lead or play bass for one band for a couple of years, then move on to another group and later launch a solo career, before turning to song writing or studio work. Check out information on your album covers, and you’ll often find musicians who crossed musical paths years earlier playing on each other’s records, providing backup vocals and even writing tunes for one another.

We had a blast talking to these music pioneers, and we’re delighted to bring their stories to a broader audience. So set your clocks back to the late ‘80s when nostalgia for this music was beginning its groundswell. And if you have any of those records, cassettes, eight tracks, or CDs, dust them off, grab your partner for a dance and capture the feelings you had when you first heard their songs.

The years may have gone by but the memories linger.

Mark Kearney & Randy Ray

1. Early Pioneers

In the days when music charts were either new or rare, when Canada could boast few recording studios and when Canadian performers had little chance of getting airplay in their own country, these musicians were able to find a spot on the radio waves or maybe a TV show on the CBC. Otherwise, they performed in small venues, at high school dances or in clubs that were frequented by a relatively small segment of the population. And yet, they endured, and several made big names for themselves in Canada and in America where fans probably didn’t know or even care about their north-of-the-border roots.

Chad Allan

Belting out the mega hit Shakin’ All Over helped burn out Chad Allan’s voice.

Photo: Courtesy of Chad Allan

At first blush, it appears Chad Allan made two of the biggest judgmental errors in the history of Canadian music.

In 1966, he quit The Guess Who, shortly before the group won international acclaim. And in the early ‘70s he left Brave Belt, just as the band was changing its name to Bachman-Turner Overdrive and heading for the big time.

Some of his admirers must have thought his decisions were a little odd also. Right after he quit The Guess Who, an incensed fan threatened to beat him up for departing the group.

But while he concedes life would be a little easier these days had he remained with either band, Allan didn’t think he made the wrong decisions. He held no bitterness.

I was never after stardom so it didn’t really bother me, he said in an interview in Vancouver. With The Guess Who, things couldn’t have been any other way. I lost my voice so it was a case of health. And BTO just wasn’t my lifestyle…all that time on the road. I’m a homebody.

Later in life, as a singer-songwriter and sometimes producer on the Vancouver nightclub scene, Allan admitted to still preferring life at home over performing.

I’m happy to be playing the music but there’s a lot of night work. It would be nice to be home more.

Allan, a Winnipeg native, who was born Allan Kowbel but changed his name to Chad Allan in the ‘50s, joined his first serious band in the late ‘50s. Known as Allan and The Silvertones, they played Top 40 music on the local high school and community centre circuit.

Allan sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar and some piano alongside pianist Bob Ashley, guitarist Randy Bachman, drummer Gary Peterson and bassist Jim Kale. Allan, Bachman, Kale and Peterson would later form the core of the early Guess Who. Several other local musicians also played with The Silvertones.

They later became The Reflections, then Bob Ashley and The Reflections, still later, Chad Allan and The Reflections and in 1962-63, Chad Allan and The Expressions.

In the mid ‘60s they released the single Shakin’ All Over, a cover version of a song recorded by the British band Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. In a bid to win international acclaim — and hide their Canadian roots — the band released the song under the name The Guess Who? as a gimmick.

With the mysterious new name, the record sold faster than wool toques on a frigid February day at the intersection of Portage and Main in downtown Winnipeg.

The secret in those days was to be a part of the British invasion. It (the Guess Who name) lifted us out of the local syndrome. The name stuck, it was never intended to be the name of the band.

Within a few months, Shakin’ All Over, an electrified version of the original tune, with a lot of screaming, recalls Allan, sold 500,000 copies and would go on to sell millions of records.

Its success won the group a U.S. tour with Dick Clark’s American Bandstand bus tour, as well as jobs with The Kingsmen, The Turtles and Dion and The Belmonts. The Guess Who later recorded Tossin’ and Turnin’, which did well but didn’t match Shakin’ All Over.

But despite the band’s apparent success, Allan was having problems. He missed Winnipeg and wanted to return to United College (later University of Winnipeg) where he’d taken time off from his science studies to tour with The Guess Who.

While singing alongside Burton Cummings in The Guess Who in 1966, throat problems made up his mind for him. I never took vocal lessons and I blew my throat. I was psychologically and physically drained and my doctor told me to stop singing for a year. I left the band.

He took six months off, before returning to performing and beginning a musical journey that would lead to a reunion with Randy Bachman in Brave Belt in the early ‘70s. He started back in music as a solo club performer and eventually became host of the Music Hop TV show in Winnipeg, while attending university. Ironically, The Guess Who became the house band on the TV show.

In 1971 he joined Brave Belt and recorded two albums with the band. He sang and co-wrote Dunrobin’s Gone, the group’s most recognizable tune. He left in 1973 and shortly after, remaining members Randy and Robbie Bachman and Fred Turner changed their name to Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

After Brave Belt, Allan dabbled in a number of musical pursuits. He produced and recorded a solo album entitled Sequel, which included a countrified version of Dunrobin’s Gone, and the single Spending My Time that went Top 10 in Canada. In the early ‘70s he lived in Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal before settling in Vancouver.

In 1973-74, he sang the lead on an album which told the story of Beowulf, a fifth century warrior who saved his country from dragons; in the mid ‘70s he hosted a Winnipeg kiddies’ TV show; he did some songwriting for television and in 1981 formed Seabreeze Records as a recording vehicle for his own songs. He released two of his songs on the label, with little success.

I started out of the trunk of my car. They got a little airplay but I lost money.

Later, he continued writing songs, often with friend Frank Stirk of Winnipeg. He figures they wrote more than 200 songs between 1973 and 1990 alone. He played clubs in Vancouver, occasionally doing original tunes, but concentrating mainly on ‘50s and ‘60s music. He also taught songwriting at two Vancouver area schools and wrote and performed Gospel music.

While many of his performances were in clubs not unlike those The Guess Who started in, Allan felt music had been, and continued to be, good to him.

The irony in all of this is that I was there with The Guess Who and we helped to pioneer the Canadian scene and now this (playing club scene) is what’s happening. But I know a lot of it was my own doing. It has been kind of tough economically but if I have an economic problem, a cheque for royalties always seems to be in the mail. Music has saved me, economically, and in other ways.

Norm Amadio

Norm Amadio’s name rarely appeared in lights but many Canadians have probably listened to his piano at one time or another.

The Timmins, Ontario, native tickled the ivories professionally for more than 70 years, along the way establishing himself as a Canadian music industry stalwart.

Outside Toronto, he is likely most remembered as leader of Norm Amadio and The Rhythm Rockers, the house group on Music Hop, a popular mid-‘60s, rock music variety program shown coast to coast on CBC-TV.

Inside the city limits he was known as one of Hogtown’s top hotel pianists, playing dance music in a variety of lounges or accompanying big names such as Mel Torme, The Platters and Stan Getz.

And probably unknown to many, the versatile Amadio regularly played on a wide variety of CBC-TV shows, including The Wayne and Shuster Hour, Juliette, Hit Parade and The Jackie Rae Show.

Looking back on his early career, he recalled: "The Music Hop days put some bread on the table and also opened up my eyes to all the other kinds of music. I used to be a jazz snob but it was great musical experience. You see good things in everything after."

Amadio was a professional pianist after leaving high school in the late ‘40s. After studying piano in Timmins for seven years he attended the Toronto Conservatory of Music for a year. When it became apparent he wouldn’t become a concert pianist — the dream of his mother — he joined a country and western group in Rouyn, Québec for four months.

When he returned to Toronto he went at a professional music career in earnest, playing the cocktail circuit when only a handful of bars existed. In 1948, he hit the bar scene with The Jimmy Younger Trio, earning $8 a night. Along the way he played with Jimmy Amaro Sr. and eventually formed a trio, with bassist Jack Lander and drummer Archie Alleyne, and later had his own band. The Norman Amadio Trio evolved from the ‘50s and ‘60s with Bill Britto and Alleyne, later with Bob Price and Alex Lazaroff, and in the new millennium with Rosemary Galloway and Don Vickery.

He played dozens of Toronto hotels over the years, including the Colonial Tavern, Silver Rail, Bourbon Street, First Floor Club and George’s Spaghetti House. In the ‘50s, while leading the house band at Toronto’s Town Tavern, he backed or accompanied such U.S. jazz greats as Getz, Torme, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Dinah Washington.

His introduction to the CBC came during a two-year stint with Chico Valle’s five-piece Toronto dance band, which performed Latin American music on a weekly radio show. It eventually led to regular CBC work, a staple of his career. Sometimes it was on-air work, and often he would perform in a band that would audition potential CBC performers.

In the early ‘60s, he joined Music Hop as leader-pianist of The Rhythm Rockers, which played mainly backup rock music for a variety of performers, including David Clayton-Thomas, Anne Murray, Anita Bryant and Shawne and Jay Jackson, some of whom would become industry giants.

Initially the show was based in Toronto with host Alex Trebek, who went on to become host of the U.S. game show Jeopardy, and later Toronto DJ Dave Mickie. Eventually, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal and Halifax developed shows of their own.

In the show’s last year, the band changed its name to Norm Amadio and The New Sounds. In the ‘70s, Amadio’s trio spent a number of years backing Toronto singer Vic Franklin, a Frank Sinatra-style singer who played the Toronto hotel circuit and occasionally in Las Vegas. In 1976, Amadio was pianist in The Bobby Edwards Band, part of a country music show taped at a Toronto hotel and aired on CHCH-TV in Hamilton.

///

The Music Hop days put some bread on the table and also opened up my eyes to all the other kinds of music. I used to be a jazz snob but it was great musical experience. You see good things in everything after.

- Norm Amadio

///

Over the years he was pianist and/or musical director for such CBC television shows as Wayne & Shuster, Juliette, Hit Parade, Take 30 and Swing Gently, as well as TV specials with Robert Goulet, Al Hirt, Steve Lawrence, Kenny Rogers, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson, Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, and the two-hour live CBC Special 100 Years of Canada, featuring the 40-piece Norman Amadio Orchestra.

He played regularly at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel where the Norm Amadio Orchestra backed such stars as The Platters, The Lettermen, Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin, The Drifters, The Coasters, The Mamas & The Papas and Bobby Rydell. He also played solo at the Novotel hotel chain in Toronto and later recorded big band music for play on radio with other Toronto musicians.

Ironically, the musical arrangements were handled by Rick Wilkins, former musical arranger for Music Hop. He also performed in Toronto with The Jimmy Galloway Quartet at high school concerts where Galloway explained jazz to students as part of their education process.

I’m open-minded about things, every day is a different project, he said. The most significant thing has been to keep working, I was never too snobby about which was the better work.

His 2009 CD, Norm Amadio and Friends, featured some of Canada’s finest vocalists and instrumentalists including Marc Jordan, Guido Basso, Rosemary Galloway and Terry Clarke. The Toronto Star called it one of the top albums of the year.

At age 86, Amadio retired after the 2014 TD Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival. He is a recipient of the Toronto Musicians’ Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Beau-Marks

The Beau-Marks clapped their hands to the top of the charts in 1960.

Photo: Courtesy of the Beau-Marks

If you were prone to fiddling with your radio dial in the late ‘80s you might have come across a new version of the decades-old song Clap Your Hands.

It didn’t sound much like the old song; it was a little more up tempo, with lots of brass instruments and backup singers in the arrangement, and you might not have recognized the singer’s name.

///

If we only knew how great we were. We didn’t know the magic we had, and the potential we had. We were too young. There was magic in that group, and we weren’t aware of it.

- Ray Hutchinson, The Beau-Marks

///

He was Joe Frechette, also known as Joey Conrad, and he also sang lead on the old version, when he was the piano player and leader of Montreal band The Beau-Marks.

I’m singing a hell of a lot better now, said Frechette in an ‘80s interview while living in Oshawa, Ontario and working as program director at CHOO radio in nearby Ajax. This new version has been a lot of fun. But I have no intention of being a full-time entertainer (again).

Frechette said he was approached to do a remake of the 1960 No. 1 hit, after a record producer heard it on a restaurant jukebox in western Canada. He agreed to re-release the song, but wanted a brassier, more ’80s feel than the original Beau-Marks recording.

The new version was released about two years before this interview and received airplay on adult contemporary and country stations across Canada. It did especially well in the Maritimes. Nevertheless, you can still hear the old version today on oldies radio stations in Canada.

The Beau-Marks had not originally intended to record Clap Your Hands, Frechette explained, thinking it was more suitable as an audience participation song for their live shows. But the song soon hit No. 1 in Canada, Australia and New Zealand in 1960, and just missed a Top 40 spot in the U.S.

The Beau-Marks released other songs later such as Billy, Billy Went A Walking, Classmate, Little Miss Twist and The Tender Years, but none did as well as the first hit. Why?

The rhythm was right, the tempo was right for dancing at the time, said Frechette. Also, people told me that I had a very good tape voice. My voice came off as being very commercial. Ray Hutchinson (the band’s lead singer on most songs) sounded great in clubs doing ballads, but when he recorded on tape, he didn’t seem to catch on with people’s ears.

Hutchinson, who performed with such groups as Dave Nichols and The Coins and as a soloist after leaving The Beau-Marks in 1963, agreed that Frechette should have done more lead vocals.

I think that’s what the mistake was, said the singer-guitarist. We released a second record with me singing, and it was like a new group.

Hutchinson, who used to own Le Sentiment restaurant in Montreal, continued to perform in Montreal after he left The Beau-Marks despite a serious car accident in Florida that left him in a coma for six weeks.

Hutchinson said The Beau-Marks’ naiveté prevented them from having more success. If we only knew how great we were. We didn’t know the magic we had, and the potential we had. We were too young. There was magic in that group, and we weren’t aware of it.

The group, however, did enjoy a fair amount of success considering that back then there was no Canadian content rule on radio or much of a music industry in this country. They performed at the famed Peppermint Lounge in New York and made an appearance on American Bandstand. It was on that show that host Dick Clark was fooled by the false ending on Clap Your Hands, when the music stops for a second before Frechette says, don’t go away.

Dick Clark knew about the false ending, but completely forgot about it, Frechette remembered. We were on camera doing the song and just at the point where the false ending came, Dick Clark walked on camera. As he walked on camera I came out with the remainder of the song and said ‘don’t go away.’ When he heard that, he jumped off. It looked like it had all been pre-planned.

Frechette said The Beau-Marks (who took their name from the controversial Bomarc missile in the ‘50s) were able to live comfortably off the success of Clap Your Hands for almost five years on the music circuit. After the group disbanded in 1964, Frechette went behind the scenes in the music business as a promoter and publisher (where he handled such international smashes as Put Your Hand in the Hand by Ocean and Snowbird by Anne Murray). He drove a truck for a couple of years in the late ‘70s before studying broadcasting at Toronto’s Humber College and landing his job at CHOO. He later retired and moved to Nelson, British Columbia.

Bass player Mike Robitaille lived in Montreal while drummer Gilles Tailleur died of a cerebral hemorrhage when he was 35. Hutchinson stayed on the road as a singer for 20 years acquiring a loyal following in Ontario and throughout North America. He later moved to the Peterborough, Ontario area.

My biggest regret in show business was that I never got much recorded music after The Beau-Marks, Hutchinson said. And I think it was a regret of a lot of people who came to see me. I’ll never forget the days of The Beau-Marks, but I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. If you become slaves of your past you never do anything. You have to move ahead.

Terry Black

It was in the charming village of Hockley, just north of Toronto, where we touched base with one of Canada’s biggest teen idols from the ‘60s who was busy writing songs, recording, and planning to do more live performing.

Terry Black, the North Vancouver, British Columbia native who burst onto the Canadian music scene in 1964 with Unless You Care, was hoping to get a recording contract that could once again put his name in the forefront of Canadian pop music.

We (he and his then-wife Laurel Ward) have been in the studio for five months writing and recording, he told us back in the late ‘80s. In addition, he was busy at that time doing voice-overs for a number of commercial products as one of the busiest jingle and commercial singers in Canada.

The then-40-year-old former teen sensation and Ward, whom Black teamed up with at the altar and on the charts with such hits as Goin’ Down (On the Road to L.A.) and Back Up Against Your Persuasion, had enough songs for a new album. The previous year they had done some live performances.

Black, who died in Kamloops, British Columbia in 2009, had suffered from multiple sclerosis. But when we talked to him a couple of decades before, he was eager to do more gigs.

It can be a grind (on the road), Black admitted then, but playing in front of people and getting feedback about our material, I think, is really worth it. He added that it would be a kick to do the old hits, but I’d like to beef them up.

Re-doing the old songs would allow him to perform them as he always believed they should have been done, he said.

When Black first went down the road to L.A. in the mid ‘60s, he was just a 16-year-old kid from Vancouver who thought he was pretty hot stuff.

Fortunately, producer Lou Adler, who later joined forces with The Mamas & The Papas on their biggest hits, agreed. Black was given a demo to try out, the next day a few studio musicians (one was a guitarist named Glen Campbell) were brought in, and two takes later the record was ready. The song was Unless You Care, and it put Black’s name on the music world’s map.

Dunhill Records decided to promote Black as a new teen idol in the Bobby Vee-Bobby Rydell mode and landed him spots on such TV shows as Shindig and Hullabaloo to stir up some excitement. The success of his hit single led Black in 1964 to be the first Canadian male to be named Best Vocalist as part of The Red Leaf RPM Awards, precursor to the Juno Awards.

If (such success) has never happened to you, you don’t know what’s happening, and I didn’t, he recalled. "I didn’t realize Unless You Care was a hit until I played up here (with Gerry and The Pacemakers) at Maple Leaf Gardens."

Black was also something of a rarity in those days — a Canadian whose songs were played on Canadian radio stations. That changed after the Canadian content rules were introduced in 1970, and Black believed the music business in this country was better for it. The only reason I had a hit record was it was on a strong American label, and they had really good distribution and promotion, he said modestly.

Black followed up Unless You Care with tunes such as Only Sixteen and Poor Little Fool, but he felt uncomfortable with the teen idol role. I wanted to rock it up more, but the label didn’t want me to. They went with a more soft sound.

Sales trickled off a few years later, and Black returned to Canada to re-learn the music business. He auditioned successfully for the Toronto production of Hair where he met pianist Doug Riley. The two later performed with Dr. Music, the large early ‘70s Canadian rock-jazz-blues outfit. He met future wife and singing partner Ward during the Dr. Music days, and they recorded their first single in 1974. When the band broke up, the two moved to Hockley, had two children, and began work as studio musicians. Ward did some back-up singing, most notably on Bob Seger’s hit Night Moves. She and Black recorded an extended play record (EP) in the early ‘80s and one song, All Night Long, got some airplay.

///

"If (such success) has never happened to you, you don’t know what’s happening, and I didn’t. I didn’t realize Unless You Care was a hit until I played up here (with Gerry and The Pacemakers) at Maple Leaf Gardens."

- Terry Black

///

Black described their musical ventures as a mixed bag of styles from country-rock to Latin rhythms. Although more performing was on his agenda, Black was content with his bucolic lifestyle back then.

We decided to move to the country about 10 years ago, and it’s the old story, living on a river in the country. It sounds corny, but it really works for us.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work forever. The couple divorced in 1993. Ward moved to Calgary and released a CD in 2003, according to an article by writer John Einarson. She was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy in 2009.

The first thing to go was my voice so I knew I wasn’t going to be singing anymore, she told Einarson in 2011. I can’t play guitar or piano either because you lose dexterity in your fingers. Ward died in 2014.

Black moved back to British Columbia and hosted an oldies radio show. He died in Kamloops at age 60 after battling multiple sclerosis for a year.

Gene Cornish (of The Rascals)

Gene Cornish groovin’ on his favorite axe.

Photo: Courtesy of Gene Cornish

The event that changed Gene Cornish’s life happened decades ago, but when he talked about it you could still hear enthusiasm in his voice.

The guitarist for American ‘60s rock and R & B group The Young Rascals (later The Rascals), who reunited in the ‘80s, said the moment band members started rehearsing in the mid ‘60s they all knew they were onto something.

That rehearsal changed my life, Cornish said in a late ‘80s interview from New York City. "It was the highest point in my life until (The Rascals reunion concert). All of a sudden we hit magic at that rehearsal in (fellow Rascal) Felix Cavaliere’s basement.

We’d all been in bands before and we just looked at each other and went ‘whoa.’ It was just amazing; I can’t explain it.

From the depths of Caviliere’s home, The Rascals began a meteoric rise that put them on the best stages in the world and at or near the top of the charts with such classics as Good Lovin’, Groovin’, How Can I Be Sure?, I’ve Been Lonely Too Long, A Girl Like You, A Beautiful Morning and People Got To Be Free. They had nine Top 20 songs in just over two years.

Thanks to Cornish’s fluid guitar work, Cavaliere’s hard-driving organ playing and singing, Dino Danelli’s drumming and Eddie Brigati’s vocals and showmanship, The Rascals’ songs are still heard frequently on radio almost 50 years later and in movies over the years, including The Big Chill, Legal Eagles and Platoon.

The first leg of their 1988 Good Lovin’ Tour took them across the northeast, the midwest U.S., Florida, and California. It was the first time The Rascals had toured in 18 years.

Cornish said the tour was a kind of command performance, a chance to have fun, and to play the songs that continued to stir memories for music fans throughout the world.

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to pick up on a lot of lost time and see a lot of people who remember us, and for new people who are curious to see us, he said at the time. "It gives us a chance to be Rascals again. How many times do you get a chance to be something you always