As people may have noticed, I am an unabashed supporter of Canada and Canada’s music scene. I have begun this series to highlight Canadian music history and will do this 5 songs at a time. I hope you enjoy the music and find some new favourites and rediscover some old ones. I encourage you to click on the links and learn about the bands, and listen to more of their material.
Interesting collection this week, from country to alternative to a scintillating live rock performance.
The Monkees are a major footnote in 60’s music and TV history. Originally revered as America’s answer to the Beatles, with their own TV show that mirrored the Beatles movies, Help and A Hard Days Night, they, then, in classic pop culture fashion, became as reviled as, lets see. Milli Vanilli, as scandal erupted that they were a throw together group of actors who really didn’t play or write the music. While partially true, they really could play, they were trapped in this image of being nothing more than a made for TV act.
Following the demise of the show and the end of their relationship with produce Don Kirshner, the band went into studio to put out some music that would prove they were truly a band. This resulted in their album “Headquarters”. The album went straight to number 1, yet faded quickly as it had the unfortunate timing as to be out at the same time as Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. The band, while playing their own instruments, used real back up artists in session. The list of artists is amazing. Appearing on the album were Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Lowell George, Buddy Miles, Glen Campbell and Louie Shelton.
The video attached is from a TV special that aired in April of 1969. Peter Tork left the band at the end of the taping of this special, which expedited the eventual end of the group. The song is pretty much the only song by the group that I ever became attached to. They had their hits, but this song, to me anyways, was their best effort at proving they were truly a band. Michael Nesmith is a very talented singer songwriter and his skill shows in this song. By the way, stop watching after about 4 minutes cause it gets all 60’s after that, you know, all that psychedelic stuff that we thought was really cool back then.
The Five Man Electrical Band (originally known as the Staccatos) are a Canadian band out of Ottawa. The group enjoyed substantial success in the late 60’s and early 70’s. They released 7 albums between 1967 and 1975, achieving star status in Canada, The song that they are best known for was a major hit here in Canada, and it achieved top 10 status in the USA. This was a rare feat at that time for a Canadian band. The song is “Signs” and it reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1971. Their follow-up to Signs was a tune called “Absolutely Right” which also achieved some success on both sides of the border. At the height of their career, they toured extensively across North America with such bands as the Allman Brothers, Edgar Winter and Sly and the Family Stone. The band is still together and touring, with an album set for release in 2012.
I have attached 2 videos, the first a 2010 live version of Signs and the second, a live version of Absolutely Right from 1972.
The creator of the classic hit “Drift Away” died today, December 6. He was 71.  His career began way back in the 60’s, releasing his first hit in 1965, “The ‘In’ Crowd“, which reached 13 on the US Billboard chart. His next chart success was “Drift Away” a classic staple of today’s radio, in 1973. It reached number 5 on Billboard. Uncle Kracker, in a duet with Dobie, released a version in 2003 which charted as the number 19 hit for the year. His career spanned pop, soul and country. he reincarnated himself as a country artist in the mid 80’s, having moderate success.
Drift Away is a terrific tune, and one that should stand the time test. I have inserted 2 versions of it below. The first is Dobie Gray, live at the BBC in 1974. The second is the version with Uncle Kracker. RIP Dobie Gray.
R&B/Jazz singer and songwriter Jimmy Norman passed away yesterday. Paying tribute to these greats is fitting, as they created most of what we listen to today, yet they languish without recognition. A lot of the time they are known only for writing or recording one great song. All of the time, they were exceptionally talented musicians and songwriters, with a lifetime body of work that demands we pay attention, even if only for a moment in remembrance. This is why I write these tributes. Whether we realize it or not, the soundtrack of our life has been written by these people. Jimmy Norman is a prime example of this. His body of work includes session work with Jimi Hendrix (Groove Maker, a Norman composition), playing and writing for Bob Marley (Chances Are album), writing for Johnny Nash,as well as having Peter Tosh record some of his songs. He also was also a member of the Coasters for a while. His most notable song composition though is “Time Is On My Side” the Rolling Stones classic of the mid sixties. Not well known, but an important cog in the formative years of our music. I have included an interview with Jimmy discussing songs as stories, Jimmy doing one of his solo songs “Here Comes The Night” and a video of the Stones doing the classic “Time Is On My Side”.
I was driving home from work today and, much to my amazement, Frank Zappa‘s “Dancing Fool” comes on the radio (CKUA, another great station). Frank was the consummate working class musician. He was also one of the first bands I ever saw live. Good story. I was working for the Winnipeg Arena while I was going to school. We would clean out the seats after events, and during one of my shifts, I had the pleasure of listening to him and his band (Mothers of Invention) rehearse for a concert that night in Winnipeg. Not much work got done that day. I searched out two videos to share. First of course, is “Dancing Fool” done live on Saturday Night Live and the second is a live version of the classic “Dinah-Moe Humm”.
So, the million dollar question for today is, who was Tom Cochrane before he was..well, Tom Cochrane. The answer is that he was the force behind 70’s band Red Rider. The band was formed in the late 70’s by Tom and Ken Greer and generated a series of major hits throughout the 80’s. Their album “As Far As Siam” enjoyed major success on both sides of the US-Canada border. The attached video “Lunatic Fringe” was a hit and was featured on “Miami Vice”, an early adapter to fusing music with television series.
The band itself changed over the years, eventually becoming Tom Cochrane and Red Rider as Tom became more vital to the band’s success. Their string of it’s carried all the way in the late 80’s when Tom went out on his own, becoming a major player with the release of “Life is a Highway”. Their final album “Symphony Sessions”, a recording with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was released in 1989. The band has reformed (as have many old time bands) and has done some touring in the past few years as Tom Cochrane and Red Rider.
Through the vagaries of Canadian content regulations, the band Blood Sweat and Tears became Canadian, although the only member (and not an original member) of the band who is Canadian (born in the UK) was David Clayton Thomas, the singer on most of their hits. The band was originally led by Al Kooper (not Alice Cooper) and was formed in the 1960’s. Harry Nilsson sang on their album “Child is Father to the Man“, which contained such classics as “Without Her’ (Nillson) and “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know”, by Al Kooper.
After this album, the band underwent a radical line up change as Al Kooper left the band. Original members Bobby Colomby and Steve Katz began a search for a new singer and based on a recommendation by Judy Collins, who had seen him sing, hired David Clayton Thomas. Thus, Blood Sweat and Tears began their career as a Canadian icon. Their first album as the reformed group, “Blood Sweat and Tears” was a major hit, even beating “Abbey Road” out as album of the year at the 1969 Grammys. The album contained the hits “You Made Me So Very Happy”, “Spinning Wheel”, and “And When I Die”.
The band has undergone many changes in its lifetime and still maintain a heavy touring schedule. David Clayton Thomas had 3 stints with the band, 1968 to 1972, 1974 to 1981 and 1984 to 2004.  The band spawned a new genre of rock, outside the acid rock and anti-establishment types of the era. The bands in this grouping included Chicago, Ides of March and Atlanta Rhythm Section to name a few.
The video is a live version of Spinning Wheel, recorded in 1969.
Ah yes, Chilliwack. A Canadian staple on the radio in the 70’s. “Fly at Night”, “Lonesome Mary”, “Rain-O”, “Crazy Talk”, “Gone, Gone, Gone”, an extensive list of classics. The group was formed in 1964 as The Classics, later changing their name to The Collectors before settling on Chilliwack. Being around for so long, there have obviously been many changes in personnel, all rotating around the constant of Bill Henderson. They were innovators in their use of Native American instruments in their songs, predating Xavier Rudd by many decades. Over the years the band has released 14 albums and has had 8 Top 40 hits in Canada while charting 23 times and 2 Top 40 hits in the USA, while charting 7 times. The have not recorded since 1984, although a live album was released in 2003. An interesting side-note, band member Brian Macleod and the rest of the group, without Bill Henderson, played as the Headpins in the 1980’s with Darby Mills, another Canadian icon of the 1980’s. The band continues to tour today.
The song attached is a live version of “Sundown”, another Chilliwack staple. This version was done live on the old TV show, Come Together.
A new series of posts based on classic Canadian artists. In the early years of rock and roll, we in Canada had government regulated rules for Canadian content on the airwaves. This created a cottage industry for Canadian bands to create and record as radio stations had to put something on the air, and even though American Woman by the Guess Who is a great song (and fairly long), you couldn’t play it 15 times a day. The upside is that the rules did kick-start an entire stable of artists, which inspired more and more artists until it was no longer necessary to regulate the content. Think current artists such as Arcade Fire, Feist, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne and even Justin Bieber. There is a possibility that none of these people would have made it without this intervention. We also have a catalogue of great songs that the rest of the world has not heard, which is kind of cool.
The artists that I have chosen to kick off this series with is “April Wine“. A band out of Montreal, formed in 1969 and still touring and still recording. In their heyday they were legendary for their live shows. Frontman Myles Goodwin has been the force behind the band from the beginning and has been the constant since day 1. He handled most of the vocals and played guitars in every incarnation of the band. Other long time members were Jim Clench on bass, Brian Greenway on guitars and vocals and Jerry Mercer on drums. In their career they recorded 16 studio albums (Electric Jewels is my favourite), had 15 compilations and 9 live albums. The most famous live one is Live at the El Mocambo. They opened for a band on that night called the Cockroaches, who in fact were the Rolling Stones.
Despite have 21 top 40 hits in Canada, they had limited success elsewhere. In the USA they had 3 top 40’s and 7 total that charted. In the UK only 2 songs reached the charts with none breaking into the top 40. Truly a Canadian phenomenon. The video is I Like To Rock, which charted in all 3 countries, hitting 86 in the USA, 41 in the UK and only hit 75 in Canada. This is the official video of the song, released in 1980.
