P 1 ': 19 .- ~+-----+----~Truggling Songsmiths Canada's Songwriters Are Slowly Being Recognized but Originations
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Volume 2 - No . t 3 Week of November 23rd ., 1964 J. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Canada's £b :p J ) JJ? J ;P 1 ': 19 .- ~+-----+----~truggling Songsmiths Canada's songwriters are slowly being recognized but originations. Even the Canadian-written "The World Is Wait mai nly by the Americans. Even in the 30's Canada's song ing For The Sunrise" by Ernest Seitz and Gene Lockhart writers were travelling to New York where the music business (the late actor) was originally a US publication. This tune was, to get some attention. As hard as it is to break into the was written in 1919. business and come up with a successful composition, it is In 1931, RCA Victor recorded a number of Canadian even harder in Canada,. but this situation is improving. College Songs . They were all Canadian. Later Mart Kenney The opposition to Canadian writers was so severe in the and the Happy Gang recorded a number of Canadian copy early days that there is a story of a Canadian song that be rights and although much wa sn't being done at least SOME came a very famous commercial and theme song. After it was THING was happening for the Canadiar. songwriter. disguised as an American song gives some indication of the In the late 40' s BMI Canada set up a publis hing firm and resis tance met by struggling Canadian songwriters. Canadian dedicated itself toward finding a place in Canada for Cana publis hing firms that would pick up a Canadian songwriters' dian works . One of their first breakthroughs was "Bluebird works are very rare. One of the first breakthroughs were the On My Windowsill" which had 18 versions issued on record, Cana dian Army and Navy show tunes that were Canadian another was "Blue Canadian Rockies" with twelve versions recorded. The most famous was by Gene Autry. Canada and Canadian songwriters were entering the music picture , "Squicl Jiggin' Ground" was next. In BMI's files is a tune written _J '.:'.:. ex <( z 00 x z x 0 ex w by Lorne Greene of "Bonanza" which was published i1;1 w >- <( ex <( <( <( I <C <( <( w> CHART ex I- 3: 0 ~ u. 0 u. I- Vl Vl <( al al zz u ::J 1949. Since that time Greene has not only become famous - Cl z <( 0 _J --. :i z l!> I ex ex ex t3 t3 ACTION <( . <( 0 z ~.,, I- I- <( WW w~ as a TV star, but just recently with his hit record "Ringo" I !;; I :::;: _J "'0 c.. c.. Vl ex ex c..> he is now a pop artist. .,, al I- Vl --. I u. >- x "'w "' _J z ACROSS z .,, u u _J 3: _J w c.. 0:::;: u >- ::J The first real gl immer of s uccess came in 1960 and I'<'. I--. CANAOA Iu uuI--. uuu. "' "'uu"' uu uu "'uuu "' u. since that time Canada has slowly but consistantly been selling Canadian songs to the world market. An interesting (1 ) Unles s You Core 1 2 1 16 1 ~ 14 24 5 1 25 T erry Block (Arc) fact is that 14 Canadian tunes have shown up on the German charts, and foreign versions of Canadian tunes are not rare ( 2) Los Ve gos Scen e 20 32 16 We s Dokus ( Qua) today . One of the mo s t successful recent Canadian copyrights ( 3) So Ma ny Oth e r Boys was " Our Winter Love" by Johnny Cowell. 14 2247 57 22 Esquires (Cap) Canada and Canadian songwriters have come up with a (4) Alone and Lonely very impressive list of HITS. " Walk Hand In Hand With Me" 8 58 34 --B-o bby Curtola (Rei) " Man In A Raincoat" "Steel Men" "Baby Beatie Walk" ~ I (5) Stop Te asing Me " I'll Never Smile Again" " Put Your Dreams Away" "Mont Ch ad Allen (Qua) 44 37 38 real" and "Fortune Teller". With Canadian songwriters , we (6 ) Fe el So Pretty have just scratched the surface. There are many untapped Sh irley Matthew s ( Rei ) 27 46 sources of song and music in Canada that slowly are being (7) Big Hos s Man recognized. The songs and the songwriters are here and - L arry Lee (Col) 33 14 properly arranged and orchestrated we can develop a great music of our own. (8) Whet Does A Boy Do Doug Ly cell ( Rei) 14 One Canadian record producer has refused to rake any sess ions unless at least half the songs to be recorded are (9 ) Over My Shou I der Barry Allen (Qua) 16 Cana dian compositions. "I don't know where there are more gifted songwriters than in Canada and with the proper treat ~ 10) Till I Met • OU ment we can produce hit after hit. Once we have the break Classics (Ral) 18 through we'll find our writers were always here waiting to be (*) Don ' t Make A Fool Of Me discovered. " Caesar and Consuls ( Rei ) 25 Who kn ow s but some Canadian songwriter is already ( *) Barby Lee disguising his songs to look American to make them hits in David C . Thomas (Ter) 29 Canada. IT'S HAPPENED BEFORE. Toronto. "Happy Birthday" (Decca). MIKE DOYLE of RCA Victor sends news of the farewell 'CROSS tour of North America by Marian Anderson. Itinerary includes Winnipeg - Nov.27, Calgary - Nov.30, Edmonton - Dec.2, Montreal - Dec.10, Ottawa - Dec.13, Vancouver - Mar.23. TREMENDOUS response to our Cross Canada Chart Action The Burl Ives single of "Chim Chim Cheree" from Mary has made it impossible to include every chart that comes in Poppins looks like another success s tory for Ives. Another to us, nor every Canadian Content single listed. However Victor s ingle we predict for No. 1 slot is "Ringo" by Lorne' e ~ ery chart is used in our calculations, and the following Greene. smgles showed considerable action this week. "Once In A BY WAY OF the Ottawa Journal and Allen Sackmann Lifetime Boy" - Girlfriends (Cal) and "Queen Of The Hop" comes news of the Chieftones. This group was formed to Billy and the Martiniques (Tamarac). We will be confined to publicize the Indian Residential School in Edmonton . They 20 s ta tions and 10 plus 3 hits forthwith and any honourable have just been signed to a two year contract by a US book- ~ me ntions will appear in this column. ing agency which promises them 48 weeks of work a year. WE'D LIKE TO DOFF OUR CAPS to a few luminaries in the The Chieftones are four Indian youths dressed in traditional record business for their steadfast energies exerted toward costumes, hair in braids with feathers. They play country the mammoth task of building an industry for Canada. Our and rock and have been scoring very well in western Canada. business needs more people like Bob Martin of Columbia , Their manager is John Radcliffe, school supervisor who has Mi ke Doyle of RCA Victor, Paul White of Capitol Rec ords . set up a trust fund for each of the boys. A portion of their These are the giants of the giants. Sparton's Harold Pounds earnings will be turned over to the school. The group is for his tireless efforts to promote our music and records. made up of Vincent Clifford, Jack Cecil, Barry Clifford and J ohn Porteous of Arc who was instrumental in the success of Richard Douse. "Unless You Care". Bob Pugh and Laurie Hazeltine of N I C E T 0 H E A R from Leon J . Brettler of Shapiro, Raleigh Records who as an indie pack a powerful punch for Bernstein & Co., the big music publishers in New York. Canadian content. Al Reusch of Aragon records and Le s Vogt of Jaguar records on the west coast and Tamarac 's Stan Klees whose door has been open to new talent and the artist with a problem and who unselfishly has aided both artis t and session and asked nothing in return. These are the BIG people of the industry that have proven thems elves as giants in the fight to develop a music industry for ALL Wd:t CANA DIANS. THE RED BARN THEATRE with producers Marigold Charlesworth and Jean Roberts began rehearsals this week ~·· for their musical "Cindy-Ella" written by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin . The cast is made up of popular Columbia re cording artist Phyllis Marshall - twenty year old Shirley Ma tthews who is well known in Canadian teen circles for her Tamarac recordings - Lennie Gibson, Vancouver dancer, singer, actor who will also choreograph the s how - and ETHICS AND DCS. During the recent appearance of the Abbot Anderson, Royal Conservatory scholarship student, Dave Clark Five at Toronto' s Maple Leaf Gardens Nov. 2, who appeared with the Canadian Opera Company during its whatever favourable image there may have been for the DCS may quite easily have been damaged by the possibly recent season at the O'Keefe Centre. Janet McGregor Smith uncalled for antics of their representative and road man has designed the sets and Ben McPeek is Musical Director. ager Rick Picone. During the performance of Bobby Cur· Opening night is sla ted for December 8th. tola, Canada's top teen draw, Picone took the opportunity WES DAKUS with his Quality waxing of "La s Vegas to complain bitterly and rather loudly over the fact that Scene " enters RPM' s Top 40 & 5 this week. Curtola had equal billing wi th the DCS and that Curtola MIK E RE ED of Apex still hot-footing it around town had been on stage too long. Curtola' s over enthusiastic fans kept him onstage for a longer period than had sup· making life a little easier for Joe and Eddie dropped off a posedly been allowed.