Category Archives: Toronto

The Power Project

 

Doug Stokes (Vocals)

Greg Carducci (Bass)      

Ray Rychlewski (Drums)

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Josef Chirowski (Keyboards)

Larry Leishman (Guitar)

Singer Doug Stokes formed The Power Project in mid-1967 with former Roy Kenner & The Associates members Carducci and Rychlewski.

Former Mandala member Josef Chirowski and ex-David Clayton-Thomas & The Phoenix and Jon-Lee Group guitarist Larry Leishman joined around November 1967.

The band never recorded but did open for James Brown at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens. The Power Project played during the evenings only as Chirowski was working for Canadian Pacific Railways during the day.

After a few months of playing live, the group changed name to Freedom Fair in January 1968.

The band reverted to The Power Project name in mid-1968. Chirowski joined Grant Smith & The Power at the end of 1968, before becoming a member of Crowbar, while Leishman ended up with Rhinoceros after a stint with The Duke Edwards Cycle and Bobby Kris & The Imperials.

Advertised gigs

10 June 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

30 June 1967 – North York Centennial Centre, Toronto with Mandala, The Spirit and Livingstone’s Tripp

30 June 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

 

14 July 1967 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario

15 July 1967 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough, Ontario with The Ugly Ducklings and Trayne

26 July 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

28 July 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

 

6 August 1967 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

 

8 September 1967 – The Thing, Toronto with The Jon-Lee Group

15 September 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

23 September 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

Chirowski and Leishman joined during November

4 November 1967 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto with The Tiffanies

11 November 1967 – The Pavilion, Orillia, Ontario

19 November 19 1967 – Maple Leaf Gardens with James Brown (this may have been May 1968)

25 November 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

 

2 December 1967 – Inferno, Toronto

9 December 1967 – The Bunny Bin, Toronto with The Counts and Bunny Band

30 December 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

31 December 1967 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough, Ontario with Jackie Shane, Frank Motley The Hitch-Hikers

 

26 January 1968 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

 

28 June 1968 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

 

5 July 1968 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

The gigs were taken from the After Four section in the Toronto Telegram. Thanks to Larry Leishman for some background information.

Jon & Lee and The Checkmates

Lee Jackson (Vocals) 

Michael Fonfara (Keyboards) 

Larry Leishman (Guitar, Vocals)  

Dave Brown (Drums)

Peter Hodgson (Bass) 

Wes Morris (Drums) 

John Finley (Vocals) 

Jeff Cutler (Drums) 

Toronto’s R&B favourites, Jon & Lee and The Checkmates were originally known as Lee Jackson & The Checkmates.

The original band (formed at a local high school in 1962) comprised singer Lee Jackson (real name: Michael Ferry), lead guitarist Al Dorsey, bassist Dave McDevitt, drummer Paul Carrier and saxophone player Hilmar Hajek.

They were joined soon afterwards by classically trained keyboard player Michael Fonfara (b. 11 August 1946, Stevensville, near Niagara Falls, Ontario).

Towards the end of 1963, the group’s manager introduced a second lead guitarist, Larry Leishman (b. 4 April 1947, Dunfermline, Scotland) from local band The Tempests.

The new line-up however, was short-lived as Dorsey soon left. His departure precipitated a series of personnel changes and by mid-1964, former Esquires singer John Finley (b. 6 May 1945, Toronto, Ontario) and his cousin, bassist Peter Hodgson (b. 16 April 1946, Toronto, Ontario), also ex-The Tempests were added alongside drummer Wes Morris.

Morris’ predecessor, Dave Brown meanwhile had gone on to join Jay Smith & The Majestics. When Morris left to join The Majestics in the summer of 1964, the group added Jeff Cutler (b. Rowland Jefferies Cutler, 8 September 1941, Toronto, Ontario).

The new line-up quickly changed its name and was picked up by local booking agent, Ron Scribner, who organised concert dates in high schools across Ontario to promote the band.

Thanks to Ivan Amirault for the photo

In early 1965, the band moved up to the city’s vibrant club scene and for a while were residents at Yorkville’s Avenue Road Club and the Devil’s Den. In April of that year Jon & Lee and The Checkmates opened for The Rolling Stones at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, followed by what was probably their most prestigious concert performance, an appearance (in front of 60,000 people) at Nathan Philips Square in September supporting Bobby Curtola.

Around this time, the group cut two songs on four-track with their manager and musical director, Eddie ‘Duke’ Edwards, which led to TV appearances in Buffalo and New York.

The band also attracted the attention of American record companies RCA, Motown, Mercury, Elektra and Decca; they actually cut some demos with the latter in New York but they were never issued.

During 1966, the band traveled to New York and played at the Phone Booth and the Peppermint Lounge. The group also performed alongside Junior Walker & The All Stars, The Chiffons and The Temptations at Shea Stadium. On 21 August, the group appeared on Compass on Channel Six.

That same year, Edwards composed ‘Batman Batusi’, which the band recorded for the ABC-TV Network. The track appeared on a rare 45 with the A-side performed by another group.

Image may be subject to copyright

Shortening their name to The Jon-Lee Group in June 1967, the band travelled to New York to play at Steve Paul’s The Scene and to record for ABC Records.

The band completed four tracks, including a cover of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Girl Beautiful Girl’, which never saw the light of day.

Instead, the label chose to release the soulful ‘Bring It Down Front’ with the instrumental rocker ‘Pork Chops’ (credited to Edwards, and provisionally titled ‘Fuck Up’).

The single subsequently reached #23 on the RPM chart in October, when it was released in Canada by Sparton Records. The single also hit #10 on Toronto’s Chum chart.

On 31 July 1967, the band returned to Toronto for its final set of gigs. The band’s music started to take on a more psychedelic bent but didn’t go down so well with audiences.

Thanks to Ivan Amirault for the photo

Jackson and Finley separated from the band in mid-September 1967 and the others moved to New York to become the house band at Steve Paul’s The Scene. For a while they acted as David Clayton-Thomas’ support band, The Phoenix.

However, when Thomas was deported from the US in November for being an illegal alien, Fonfara joined The Electric Flag (in time to appear on their debut album) and toured with the group for almost a month before running into Finley and Hodgson in L.A in early December.

Both had auditioned for Elektra’s new band ‘Project Super group’ (which later became Rhinoceros) and although Hodgson missed out on the original line-up, Finley was recruited, and duly recommended Fonfara for the band. Hodgson and Leishman would later join Rhinoceros together with Duke Edwards.

Lee Jackson meanwhile remained in Toronto and reverted to his former name. He later went on to work with Bruce Cockburn briefly and became a local rock promoter. In the early ‘70s, he worked for the Toronto Stock Exchange and ran a small studio before joining a floor-covering firm in 1974.

Jeff Cutler, who briefly worked with The Holy Modal Rounders and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, later became a movie set producer.

The others (minus Cutler and Jackson and with new members) reformed as Blackstone in 1972.

Review in Variety Magazine

 

Recordings

45 Batman Theme/Batman Batusi (ABC-TV Network) 1966 (B-side only)

45 Bring It Down Front/Pork Chops (Sparton P1617) 1967

Advertised gigs (as Jon & Lee and The Checkmates)

25 April 1965 – Maple Leaf Gardens with Rolling Stones, The Paupers and others

 

20 June 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

26 June 1965 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario

 

10 July 1965 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario

11 July 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

16-17 July 1965 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

18 July 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

25 July 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

29 July 1965 – “Red Cross Blood Donor Clinic”, Varsity Arena, Toronto with The Big Town Boys, The Paupers and J B & The Playboys

 

10 August 1965 – Sauble Beach Pavilion, Sauble Beach, Ontario

27 August 1965 – Club 888, Toronto

29 August 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

 

3 September 1965 – Dunn’s Pavilion, Bala, Ontario

5 September 1965 – Lakeview Casino, Grand Bend, Ontario

12 September 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

13 September 1965 – Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto with Bobby Curtola, David Clayton-Thomas & The Shays and others

25 September 1965 – Gord’s A Go Go, Oshawa, Ontario

26 September 1965 – Devil’s Den, Toronto

 

1 October 1965 – Mimicombo A Go-Go, Mimico, Ontario

10 October 1965 – Hop in the park, Eglington Park, Toronto

31 October 1965 – Maple Leaf Gardens with Rolling Stones and others

 

12 November 1965 – Mimicombo A Go Go, Mimico, Ontario

13 November 1965 – Hop in the park, Toronto

 

4 December 1965 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

10 December 1965 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

December 1965 – Peppermint Lounge, New York

14-16 January 1966 – The Avenue Road Club, Toronto

22 January 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Gardens, Toronto

28-29 January 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto with Majestics with Shawne Jackson (then to New York)

 

20 February 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

27 February 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

 

4-5 March 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

6 March 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

12 March 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

26 March 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

 

1 April 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto, with Franklin Sheppard & The Good Sheppards

3 April 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto (afterwards went to New York, Detroit and Philadelphia for three months)

 

6-7 May 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

13 May 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

20 May 1966 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

22 May 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

 

19 June 1966 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough with David Clayton-Thomas and The Ugly Ducklings

 

9 July 1966 – Hunters Beach Pavilion, Lake Simcoe, Ontario

13 July 1966 – Whitby Arena, Whitby, Ontario with The Five Rogues, Bobby Kris & The Imperials and The Ugly Ducklings

13 July 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena, Toronto with The Big Town Boys and The Secrets

16 July 1966 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

20 July 1966 – Don Mills Curling Club, Don Mills, Ontario with The British Modbeats, Bobby Kris & The Imperials and Dunc and The Deacons

23 July 1966 – Hidden Valley, Huntsville, Ontario with Barry Allen, Wes Dakus & The Rebels

26 July 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena, Toronto with The Jaybees and Wes Dakus, Barry Allen & The Rebels

30 July 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

 

7 August 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

14 August 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

19 August 1966 – Hidden Valley, Huntsville, Ontario

20 August 1966 – Hunter’s Beach, Lake Simcoe, Ontario

21 August 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

27 August 1966 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

28 August 1966 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough with The Just Us and All Five

29 August 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

 

2 September 1966 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario

3 September 1966 – Purple Candle, Wasaga, Ontario

6 September 1966 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario

 

21 October 1966 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with Jack Hardin & The Silhouettes, The Five Good Reasons, Nicky Garber and Percy Dovetonsils

28-30 October 1966 – The Castle, St Catherine’s, Ontario

 

6 November 1966 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

11 November 1966 – Cobourg Lions Pavillion, Cobourg, Ontario

19 November 1966 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with Jaye’s Rayders and others

 

30 December 1966 – Villa Inn, Streetsville, Ontario

31 December 1966 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with Eddie Spencer & The Power and The Wyldfyre

 

22 January 1967 – Club Isabella, Toronto

29 January 1967 – Charlie Brown’s, Toronto

 

4 February 1967 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with The Five Good Reasons and The Paytons

 

22 April 1967 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

28-29 April 1967 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto

 

6 May 1967 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with Jack Hardin & The Silhouettes and Simon Caine & The Catch

20 May 1967 – Centennial Cool-Out, Kingston, Ontario with The Guess Who, The Esquires, The Townsmen and others

Advertised gigs (as Jon-Lee Group)

Image may be subject to copyright

8-11 June 1967 – Steve Paul’s The Scene, New York

 

8-9 July 1967 – Emerald Room, Wildwood, New Jersey, US with The Soul Survivors and The 4 Reasons (Philadelphia Daily News)

15-16 July 1967 – Emerald Room, Wildwood, New Jersey, US with The Soul Survivors and The 4 Reasons (Philadelphia Daily News)

21 July 1967 – The Living Room, Philadelphia, US (Philadelphia Daily News)

 

2 August 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

5 August 1967 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

26 August 1967 – Broom & Stone with The Peepers and Christopher Edward Campaign

 

1 September 1967 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

2 September 1967 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario

4 September 1967 – Esquire Show Bar, Montreal, Quebec (week-long gig, cancelled after Finley injured in crash according to Montreal Star)

8 September 1967 – The Thing, Toronto with The Power Project

16 September 1967 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

18 September 1967 – The Living Room, Philadelphia, US (Philadelphia Daily News)

25 September 1967 – The Living Room, Philadelphia, US with Soultastics (Philadelphia Daily News)

Toronto live dates were taken from the ‘After Four’ section of The Toronto Telegram unless otherwise noted

Copyright © Nick Warburton. All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means, without prior permission from the author

McKenna Mendelson Mainline

Joe Mendelson (Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards, Vocals)

Mike McKenna (Guitar)

Pat Little (Drums)

Timothy Leary (Bass)

Denny Gerrard (Bass)

Tony Nolasco (Drums) 

Mike Harrison (Bass)    

Frank ”Zeke” Sheppard (Harmonica, Bass, Vocals)

Ted Purdy (Bass, Guitar, Vocals)

Larry Leishman (Guitar, Vocals)

Bob Adams (Harmonica)

 

Following a brief spell in The Ugly Ducklings, former Luke & The Apostles guitarist Mike McKenna (b. 15 April 1946, Toronto, Canada) put an ad in a local paper (around May 1968) searching for blues enthusiasts interested in forming a band.

Local singer Joe Mendelson (b. Birrel Josef Mendelson, 30 July 1944, Toronto, Canada) answered his ad, and together they formed the basis of this musically interesting group.

A very short-lived line up formed with former Luke & The Apostles drummer Pat Little (b. 10 March 1947, North Bay, Ontario, Canada) and bass player Timothy Leary (not the more famous US namesake) but it never got passed rehearsals.

Soon afterwards, former Paupers member Denny Gerrard signed up alongside drummer Tony Nolasco (b. 9 July 1950, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada), who had spent a year with The Spasstiks and was only 16 years old when he arrived in Toronto.

The quartet began advertising its talents in mid-June and recorded a demonstration tape over a few days in early September, which was subsequently issued as a “legal bootleg” by manager John Irvine, who had the legal title to the tapes but released it without the band’s approval. This line -up also became residents at Toronto’s Night Owl.

Following several early live performances, Gerrard left the group in early October (subsequently rejoining The Paupers briefly) and ex-Grant Smith and The Power bass player Mike Harrison (b. 1 November 1948, Brampton, Ontario, Canada) was recruited in his place.

This line-up opened for John Lee Hooker at the Rockpile before moving to London, England in December.

Mendelson and McKenna arrived on 10 December, Harrison on 15 December and Nolasco on 26 December.

The band built up a steady following on London’s blues circuit and also played some dates on the continent, including the ‘Flight to Lowlands Paradise 2’ concert, in Utrecht, The Netherlands on 27/28 December alongside Pink Floyd, where the Canadian band was reputedly the only group to receive a standing ovation. (Nolasco had only arrived in England on 26 December!)

During their stay in London, McKenna Mendelson Mainline won a recording deal with Liberty Records and in April and May 1969 recorded the album Stink, generally considered to be the band’s best work, at Trident Studios in London’s Soho district.

By the time it was released in July the musicians were back in Toronto, where they were greeted as returning heroes.

The single, ‘Better Watch Out’ reached #47 on the Canadian RPM chart and the album sold very well.

However, despite the LP’s success, the group’s career was about to grind to a halt.

On 23 November 1969, Mendelson guested with Whiskey Howl at Toronto’s Night Owl, which was a precursor of things to come; he left abruptly [late] the following month for a solo career.

During the early part of 1970 McKenna found time to record with a revamped Luke & The Apostles and the group was put on hold.

Mendelson however, decided to reform the band in March 1970, recruiting former Franklin Sheppard & The Good Sheppards singer Zeke Sheppard on bass alongside Nolasco.

The group, now named simply “Mainline”, was invited to play at the Scarborough Fair Festival in the summer, and Mendelson decided to ask McKenna to join the band for the one show.

The concert was a great success and McKenna was invited to rejoin full-time. The new line-up embarked on a tour of Australia in 1971 as opening act for Frijid Pink.

During this period the band scored another hit with the single ‘Get Down To’, from the 1971 GRT LP Mainline: Canada Our Home & Native Land. The single hit #45 in April 1972.

In late 1971, bassist Ted Purdy replaced Sheppard and appeared on the 1972 GRT album The Mainline Bump & Grind Revue. This version of Mainline dissolved in late 1972.

In March 1973, a new entity formed, “King Biscuit Boy Meets Mainline”, with Richard “King Biscuit Boy” on vocals and harmonica, Mike McKenna on guitar and vocals, Mike Harrison on bass, and Tony Nolasco on drums. In May, former Rhinoceros/Blackstone guitarist Larry Leishman was added on guitar and vocals.

“King Biscuit Boy Meets Mainline” was booked for an Australian tour, but Richard Newell’s fear of flying prevented his participation.

In June 1973, Joe Mendelson replaced Newell for the Australian tour, so the Stink album quartet of McKenna, Mendelson, Harrison, and Nolasco was reunited (with Larry Leishman added) for the first time since December 1969.

After the Australian tour, the Biscuit Meets Mainline band reassembled for several months, but dissolved later in the year. Contrary to legend, this band never recorded or released any material.

On 31 December 1973, the quartet of McKenna, Mendelson, Harrison, and Nolasco presented “The Mainline Bump & Grind Revue” at Toronto’s Victory Burlesque Theatre. The show was broadcast the same evening on TV Ontario.

In 1974, Mendelson decided to reform the band. McKenna and Nolasco agreed, but Harrison opted out, and female bassist Leslie Soldat was recruited. This line-up, most notable for opening for Rush at Toronto’s Massey Hall, dissolved in less than a year.

In 1975, McKenna and Mendelson recorded No Substitute for Taurus Records. Produced by Mendelson and Adam Mitchell, the LP included an assortment of players including Ted Purdy on bass and Jørn Anderson on drums. The album didn’t sell; soon after McKenna and Mendelson went on to pursue separate careers.

Mendelson resumed his solo career while McKenna had brief spells with The Guess Who and The Downchild Blues Band.  

In 1997, McKenna and Gerrard formed Slidewinder and recorded an LP for the Pacemaker label.

A new line up of the band was formed in late-April 1999 featuring  Mike McKenna (guitar, vocals), Tony Nolaso (drums, lead vocals), Mike Harrison (bass, vocals), Ted Purdy (guitar, vocals) and Bob Adams (harp).

The band recorded a CD, Last Show @ The Elmo for Bullseye in November 2001. The CD release party was at Toronto’s Hard Rock Café in December 2002.

Recordings

45 Better Watch Out/She’s Alright (Liberty LBF15235) 1969 (UK release)

45 Don’t Give Me No Goose For Christmas Grandma/Beltmaker (Liberty LBF15276) 1969 (UK release)

45 One Way Ticket/Beltmaker (Liberty 5601) 1969

45 Better Watch Out/She’s Alright (Liberty 56120) 1969

LP Stink (Liberty LBS83251) 1969 (UK release)

LP Blues (Paragon 15) 1969 (Canada only)

(As Mainline)

LP Canada, Our Home And Native Land (GRT 9230-1011) 1971

LP The Mainline Bump And Grind Revue – Live At The Victory Theatre (GRT 9230-1015) 1972

45 Get Down To/Pedalictus Rag (GRT 1233-22) 1972

45 Games of Love/O Canada (GRT 1233-32) 1972

45 Sometimes/Do My Walkin’ (Taurus 005) 1975

LP No Substitute (Taurus TR103) 1975

Advertised gigs

5-10 August 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto

16-17 August 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto

24-25 August 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

31 August 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto

 

5-8 September 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

 

6 October 1968 – Massey Hall, Toronto with The Fugs and Transfusion (Gerrard’s final show as Toronto Telegram’s 19 October issue reports he’s back with The Paupers)

22-27 October 1968 – El Patio, Toronto (Harrison’s debut)

 

2 November 1968 – Grande Ballroom, Detroit, US with Jeff Beck, Toad and Joyful Wisdom

14-16 November 1968 – The Flick, Toronto

17 November 1968 – Rock Pile, Toronto with The Leigh Ashford Group

18-20 November 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto

22 November 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto

23 November 1968 – Rock Pile, Toronto with John Lee Hooker

30 November 1968 – Rock Pile, Toronto with Transfusion

 

1 December 1968 – Rock Pile, Toronto (“Going to England party”)

8 December 1968 – Rock Pile, Toronto with Buddy Guy (probably last show for leaving for UK)

27-28 December 1968 – Flight to Lowlands Paradise II, Margrietel Jaarbeus, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Nottingham Evening Post lists the band as coming from San Francisco! Photo may be subject to copyright

26 January 1969 – Nottingham Boat Club, Nottingham, England (debut UK gig)

Photo: Western Evening Herald. Photo may be subject to copyright

8 February 1969 – Van Dike, Plymouth, Devon

This is noted in Jonathan Hill’s book ‘Van Dike – The Life & Times of a Plymouth Club 1968-1972’

Photo: Melody Maker. Photo may be subject to copyright

19 February 1969 – Speakeasy, central London

Photo may be subject to copyright

20 February 1969 – South Parade Pier, Southsea, Hants, England with The Pretty Things and The Deviants

20 February 1969 – Concorde Club, Bassett Hotel, Southampton, Hants

27 February 1969 – Locarno Ballroom, Swindon, Wiltshire, England with Family (needs confirmation)

 

1 March 1969 – Van Dike, Plymouth, Devon

This is noted in Jonathan Hill’s book ‘Van Dike – The Life & Times of a Plymouth Club 1968-1972’.  The group replaced Led Zeppelin who were due to play

6 March 1969 – Concorde Club, Bassett Hotel, Southampton, Hants

8 March 1969 – Bay Hotel, Sunderland, England

Photo: Surrey Advertiser. Photo may be subject to copyright

16 March 1969 – Mad Gin Mill, Angel, Godalming, Surrey, England with Six Bob Cheep

22 March 1969 – Kimbells Club, Southsea, Hants, England

26 March 1969 – Rambling Jack’s Blues Club, the Railway Hotel, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts, England

Photo: Melody Maker. Photo may be subject to copyright

28 March 1969 – Mothers, Erdington, West Midlands, England

30 March 1969 – Nottingham Boat Club, Nottingham, England

According to Melody Maker, the group played at the Mistrale Club in Beckenham Junction, south London before 19 April.

7 April 1969 – Cooks Ferry Inn, Edmonton, London

Photo: Bournemouth Evening Echo. Photo may be subject to copyright

11 April 1969 – Ritz, Bournemouth, Dorset

21 April 1969 – Quaintways, Chester, Cheshire with Van Der Graaf Generator, Peter & The Alphabet, The State Express and Wall City Jazzmen

Photo: Melody Maker. Photo may be subject to copyright

23 April 1969 – Toby Jug, Tolworth, Surrey, England

24 April 1969 – Concorde Club, Bassett Hotel, Southampton, Hants

25 April 1969 – Blues Loft, Nags Head, High Wycombe, Bucks, England

Photo: Melody Maker. Photo may be subject to copyright

27 April 1969 – Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London with White Trash, Third Ear and many others

Photo: Swindon Advertiser. Photo may be subject to copyright

1 May 1969 – Locarno Ballroom, Swindon, Wiltshire, England with Caravan

Photo: Bucks Free Press. Photo may be subject to copyright

9 May 1969 – Blues Loft, Nags Head, High Wycombe, Bucks, England

18 May 1969 – Mad Gin Mill, Angel, Godalming, Surrey, England with Six Bob Cheep

22 May 1969 – Concorde Club, Bassett Hotel, Southampton, Hants

Photo: Melody Maker. Photo may be subject to copyright

23 May 1969 – The Lyceum, Strand, central London with The Soft Machine, Harvey Matusow’s Jews Harp Band, Mighty Baby and Procol Harum,

Photo: Melody Maker. Photo may be subject to copyright

29 May 1969 – The Marquee, Wardour Street, Soho, London with Howlin’ Wolf and The John Dummer Blues Band

 

12 July 1969 – Rock Pile, Toronto (probably the band’s first show after returning from the UK)

 

21-24 August 1969 – Rock Pile, Toronto

26 August 1969 – Glenbriar, Waterloo, Ontario

29 August 1969 – Huron Park, Mississauga, Ontario

 

9-14 September 1969 – Electric Circus, Toronto

19 September 1969 – St Gabe’s, Willowdale, Ontario

20 September 1969 – Barrie Rock Festival, Barrie Central Auditorium, Barrie, Ontario with Teegarden and Vanwinkle, Leigh Ashford, Neon Rose and Milestone

 

1 November 1969 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

8 November 1969 – Scorpio Youth Concert, North York Centennial Centre, Toronto with Manchild, East West Project, Buckstone Hardware and Life and Creation

28 November 1969 – The Workshop at Seneca College, Toronto

30 November 1969 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

30 November 1969 – The Night Owl, Toronto

 

13 December 1969 – Cedabrae Collegiate, Toronto

23 December 1969 – Kiwanis Club, Hamilton, Ontario

31 December 1969 – Grande Ballroom, Detroit, US (without MendelsonAdvertised but didn’t happen

 

3 January 1970 – Le Hibou, Ottawa (without Mendelson) Advertised but didn’t happen

4 January 1970 – Notre Dame Hall, Ottawa with Whiskey Howl and Brimful (without Mendelson) Advertised but didn’t happen

6 January 1970 – St Gabe’s, Willowdale, Ontario

 

7 February 1970 – Our Lady of Fatima Hall, Toronto (without Mendelson)

Advertised gigs (As Mainline)

3 April 1970 – Dunbarton High, Toronto

11 April 1970 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto

24 April 1970 – Electric Circus, Toronto

 

15 May 1970 – St Gabe’s, Willowdale, Ontario

30 May 1970 – Electric Circus, Toronto (McKenna rejoins after this show)

 

6 June 1970 – Scarboro Fair, Scarborough, Ontario, with Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Lighthouse, Edward Bear, Fludd and others

 

4 July 1970 – Memorial Gardens, Toronto with The Guess Who, Manchild and Balazar

17 July 1970 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario

18 July 1970 – Hidden Valley, Hunstville, Ontario

 

14 August 1970 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario

22 August 1970 – Le Hibou, Ottawa (as McKenna Mendelson Mainline)

I don’t think this tour of Australia and New Zealand happened. They toured in 1971 and then again in 1973

2 September 1970 – Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

3 September 1970 – Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

4 September 1970 – Brisbane, Australia

5 September 1970 – Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

9 September 1970 – Perth, Western Australia, Australia

11 September 1970 – Wellington, New Zealand

12 September 1970 – Auckland, New Zealand

 

3 October 1970 – Runnymede Secondary School, Toronto

24 October 1970 – St Gabe’s, Willowdale, Ontario

 

1 November 1970 – York Masonic Temple, Toronto with Mudflat (advertised but didn’t happen)

19 November 1970 – U of T Convocation Hall, Toronto with Jason

 

26 December 1970 – Markham United Church, Markham, Ontario

29 December 1970 – Huron Heights High School, Toronto with Jason

Huge thanks to Mike Harrison for his help with this entry. Thanks also to Mike McKenna and Tony Nolasco.

Thanks to Cole Mathieson for the Concorde Club, Southampton gigs at the Bassett Hotel.

Kensington Market

Kensington Market produced perhaps the most gentle, lyrical rock music to figure on the Toronto music scene during the 1960s.

Fusing folk, classical and jazz elements with attractive melodic phrasings, and anecdotal lyrics, Kensington Market (named after a street market in the city’s west side) was formed initially to promote the song writing talents of English-born Keith McKie (b. 20 November 1947, St Albans).

McKie’s musical abilities first came to prominence after his family had emigrated to Sault Ste. Marie in northwest Ontario in 1953 when he began singing in local church choirs. Learning the guitar in his teens, he formed his first band, The Shades, with fellow guitarist Bobby Yukich.

When The Shades broke up, McKie and Yukich next pieced together The Vendettas with three members of rival group, Ronnie Lee and the Five Sharps – sax player John Derbyshire, drummer Bob Yeomans and bass player Alfred Johns, who soon made way for Alex Darou (b. 6 January 1943, Sault Ste. Marie), a former student at the Oscar Peterson School in Toronto.

Several years older than the others, Darou had recently come off the road with a jazz trio helmed by Geordie MacDonald, later drummer with Neil Young’s short-lived group Four To Go. Darou’s intellect and musical abilities had a profound influence on the rest of the band and Keith McKie in particular.

“Alex taught us a lot about feels and jazz and kinda got us really aware of time,” says McKie about his future Kensington Market band mate.

In the summer of 1965, The Vendettas accepted an invitation to audition for singer Ronnie Hawkins, who’d been passed the group’s tapes by Mary Jane Punch, a female fan studying in Toronto.

The promise of a deal with the singer’s Hawk Records never materialised but the band did get to play some dates on the local bar circuit.

By this point, John Derbyshire had made way for Toronto University music graduate, Scott Cushnie. An accomplished pianist, Cushnie ended up playing with Aerosmith’s road band during the 1970s.

Towards the end of the year, Bob Yeomans also moved on to join The A-Men, and was replaced by a 15-year-old drummer from Thunder Bay named Ted Sherrill.

Returning to Toronto the following spring, the band gigged regularly at Boris’ Red Gas Room and during June 1966 recorded two McKie-Yukich songs: ‘Hurt’ c/w ‘You Don’t Care Now’ for a prospective single.

For some reason, however, the single never materialised, prompting Alex Darou’s departure for New York to work with David Clayton-Thomas.

The group never really recovered from losing its inspirational bass player, and although Wayne Cardinal from Satan and The D-Men came to the rescue, McKie’s thoughts turned towards forging a new musical path, one where he could promote his increasingly introspective and anecdotal songs.

Such an opportunity arose in the spring of 1967 when aspiring rock manager Bernie Finkelstein approached McKie and offered to build a group around him.

Finkelstein was on the look out to launch a new, progressive band after selling his interests in The Paupers to Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman. In fact, it had been Paupers’ guitarist and lead singer, Adam Mitchell, who’d first told him about Keith McKie and encouraged him to check out the talented singer/songwriter.

“At one point I was living with Steve Gervais, who was later a successful actor, in a station wagon and he wanted to be my manager,” says McKie.

“But it seemed like Bernie was the better deal. In retrospect, and in spite of the fact that Bernie was really good, I probably should have stayed with the guy I was with at the time because it would have been more fun in the long run and more organic. Bernie had a lot of experience and that was probably a smart move to make if you were being a business person.”

First on the list for the new band was Gene Martynec (b. 28 March 1947, Coburg, West Germany), a brilliant guitarist with a Polish/Ukrainian background, who’d recently quit local folk/rock band, Bobby Kris & The Imperials after two singles for Columbia Records.

As McKie explains, it was Finkelstein’s decision to link the two musicians together.

“I wasn’t totally sure about Gene at first,” admits McKie. “But he was nice guy and a good player and so we started playing a bit and started to gel.”

“I heard Keith playing a couple of tunes in the back seat of a car one night and really liked what he was playing, so we started from there,” recalls Martynec.

Searching for like-minded souls, McKie’s former band mate Ted Sherrill pointed him in the direction of Jimmy Watson (b. 23 August 1950, Belfast, Northern Ireland), a self-taught drummer and a dab hand at the sitar. It also didn’t hurt that the young Irishman happened to be Van Morrison’s cousin!

“Jimmy was just this young kid and when I first saw him, well, I thought how can this person play, he’s so young?” says Martynec.

Despite these initially concerns, Watson soon proved his worth and they began searching for a bass player to complete the band.

The musicians ended up trying out several players before McKie turned to former Vendetta Alex Darou. Having located a number for his friend in New York, McKie remembers Darou needing little persuasion. “He thought, ‘Bernie Finkelstein’, now I am interested.”

In a city renowned for its gritty R&B and blues, the group’s music tread a far more delicate path, closer in sound perhaps to early Jefferson Airplane or the Incredible String Band.

Finding an appropriate name that captured this diverse and eclectic blend of musical styles prompted the group to call itself after a popular street market in the city’s west end because store owners “sell everything and we wanted to do everything”.

Kensington Market did indeed seem quite fitting and after settling on the name, the band retreated to an old waterfront warehouse to practise for six weeks.

Emerging with an intricate and sophisticated sound, the band launched its new musical vision on the public at the Night Owl on Avenue Road on 4 June 1967.

Writing in the Toronto Star, Sid Adilman reported that the group was “the brightest and most inventive band ever grouped together in Toronto”.

Another witness to the early group’s live performances was journalist Peter Goddard who caught the band at Boris’ Red Gas Room a few weeks later (possibly 17 June when they were billed as The Kensington Market Band).

Reviewing the show for the city’s Globe and Mail, Goddard commented: “Unlike many West Coast-orientated groups the Market’s primary concern is with music and not its supposed mind-expanding after-effects.”

Such accolades were well deserved and in July Finkelstein negotiated a deal with the local Stone label, which resulted in four recordings, all Keith McKie compositions.

The fruits of these sessions were soon made public when the band’s debut single, ‘Mr John’ c/w ‘Kensington Market’ was issued as a single in September 1967. Though the recording quality isn’t great, the single has a certain charm and perhaps it was this that propelled ‘Mr John’ into the lower rungs of the national RPM chart.

Within a matter of months, a second single, coupling the more rock orientated ‘Bobby’s Birthday’ with the original (fast) version of ‘I Would Be The One’ was issued to capitalise on ‘Mr John’s’ success.

Like its predecessor, the two tracks reveal a rare glimpse of the early line up’s raw energy and dynamic live sound. The public, however, wasn’t impressed and the single died a quick death.

It didn’t really matter as by then the group had developed a fuller sound with the addition of a fifth member, former Luke & The Apostles lead singer Luke Gibson (b. 5 October 1946, Toronto).

“We were always looking around for someone extra,” explains McKie.

“We wanted another singer preferably because we wanted to get harmony. Gene and I had written some tunes that could do with a lot more harmony and Luke being such a great singer was out there. I think Bernie approached him.”

When Finkelstein approached Luke Gibson to join the Market in early August, the singer had literally played one of his final shows with the Apostles, a performance at the O’Keefe Centre, opening for visiting US acts, The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead. Gibson’s bluesier, soulful voice gave The Kensington Market an earthier sound and complemented McKie’s vocals perfectly.

A week after Gibson’s arrival, the band composed, arranged and recorded eight tracks for the soundtrack for Don Owen’s highly acclaimed Canadian Film Board movie, The Ernie Game.

“Don Owen made a trilogy, Nobody Wave Goodbye, Donna and Gail and The Ernie Game,” says McKie.

“I forget which one was the middle one, but the most popular one was Nobody Wave Goodbye. Leonard Cohen was actually in the one we did, he played in the movie.”

“We were in Montreal at Expo ‘67 in the National Film Board,” adds Martynec.

“We were there I guess for a week and it was like going for a job. We’d get up in the morning and go and work and we’d get out of there fairly late.”

Among the songs Kensington Market contributed to the soundtrack are McKie’s ‘Colouring Book Eyes’ and ‘The Ernie Game’. “We wrote ‘The Ernie Game’ in our hotel room at the Hotel Des Artistes and then we did it the next day.”

Around this time, the group also performed at the seventh annual Mariposa Folk Festival in a watershed year in which electric instruments were featured for the first time. Alex Darou and Jimmy Watson found time around the group’s increasingly busy schedule to play on Ian and Sylvia Tyson’s latest single, ‘Candy Girl’.

While ‘Mr John’ had proved a minor hit, the group’s fortunes were about to change.

Shortly after the group had appeared in the centre-fold of the popular MacLean’s magazine, the band members participated in a jam session with former Gordon Lightfoot guitarist, David Rea.

Impressed by the group’s sophisticated sound (McKie admits that Rea nearly became a member), Rea brought the band to the attention of US producer Felix Pappalardi, whose musical resume included Cream and The Youngbloods.

Pappalardi flew up to Toronto to check the group out and immediately offered a two-record deal with Warner Brothers.

“We were playing Le Hibou in Ottawa [most likely 29-30 September] and they came and signed the papers there,” remembers McKie.

Flying down to New York in February 1968, the group played a series of shows at the Bitter End, running from 14-19 February. Over the next five-weeks, the group recorded its debut album at Century Studio, abetted by Felix Pappalardi in the producer’s chair, to the tune of $30,000.

“It was our first introduction to a major studio,” says Martynec. “I wish I had bought my amplifier from Toronto because I couldn’t get a reasonable sound out of the amps that we rented, at least to play with comfortably, not enough distortion.”

Back in Toronto, the band resumed its regular gig at Boris’, with occasion forays to clubs like the Static Journey and El Patio. In early summer, the band headed west and played a show in McKie and Darou’s hometown, Sault St Marie at the city’s Memorial Arena on 5 July.

A few weeks later, on 21 July, the group got the opportunity to support Jefferson Airplane for a show at McMaster University in Hamilton alongside the obscure Bittergarden.

Reviewing the show for the Toronto Daily Star the following week, Stephen Dewar reported that he’d never heard the Market sound better instrumentally.

During this hectic period of gigging, the group’s debut single for Warner Brothers, the slower version of ‘I Would Be The One’, was released in a picture sleeve and peaked at #18 on Toronto’s CHUM chart on 22 July.

That same month, Kensington Market’s debut album, Avenue Road, was unveiled at Warner Brothers’ annual convention in Honolulu and contained a slew of musical gems.

Australian journalist Ritchie Yorke was moved enough to call it “probably the finest album ever cut by a Canadian group” in the Globe and Mail while the Canadian Hit Parader commented, “Pappalardi’s masterful orchestrations; the Market’s soft, melodic sound; and anecdotic lyrics mark it as one of the finest albums of this year.”

With its shifting time signatures, sitar, horn and bell embellishments and vivid lyrical imagery, Avenue Road was a mini-psychedelic masterpiece.

McKie credits the influence of Bulgarian folk music for shaping the band’s musical styles and particularly the band’s harmonies.

“When we sang together, there was a kind of ecstasy to it. A nice blend would happen.”

As Gibson readily admits, some of the songs were inspired by the band’s experimentation with drugs. One of the first songs he ever wrote, ‘Speaking of Dreams’, is about an acid trip.

“I liked ‘Speaking of Dreams’ because I was ecstatic to sing the harmony on that,” says McKie. “Singing with Luke was like Simon and Garfunkel. It was like a soft blanket or cloud.”

“Luke had some great tunes and some interesting guitar concepts,” continues McKie. “Luke was a real feel guy. I am really surprised that he was never a big, huge international star because when I first came to Toronto, The Rogues and Luke & The Apostles were the two absolutely best bands I had ever seen.”

Some of the songs on the album dated from earlier times, such as McKie’s ‘Coming Home Soon’, which was first performed by the Vendettas and was written in a hotel in Winnipeg when the band first met guitarist Lenny Breau.

McKie hit a prolific writing streak during this time. Against better judgment, many of his songs, some of which he professes were among his finest, were either never recorded or were never finished – fascinating titles like ‘Cobweb Room’, ‘Butterfly Mind’, ‘Rubber Socks’, ‘The Time of Man’ and ‘Ring On Good Times’.

Luke Gibson’s compelling ‘Suspension’ was another popular live number that was never recorded.

“‘Suspension’ and ‘Ring On Good Times’ were our set closers,” says McKie. “When we did those, it meant the set was ending because they were the most exciting tunes.”

On 27 July, Stephen Dewar reviewed Avenue Road in the Toronto Daily Star and compared the band’s sound to the old Lovin’ Spoonful.

“It’s an ambitious album, too,” he noted. “‘Aunt Violet’s Knee’, the best song on the album, comes complete with a 17-piece orchestra that [Felix] Pappalardi hand-picked in New York. I think he might be right when he says its [sic] only a taste of what the Market’s Keith McKie can write.”

Dewar saves particular credit for guitarist Gene Martynec, who “has as much technical skill as any rock guitarist needs, and he’s got a fine sense of music and rhythm. He wrote two of the songs I like on the album (‘Phoebe’ and ‘Presenting Myself Lightly’) and he seems to have provided most of the inspiration for the arrangements.” (Ed: Martynec calls “Presenting Myself Lightly” his Ringo Starr imitation piece and says that “Phoebe” was built around some techniques he was learning on classical guitar.)

The writer finishes off his review by telling the record buying public: “Just so you don’t get the wrong idea: This is the best recording by a Canadian group I’ve heard. I think the Market are going to make it really big. The tunes are good, the lyrics are usually good. The whole thing is tastefully electric.

“I don’t think the Market has completely sorted out where it’s at yet – they’re getting better all the time. Pappalardi really called it right when he recorded Cream. He dropped The Youngbloods, but he has faith in The Kensington Market. I think he’s right.”

Journalist Ritchie Yorke was equally impressed, after sneaking a preview listen of the album. Writing in the Pop Scene section (most likely in the Globe and Mail), he noted: Avenue Road, as a total entity, is subtle, uncluttered and almost poetical. The production and arrangement work is magnificent.

“But this album is not overwhelming. It has sexual sublety [sic], unlike the almost uncouth provocation of a Hendrix. Yet it is compelling and intense. And it is always lush, reminiscent of a soft green crop in spring, gently blowing in a light wind.”

On 18 August, Kensington Market had appeared at the “Time Being” show at the Canadian National Exhibition before heading off for a US tour, which began with five nights at the Bitter End in New York, kicking off on 29 August.

A few days later, on 2 September, McKie’s ‘I Would Be The One’, reached #59 on the national RPM chart.

That same month, Variety magazine in the States reviewed the album.

“Kensington Market is a new Canadian group which is hoping to do for Canada what the Beatles did for Britain. This combo has an excellent sound and the material in the kick off stanza contains some standout numbers.” The magazine picks out ‘I Would Be The One’, ‘Speaking of Dreams’, ‘Coming Home Soon’, ‘Looking Glass’, ‘Beatrice’ and ‘Colour Her Sunshine’ as highlights.

“The music of Kensington Market is pleasant. And, oh, so civilised! You’ll hear no toilets flushing on this record! Also no raunchy blues, no electronic dissonance, no lyrics praising drugs and rebellion,” noted hip West Coast magazine, Rolling Stone later that year, in a review by David Butcher.

“‘I Would Be The One’ is an example of what might be called Granada-Rock,” he writes. “All the ingredients are present: the bull-fight trumpets, the flamenco guitar solo, the bravado vocal with the mawkish lyrics – all held together with a driving rhythm section. Oddly enough, it works well.”

Butcher saves special praise for Martynec’s guitar playing on the album.

“As an accompanist, he is superb. He always seems to play just the right line, the most appropriate figure. His playing is crisp, but never detracts from the vocal or the arrangement. Very few pop guitarists display this degree of taste and restraint.”

“Most guitarists in Toronto used to imitate Robbie Robertson,” says Martynec. “He had a technique where he used two picks on his fingers but he also used a plectrum. You can get some sort of rolling folk thing.”

Interestingly, Butcher argues that the weakest aspect of Avenue Road is the song lyrics. At best, there are some very good teenage songs, simple and lightweight, he says. The worse are bland or banal, or both. Even so, he recognises that “Keith McKie, who wrote most of the album’s material has a genuine and impressive poetic talent.”

Perhaps surprisingly, McKie admits that he was disappointed when the album came out.

“For some reason, I reacted very badly about it. It was so smooth compared to what I thought of the band. I remember at the time, thinking, ‘it’s not tangy enough’. At one point when we were doing the second album, I didn’t want to work with Felix anymore. I am probably the most challenged musically and I definitely don’t know what I want but I know ‘this isn’t it’. I wanted it edgier.”

During the first week of September, the band traveled down to San Francisco for a show at the Fillmore West on 7 September with The Steve Miller Band and Chuck Berry, which as far as Martynec is concerned, marked the beginning of the end.

McKie agrees: “We started playing and we were all playing five different songs. It was like one of those great rock ‘n’ roll band fiascos. They must have thought we were amateurs. It’s like Felix said afterwards, ‘what happened?’ I think in a way it kind of demoralised the band and I don’t think we ever recovered from it personally.”

Kensington Market next headed down to Los Angeles, sharing the bill with Spooky Tooth at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on 12-15 September.

“We played there and people were out dancing, which normally people never danced to our music at home because it was quite unusual,” says Martynec.

“We weren’t a very danceable band. We played this one tune that we normally finished a set with and it had one of those tacky speed up things at the end we looked down and the crowd was trying to keep up and at the end they were waving their fists at us.”

“Everybody was on pills and I can remember we didn’t have a really good time,” remembers McKie.

“I had a bit of an attitude about the States when I was there. We got stopped by the police in L.A. It was just their attitude towards everybody.”

From Los Angeles, the band flew up to Chicago to complete the US tour. Kicking off with a show at the city’s Kinetic Playground, the band then played some suburban gigs with The Young Rascals and Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band before heading home.

Back in Toronto, the group headlined a two-night stand at the Rock Pile on 11-12 October, supported by The Apple Pie Motherhood Band.

Local journalist Loren Chudy caught the group on the first night and came away largely disappointed. While the writer acknowledged that part of the blame lay with the concert’s planners, who turned the volume so high that Kensington Market’s “amplified equipment sounded off-balance, distorted and fuzzy”, he noted that the group “still needs work, definition, before it lives up to is potential.”

 

The Toronto Telegram’s Peter Goddard, caught up with the band members that same week and wrote a long article for the newspaper’s After Four section, published on Saturday 12 October. In the piece, he asks Gene Martynec whether the band’s recent US tour was a success.

“Well, I think because this was our first one, we never got completely used to it,” replied the band’s lead guitarist. “You know, it was a little lonely, a little tiring. Often we would have a day or two in some strange city just to walk around to do nothing.

“All of us found it difficult to write on tour, and it wasn’t until we got back that anything started to come.”

As Martynec points out, the group was already planning material for a second album and that it had learnt a lot from recording its debut in terms of overall sound.

“Our experience in the studio made us much more aware of time,” he added. “What people hear on stage will be pretty much like what will go on record.”

The review lists a number of recent compositions such as McKie and Martynec’s Beatleseque “Side I Am” and “Ow-ning Man”, which would turn up the following year on the group’s second album. Interestingly, it also lists “Fable Eleven” another composition that would ultimately be left in the can.

After playing the second night at the Rock Pile, Kensington Market headed across the border to play a show at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit on 18 October with The MC5 and Pacific Gas and Electric. Two more dates followed with only Pacific Gas and Electric sharing the billing.

As 1968 drew to a close, the expected sales of Avenue Road were not forthcoming. Part of the reason was that Warner Brothers had reportedly taken issue with the cover, a picture of the band huddled together in a fierce snowstorm and had done little to promote the record, despite its great potential. Work continued on a follow up with Pappalardi once again in the producer’s chair.

Started at Yorkville’s Eastern Sound Studios that winter and mixed at the Henry Hudson building in New York, Aardark is in many ways, the group’s strongest collection and contains such gems as Martynec and Pappalardi’s ‘Help Me’, McKie’s ‘Half Closed Eyes’ and ‘Think About The Times’, and the aforementioned ‘Side I Am’.

More experimental and progressive than its predecessor, several tracks feature new recruit Toronto University music student and Intersystems member, John Mills-Cockell (b. 19 May 1946, Toronto) who adds the unearthly sounds of his Moog synthesizer to the group’s heady brew.

“The idea of using a sequencer that was like in its day very unusual and the way he used it,” says Martynec. “I think John played a big role in that recording, more than people realise.”

Looking back, McKie feels that Aardvark was a step forward musically.

Once again, McKie dipped into the past for some of the songs, notably ‘Think About The Times’, which he’d first performed with The Vendettas.

Of his more recent compositions, the singer explains that ‘Have You Come To See?’ (co-written with Martynec) was written on the way to California in September 1968 while under the influence of mescaline.

Listening to some of the tracks, there is a noticeable Beatles feel and McKie admits that the superb ‘If It Is Love’ was influenced by that band’s White Album, in particular Lennon’s ‘Cry Baby Cry’.

To coincide with the album’s release in early 1969, Warner Brothers issued the rare single, ‘Witches Stone’, which was a slightly different version from the one that appeared on the album under the guise of the ‘Ow-ning Man’, backed by ‘Side I Am’.

Despite the promising second album, Kensington Market began to unravel in the spring of 1969.

“I think my problem with the Market was too much too soon too fast,” says McKie.

“Creatively, things were starting to break down. There was no real creative direction. One of the problems we started having was, I was writing tunes that I think didn’t really fit the format of where we were headed. In a sense, the Market would have been really wise to just take a sabbatical at one point. But in pop music if you take a two-week sabbatical, you’re gone.”

McKie says the first blow came when Bernie Finkelstein left as manager.

“It was [Bernie’s] drive that kept the group going in many ways. He started it in a way. In a way, he should have been a band member. He had a better idea of where to go with things. The band had a musical vision but we didn’t really have a vision that put the music into its perspective within that vision. When he left the band, it was kind of ‘that was it’. The driving force had gone.”

Others quickly followed Finkelstein out of the door. Jimmy Watson was first to bow out, and reportedly later suffered from a major breakdown. John Mills-Cockell and Gene Martynec dropped out soon afterwards.

“I think Gene wanted to get on to bigger and better things,” remembers McKie. “He was pretty progressive and was studying all the time and I think production was sort of what was coming up for him anyway.”

“After our second album, I just got a distinct feeling that it wasn’t going anywhere,” says Martynec.

“Jimmy was having a hard time. We were in limbo, so I decided that was the time to leave and I went to study.

“I ended up doing composition, orchestration and electronic music because I was always fascinated by the mechanics of whatever music had to offer,” continues the band’s lead guitarist on his post-Kensington Market career.

Martynec subsequently worked extensively with Bruce Cockburn, producing and playing on all of the singer/songwriter’s albums up to the mid-1970s. Throughout this period, he also worked as a studio guitarist and producer for a variety of artists.

The biggest blow for McKie, however, was when his old friend Alex Darou left.

“I remember being really pissed off with Alex,” says McKie. “I was particularly close to him because of the Sault St Marie connection.”

Sadly, the band’s inspiration bass player died in tragic circumstances in the early 1970s.

“He became a real recluse,” explains Martynec. “Eventually, he just locked himself in a room and people we knew would throw some money under the door because we knew he wasn’t doing anything. I think he caught Hepatitis and just passed away.”

Stripped down to a duo, Gibson and McKie carried on with The Kensington Market name, headling a show at Toronto’s Rock Pile on 17 May with Edward Bear and then returning the following week to provide support for visiting US act Grand Funk Railroad on 25 May alongside local bands, Milkwood and Leather.

The following month, the duo played at the Toronto Pop Festival, held at Varsity Arena with UK group, Man, former Blood, Sweat & Tears front man, Al Kooper, The Band and several other acts. The venture, however, was short-lived and a few weeks later, the pair had gone their separate ways.

After playing a one-off date with The Rock Show of The Yeomen on 5 December, Luke Gibson revived his former band Luke & The Apostles for a lone single, the superb “You Make Me High” for Bernie Finkelstein’s True North label.

Turning down an offer to become lead singer with US band, Seatrain, he embarked on a solo career in 1ate 1970 and recorded two albums for True North, including the excellent Another Perfect Day. He currently lives in Toronto and still performs.

As for Keith McKie, the singer/songwriter made an appearance on an album by former A Passing Fancy member Jay Telfer, which was never released, before retiring from the music business to spend time building boats.

In 1977, he returned to the limelight with the short-lived Village, formed with former Maple Oak guitarist Stan Endersby and bass player Bruce Palmer from Buffalo Springfield fame. When that folded, he went solo and in 1981 released a lone solo album, Rumors at the Newsstand on the small Quantum label.

Over the years, McKie and Gibson have participated in a few Kensington Market reunions. The first get together was for the Toronto Rock Revival show, held at the Warehouse on 2 May 1999 and also featuring the Ugly Ducklings among others.

In 2007, McKie and Gibson reunited with Gene Martynec to play at a summer festival in Toronto to celebrate 40 years since the “Summer of Love”. The show was a resounding success and has been captured for a DVD release.

All that is left now is a comprehensive CD release, pulling together all of the band’s material for Warner Brothers but including the rare Stone singles.

Many thanks to Keith McKie for putting me up in Toronto and being the perfect host. Thanks also to Gene Martynec, who gave up an evening in London to reminisce about the group. Thanks to Luke Gibson, Stan Endersby and Carny Corbett.

Copyright © Nick Warburton. All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means, without prior permission from the author

This article was originally posted on the Nick Warburton website on 8 February 2008.

Thanks to Ivan Amirault for the photo
Thanks to Ivan Amirault for the photo

Notable gigs: 

4 June 1967 – The Night Owl, Toronto

10 June 1967 – The Flick, Toronto

17 June 1967 – Red Gas Room, Toronto (billed as Kensington Market Band)

 

6-9 July  1967 – Red Gas Room, Toronto

13-16 July 1967 – Red Gas Room, Toronto

20-23 July 1967 – Red Gas Room, Toronto

28-30 July 1967 – Red Gas Room, Toronto

 

3 August 1967 – Boris’ Red Gas Room, Toronto

6 August 1967 – Boris’ Red Gas Room, Toronto

 

9 September 1967 – Boris’ Red Gas Room, Toronto

15-17 September 1967 – Strawberry Patch,  Toronto

22-23 September 1967 – The Flick, Toronto

26 September-1 October 1967 – Le Hibou, Ottawa

 

13-14 October 1967 – Boris’ Red Gas Room, Toronto

21 October 1967 – Boris’ Red Gas Room, Toronto

28-29 October 1967 – Boris’ Red Gas Room, Toronto

 

5 November 1967 – Boris’, Toronto

14-19 November 1967 – Le Hibou, Ottawa

24-26 November – Boris’, Toronto

 

8 December 1967 – Boris’, Toronto

9 December 1967 – St Pascal’s Church, Toronto

10 December 1967 – Boris’, Toronto

16-17 December 1967 – Boris’, Toronto

23 December 1967-1 January 1968 – Boris’, Toronto

28-30 December 1967 – Purple Peanut, Toronto

 

5-7 January 1968 – Boris’, Toronto

12-14 January 1968 – Boris’, Toronto

19-21 January 1968 – Boris’, Toronto

26-28 January 1968 – Boris’, Toronto

 

2 February 1968 – North Toronto Memorial Hall, Toronto

3-4 February 1968 – Boris’, Toronto (last show before US debut)

14-19 February 1968 – Bitter End, New York

23 February 1968 – Boris’, Toronto (first show after back from US debut)

 

16 March 1968 – Boris’, Toronto

23-24 March 1968 – Boris’, Toronto (back to New York)

29-31 March 1968 – The Static Journey, Toronto

 

21-26 May 1968 – Le Hibou, Ottawa

 

17-23 June 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

27-30 June 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

 

5 July 1968 – Sault St Marie Memorial Arena, Sault St Marie

13-16 July 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

21 July 1968 – McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario with Jefferson Airplane and The Bittergarden

26-28 July 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

 

1-14 August 1968 – The Bitter End, New York (unlikely)

5-9 August 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

10 August 1968 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario

11 August 1968 – Northern YMHA, Willowdale, Ontario

17 August 1968 – El Patio, Toronto

18 August 1968 – ‘Time Being’, Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto (last Toronto appearance before US tour)

29 August- 2 September 1968 – Bitter End, New York

 

7 September 1968 – Fillmore West, San Francisco with Steve Miller Band and Chuck Berry

12-15 September 1968 – Whisky A Go Go, West Hollywood with Spooky Tooth

 

11-12 October 1968 – Rock Pile, Toronto

18 October 1968 – Grande Ballroom, Detroit with MC5 and Pacific Gas and Electric

19-20 October 1968 – Grande Ballroom, Detroit with Pacific Gas and Electric

22-24 October – Boston Tea Party, Boston with Jeff Beck and Earth Opera

 

9 November 1968 – De La Salle, Toronto

12-17 November 1968 – Le Hibou, Ottawa

 

18 April 1969 – War Memorial Hall, Guelph University, Guelph, Ontario

 

17 May 1969 – Rock Pile, Toronto with Edward Bear

25 May 1969 – Rock Pile, Toronto with Grand Funk Railroad, Milkwood and Leather

 

21 June 1969 – Toronto Pop Festival, Varsity Arena, Toronto with Man, Al Kooper, The Band and others

 

Jay Telfer’s lost LP Perch

From left to right: Keith McKie, unknown female singer, Donna Warner, Cathy Young, Orpheus and Jay Telfer at the piano.

Anything More Than Your Smile, thanks to Jay Telfer for sharing.

Revelation, thanks to Jay Telfer for sharing.

Toronto singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jay Telfer is arguably best known for his work with 1960s rock group, A Passing Fancy, and for penning Steel River’s hit, “Ten Pound Note”.

Starting out with folk group, The Voyageurs at the age of 14, Telfer befriended future Bruce Cockburn manager Bernie Finkelstein, who was responsible for bringing the promising singer/songwriter into the ranks of The Dimensions and renaming the band, A Passing Fancy in 1965.

Fast-forward four years to spring 1969. Telfer has moved on from A Passing Fancy and composed some intriguing new songs. He approaches Finkelstein with the exciting new material and his old friend expresses an interest in producing an album, inviting into the sessions a diverse mix of musicians from the Toronto scene.

These include members of Kensington Market (managed by Finkelstein), a young Danny McBride years before he played lead guitar with Chris De Burgh and the Anglo-Canadian group Milkwood, including multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Tomlinson, who’d recently arrived in Toronto from London after working with a pre-Jethro Tull Martin Barre for two years.

As Telfer recalls, the musicians had a ton of fun doing the album, but when it came to selling it, Finkelstein asked the late Felix Pappalardi, who’d produced Kensington Market, but was turned down. The album was never mentioned again and Telfer lost his copies of the tapes. Over the years, Finkelstein also lost his.

As luck would have it, former A Passing Fancy member Fergus Hambleton salvaged some old tapes from his brother Greg’s driveway as they were being put out with the rubbish.

Jay Telfer article in the Toronto Star

Among those tapes was Greg’s copy of “Perch”, Telfer’s unreleased album from 1969. In total, there are 10 tracks waiting to be heard. The titles and the personnel on each track are as follows:

ANYTHING MORE THAN YOUR SMILE

Jay Telfer – guitar, lead and backing vocals

Keith McKie – second guitar

Jimmy Watson – drums

John Mills Cockell – synth

I WRITE YOUR NAME ON THE WALL

Jay Telfer – guitar, bar stool, organ, lead and backing vocals

Murray McLaughlan – second lead guitar

WAR BABY (BABY)

Jay Telfer – guitar, vocals

Keith McKie – electric guitar

Ronnie Blackwell – bass

Malcolm Tomlinson – drums

Fergus Hambleton – saxophone

NUMER ONE HUM

Jay Telfer – electric guitar, piano, electric piano, vibraphone, drums, bass, lead and backing vocals

REVELATION (AKA I FELL IN LOVE)

Jay Telfer – guitar, vocals

Danny McBride – electric guitar

Phillip Jalsevec – piano

DOLDRUM

Jay Telfer – guitar, vocals

Igor Romanyk – violin

Heavanly Host Rentals – see chorus below.

TO ALL

Jay Telfer – guitar, vocals

Malcolm Tomlinson – flute

Rick Lyon – drums

WASHED DOWN

Jay Telfer – guitar, vocals

Louis McKelvey – electric guitar

Alex Darou – bass

Malcolm Tomlinson – drums

SUZIE

Jay Telfer – piano, drums, guitar, vocals

Ronnie Blackwell – bass

Fergus Hambleton – clarinet

GLOW

Jay Telfer – guitar, vocals

Murray McLauchlan – second guitar

Ray Bennett – harmonica

Donna Warner – backing vocals

Orpheus – backing vocals

Cathy Young – backing vocals

Keith McKie – backing vocals

Sydney – backing vocals

Perch is a lost gem from the Toronto scene and awaiting discovery. Anyone interested in finding out more about this recording, should contact the author at Warchive@aol.com

Copyright © Nick Warburton. All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means, without prior permission from the author.

This article was originally posted on the Nick Warburton website on 25 May 2009.

 

 

The Private Collection

Private Collection Photo
Richard Kuzniak sent me the photo above of the Private Collection, a band he used to see weekly at the El Patio nightclub in Yorkville. Ivan Amirault wrote to me with info on the band and the clippings seen below:

The Private Collection, RPM, May 13, 1967
The Private Collection, RPM, May 13, 1967
from left: Aldo Tarini, Dan Salhani, Jacques Chartrand, and Dave Mouslaison

Dave Mouslaison – lead guitar, organ, vocals
Aldo Tarini – rhythm and lead guitar, vocals
Jacques Chartrand – bass, vocals
Dan Salhani – drums, vocals

The Private Collection were from Sudbury but relocated to Toronto. They performed regularly at The Flick and El Patio, managed by Mike Burak, a part-owner of the clubs. RPM magazine reported on October 2, 1967 that the band had just done a session at Sound Canada with Rick Shorter producing.

Ivan wrote to me “They were a very good harmony band. Dave Moulaison was later in Aaron Space who recorded a great LP on Warner Brothers only in Canada.

“Jocko Chartrand was also in Buckstone Hardware who had a 45 on Apex here in Canada. It also came with a picture sleeve. The core of that band was from North Bay, about 1 1/2 hours east of Sudbury. Joko also made a couple of fairly good solo singer/songwriter type LPs in the 80s.”

Ivan has over two hours of home recordings of the band, plus a few songs from their never-released studio sessions.

The Private Collection. RPM, October 2, 1967
The Private Collection. RPM, October 2, 1967
The Private Collection RPM October 28, 1967
The Private Collection, RPM October 28, 1967

Patrician-Anne

 Patrician-Anne in RPM, October 11, 1965
RPM, October 11, 1965

P.F. Sloan's Blue Lipstick, Patrician-Anne, Billboard, November 13, 1965
Billboard, November 13, 1965
Ivan Amirault sent in these two great ads for Patrician-Anne, who had a single featuring a P.F. Sloan original “Blue Lipstick” b/w “What About Me” on Arc 1113 from late ’65.She also has the great “Changin’ Time” on the CTV After Four LP that is best known for the song “Four in the Morning” by the Quiet Jungle (as the Scarlet Ribbon).

Patrician-Anne was the stage name of Patrician Anne McKinnon, sister of singer and actress Catherine McKinnon, and wife of Brian Ahern, a long-time producer and musician.

Brian had his own groups, the Offbeats and the Badd Cedes, whose song “Dolly Magic” was released on two singles as the Chapter V: Verve Forecast KF5046 with “The Sun Is Green” and again on Verve Forecast KF5057 with “Headshrinker”, all three songs Ahern originals. Brian also played with 3’s a Crowd. More on the Badd Cedes at Nova Scotia Classic Rock.

Patricia often appeared on Frank Cameron’s TV show, Frank’s Bandstand. An Arc LP Do You “Wanna” Dance (The Best of Frank’s Bandstand) has covers of “I Only Want to Be With You” and “As Tears Go By”, credited to Patricia McKinnon, along with a couple songs by the Offbeats, “Wild Weekend” and “Swingin’ Shepherd Blues”.

Patrician-Anne is also featured on various volumes of CBC-TV’s Singalong Jubilee, which I haven’t heard.

 RPM, November 15, 1965
RPM, November 15, 1965

The Ugly Ducklings – Somewhere Inside & Thump and Twang CDs

The Ugly Ducklings – Somewhere Inside (Pacemaker PACE-086, 2011)
The Ugly Ducklings – Thump & Twang (Pacemaker PACE-087, 2011)

Review by Rebecca Jansen

Considered by many to be Canada’s premier ’60s garage rock outfit, for decades fans of The Ugly Ducklings had to content themselves with the group’s handful of Yorktown singles and one LP, Somewhere Outside. So it was with some shock I discovered these two (two!) CDs just released by Pacemaker, and as far as I can tell all but one cut on them are previously unavailable!

The Somewhere Inside set comes first chronologically and has as its basis a January 1967 appearance on CHUM radio in the Ducklings’ hometown of Toronto. Framed by on-air interview segments are six live in studio recordings, three demos, and one alternate mix. The live in studio tracks are all of good fidelity, and of the familiar numbers also recorded for Yorkville, “Nothin'” features a more elastic and looser Roger Mayne lead guitar, while this “My Little Red Book” is a bit faster and more like the Love version.

Another of the tracks listed as “live” is “My Watch” which is an original Dave Bingham and Glynn Bell composition and has a solid funky blues quality to it. The cover of “I’m A Man” did turn up previously in Sundazed’s Garage Beat ’66 compilation series, but it goes well with the short take on “Home In Your Heart”.

Of the three songs listed as demos (only here does the fidelity vary, though never too badly), all are covers. “Somebody Help Me” was a hit for the Hollies, “You’ve Got It Made” is the blues song, and “Out Of Sight” the soul number. There is also a great alternate mix of “Postman’s Fancy” which has a more psychedelic effect than the original side. With all the historic interview and radio segments this disc makes a good addition to the Ugly Ducklings collection.

The recordings on Thump & Twang begin with a November 1967 studio session wherein new member Mike McKenna’s original “The Blues Fell This Morning” is cut. Following Glynn Bell’s departure the Ducklings continued recording as a four piece, still fronted by singer Dave Bingham and backed by original drummer Robin Boers who is said to have added a second bass drum ala Ginger Baker at this time. Aside from two takes of Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge A Book” (one being from a TV appearance), all tracks are written by Bingham and/or McKenna. They’re all solid early 1968 vintage blues rock pointing toward the future Mainline group and sometimes with a bit of a Byrds country vibe. Apparently this was not the kind of hit single music Yorkville had been hoping for however, and after the falling out with their label the Ugly Ducklings broke up.

See the Pacemaker site for more information on this release.

Rebecca Jansen’s writing and artwork can be seen at Hippies stole my blog! *.

Garage Hangover accepts recently-released LPs, CDs, books and DVDs for review. Please contact us for a mailing address.

Bobby Kris and the Imperials

Bobby Kris and the Imperials, 1966
Bobby Kris and the Imperials, 1966

Matt Faulkner spoke to Bob Burrows, vocalist and leader of Bobby Kris and the Imperials, and writes this article about the group:

Bobby Kris and the Imperials stood at the front of Toronto’s fruitful R&B scene in the mid-60s, alongside other notable acts like Richie Knight and The Mid-Knights, Mandala and Little Caesar and the Consuls. The group was one of the fourteen groups to take stage at the legendary “Toronto Sound” show at Maple Leaf Gardens, where they shared the stage with Toronto garage and psych greats such as Luke and the Apostles, The Ugly Ducklings, and the Paupers.

Originally titled J.S. and the Imperials, with Jimmy Snowden on vocals, the group had a number of lineup changes and recruitments from other bands. In early 1965, Bobby Kris joined the line up, and shortly after the key recording line up of the band was formed.

Bobby Kris (Bob Burrows) – vocals
Jerry Mann (aka Jerry Shymanski) – tenor sax
Rick Loth – tenor sax
Marty Fisher – piano
Gene Martynec – guitar
Dave Konvalinka – bass
Gordon MacBain – drums

Bobby Kris in RPM, November 29, 1965

Bobby Kris and the Imperials Columbia 45 Travellin' Bag

Bobby Kris and the Imperials Columbia 45 Walk On By

Bobby Kris and the Imperials, Ugly Ducklings, Five Rogues, Little Caesar at Oshawa Civic Auditorium, Aug. 23

Bobby Kris and the Imperials Columbia 45 She Belongs to Me

Bobby Kris and the Imperials Columbia 45 A Year From TodayThe band fashioned themselves primarily an R&B outfit, having a hit with the Dionne Warwick classic “Walk On By”, and boasting a seven part line up, including two saxophones and keyboards. However, their recorded output does little to reflect this side of their sound, as the bulk of the songs on their two singles are more on the folky garage side of things. “Walk on By” was in fact the B-side of their first single, with the Bobby Kris/Gene Martynec penned “Travellin’ Bag” on the top side.

Their second single was fronted with a cover of Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me”, and a Byrds-like Kris/Martynec original, “A Year from Today” on the flip. It only took a lone three hour recording session for all four tracks to be laid down by the group, whom at the time consisted of Bobby Kris on lead vocals, Marty Fisher on keyboard, Gord MacBain on drums, Dave Konvalinka on bass, Gene Martynec on guitar, and Jerry Mann and Rick Loth sharing saxophone duties. Despite the recordings being a departure from their regular material, these singles hold up as worth while listening today, with “Travellin’ Bag” being one of my personal favourite recordings to come from the mid-60s “Toronto Sound”.

“We wrote the two songs as you know. To the best of my recollection we never played either one of them ever again,” said Kris, in one of our many online conversations. “For our normal fan base in Toronto, those songs were, well… an embarrassment, which explains why we never played them live. People who were into James Brown and Ray Charles didn’t want to hear Herman’s Hermits. If we played ‘Travellin’ Bag’ at one of those dances people would have thrown stuff at us.”

“The powers that be behind the recording session – including that wizard in the control room Stan and our supposed manager at the time, Fred White – determined that rhythm and blues was dead meat and that the only way for us to be successful was to make British style recordings. It didn’t occur to them that a lot of those British bands were in fact listening to American R&B. They didn’t want us to record ‘Walk On By’ at all. Not sure how we got away with that. In fact it was the B-side to ‘Travellin’ Bag’. Thankfully some DJ in Toronto turned it over! For some reason or other Eugene and I got commandeered or volunteered to write some songs, although we had never written any songs before. Somebody stumbled across a Dylan song that nobody had covered yet that we all liked. Not sure who did the arrangement on ‘She Belongs to Me.’ Likely Konvalinka.”

“We continued to be an R&B band after the session. We ended up trying some rather extreme experiments with some really fundamental blues songs by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters and such that was somewhat imitative of The Hawk’s recording with John Hammond Jr. – So Many Roads. But even then we were still fundamentally in the same musical neighbourhood. Unfortunately the pressure from all these supposed wise men to change our evil ways led to us throwing out the horns. No more three-piece silk and wool suits. Now we had flowery shirts or polka dots. Talk about not cutting your own path. Everyone in the world was doing that. Chances of being ‘discovered’ in that environment were about the same as winning the lottery. They say Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil. We sold ours to a bunch of dorks on Yonge St.”

“By the way, not long after that, along came Paul Butterfield and others who showed there was still a great market for that approach and style. We did have lots of fun eventually covering a new kind of material. We tried to be selective about it, and still leaned towards the bluesier stuff. That was the most fundamental problem Bobby Kris and The Imperials always had: We were exclusively a cover band. That’s mostly because we were playing teen dances and, later, bars where people expected to hear certain tunes, and you either played them or you didn’t play there. There was very little if any interest in original material in those venues.”

Bobby Kris and the Imperials at the Brass Rail TavernWhen doing some research on the group, I stumbled upon an interesting ad for one of the band’s shows later in their career. It was in 1968 at the Brass Rail Tavern, and the ad boasted that the show would feature “4 Topless Psychedelic Go-Go Dancers”. “We drank our brains out to get through the night there,” was Kris’s only remark.

During their tenure, the group managed to share the stage with an impressive list of bands, including The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Beach Boys, Jose Feliciano, and Wilson Pickett, who at the time boasted Jimi Hendrix on guitar. Hendrix actually joined The Imperials on stage during one of their sets at the Night Owl. However, by late 1967, enough band members had gone on to other projects, that the group decided to call it quits.

Gene Martynec went on to form Kensington Market in May, and in September Marty Fisher and Gord MacBaingot recruited for Bruce Cockburn’s Flying Circus. Kris auditioned for the vocal position in Flying Circus with a favourable outcome, until, as Kris puts it “they decided that no one could sing Bruce’s songs better than Bruce, which was true.” Kris went on to front Livingstone’s Journey for a brief period before reforming an altered line up of The Imperials in mid-1968. A year later Gord MacBain left the reformed Imperials to go to England and join Mapleoak with Marty Fisher and original Kinks bassist, Pete Quaife, and thus Bobby Kris and the Imperials were done for good.

Special thanks to Nick Warburton and Bob Burrows (aka Bobby Kris). You can check out Nick’s article for a more detailed history of the band here.

Thanks also to Ivan Amirault for the RPM article scans.

Bobby Kris also put out an EP in 1995 titled “Now” which you can check out on iTunes.

Nick Warburton assembled this list of advertised live shows:

Advertised gigs

June 18 1965 – Mimicombo, Mimico, Ontario
July 9 1965 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario
July 17 1965 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario
August 7 1965 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario (new line up with Wayne and Loth)
August 27 1965 – Dunn’s Pavilion, Bala, Ontario
August 28 1965 – Club 888, Toronto
September 4 1965 – Club 888, Toronto
September 24 1965 – Mimacombo A Go-Go, Mimacombo, Ontario
November 5 1965 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario (not sure about date)
November 28 1965 – Avenue Road Club, Toronto
December 18 1965 – Club 888, Toronto
December 25 1965 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with The Sparrows and The Twilights
December 26 1965 – Hop in the park, Toronto
January 28 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario
January 29 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
March 19 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena, Toronto
April 13 1966 – O’Keefe Centre, Toronto with National Ballet Company and Susan Taylor
April 15 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena, Toronto
May 8 1966 – Massey Hall, Toronto with The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Big Town Boys and Little Caesar & The Consuls
May 14 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto (one of Wayne and Loth’s final dates)
June 12 1966 – Modern Age Teen Lounge, Toronto (one of Davis’ first dates)
June 26 1966 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough with The Five Rogues
July 8 1966 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario
July 9 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
July 13 1966 – Whitby Arena, Whitby, Ontario with The Five Rogues, The Ugly Ducklings and Jon and Lee & The Checkmates
July 20 1966 – Don Mills Curling Club, Don Mills, Ontario with Jon and Lee & The Checkmates, The British Modbeats and Dunc & The Deacons
July 22 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario
July 23 1966 – Hunter’s Beach Pavilion, Lake Simcoe, Ontario
July 26 1966 – Balmy Beach Club, Scarborough, Ontario
July 30 1966 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario
July 30-31 1966 – Purple Candle Club, Wasaga Beach, Ontario with R K & The Associates
August 2 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena with The Stitch In Tyme and Luke & The Apostles (one of Shymanski’s final dates?)
August 20 1966 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
August 21 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario
August 30 1966 – North Toronto Memorial Arena with The Five Rogues and The Fiends
September 3 1966 – Port Carling Surf Club, Port Carling, Ontario
September 9 1966 – Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
September 16 1966 – Jubilee Auditorium, Oshawa, Ontario
September 24 1966 – Maple Leaf Gardens with The Last Words, Luke & The Apostles, The Ugly Ducklings, The Tripp, The Paupers, The Big Town Boys, The Stitch In Tyme, The Spasstiks, Roy Kenner & The Associates, Little Caesar & The Consuls and others
September 30 1966 – Gogue Inn, Toronto (blue room)
October 8 1966 – Club 888, Toronto with The Tripp
October 22 1966 – Club Kingsway, Toronto with Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs, The Ugly Ducklings and The Ardels
November 27 1966 – El Patio, Toronto
December 18 1966 – Boris’, Toronto
December 23 1966 – Horseshoe Valley, Barrie, Ontario
January 6 1967 – Gogue Inn, Toronto with A Passing Fancy and The Dana
January 27 1967 – Shelburne Arena, Shelburne, Ontario
March 1967 – The Syndicate Club, Toronto
March 24 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto with Franklin Sheppard and The Good Sheppards and R K and The Associates
May 13 1967 – Whitby Arena, Whitby, Ontario with Shawne Jackson, Jay Jackson & The Majestics, The Last Words, E G Smith & The Power, Jack Hardin & The Silhouettes, Roy Kenner & The Associates, The Tripp, The Ugly Ducklings and others (possibly one of Martynec’s final dates)
May 27 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
June 9 1967 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
June 10 1967 – Scarborough Arena Gardens, Scarborough, Ontario with Eddie Spencer & The Mission, The Magic Circus, The Tripp, Roy Kenner & The Associates, The Lords of London and others
June 16 1967 – Bramalea Arena, Bramalea, Ontario with James and Bobby Purify with The Mission
June 17 1967 – Don Mills Curling Club, Toronto with The Symbol
July 29 1967 – Broom and Stone, Scarborough with BTB 4 and The Dynamics
June 13-14 1968 – The Night Owl, Toronto
July 19 1968 – Brass Rail Tavern, Toronto
October 5 1968 – The Hawk’s Nest, Toronto
June 19-21 1969 – The Night Owl, Toronto

Dates taken from the Toronto Telegram’s After Four section, Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.

Bobby Kris & the Imperials, Columbia Records Season's Greetings

Bobby Kris & the Imperials reviewed in RPM, November 15, 1965
RPM, November 15, 1965
Bobby Kris & the Imperials, Columbia Records ad, April 18, 1966
April 18, 1966
Bobby Kris & the Imperials, Columbia Records ad, RPM, May 16, 1966
RPM, May 16, 1966
Bobby Kris, the Associates, Ron Scribner ad, RPM, June 6, 1966
RPM, June 6, 1966
Bobby Kris & the Imperials, Columbia Records ad, RPM, June 6, 1966
RPM, June 6, 1966

Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights

At the Edison, 1962, from left: Barry Stein, Richie Knight, Mike Brough, Doug Chappell, George Semkiw, Barry Lloyd
At the Edison, 1962, from left: Barry Stein, Richie Knight, Mike Brough, Doug Chappell, George Semkiw, Barry Lloyd

Doug Chappell, bass player for Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights wrote to me with the story, photos and songs of the group.

This is actually the story of three bands, Richie Knight and The Mid-Knights, Mid-Knights Blues Band and The Mid-Knights Revue. The time frame covered is from 1962 until 1969, it is an evolution that includes Rock, Blues and R&B.

The Mid-Knights Early Days

In the late fifties friends George Semkiw (guitar) and Leo Donaghue (sax) started the band with fellow members John McCanliss (guitar) and Jim Gwilliams (drums). The band started playing some dates in the area around Toronto. The band decided it required a bass player and Roger Woods is brought into the unit, also joining was Barry Lloyd on piano along with vocalist Rich Hubbard, but by 1961 the band loses all but Semkiw, Lloyd and Hubbard. Unfazed they go about the business of recruiting new players that will eventually become Richie Knight and The Mid-Knights.

Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights, 1963, from left: Mike Brough, Richie Knight, Barry Stein, George Semkiw, Doug Chappell, Barry Lloyd
Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights, 1963, from left: Mike Brough, Richie Knight, Barry Stein, George Semkiw, Doug Chappell, Barry Lloyd
At Barry Lloyd's parents house, 1962
Barry Lloyd’s parents house, 1962, from left: Doug Chappell, Barry Lloyd, Barry Stein, George Semkiw, in background Barry Lloyd’s sister Myrna.
Backing Bobby Curtola, 1962, from left: Chappell, Brough, Curtola, Semkiw, Knight, (hidden Barry Lloyd)
Backing Bobby Curtola, 1962, from left: Chappell, Brough, Curtola, Semkiw, Knight, (hidden Barry Lloyd)

Richie Knight & the Mid-Knights Arc 45 Charlena

CHUM Chart of July 1, 1963
CHUM Chart of July 1, 1963 – shows Charlena at #1 for second week
Dick Clark Parade of Stars, July 19, 1963 at Maple Leaf Gardens
Dick Clark Parade of Stars, July 19, 1963 at Maple Leaf Gardens

Richie Knight and The Mid-KnightsRich Hubbard (Richie Knight) – vocals
George Semkiw – guitar
Barry Lloyd – piano, then organ
Mike Brough – sax
Doug Chappell – bass
Barry Stein – drums

In 1961 Semkiw, Lloyd and Hubbard add new players Barry Stein (Drums), Mike Brough (Sax), Doug Chappell (Bass). At this time Barry Lloyd switches from piano to Hammond organ. The band began playing dances around Southern Ontario quickly becoming one of the circuit’s favourite groups.

It’s amusing that being a garage band we never rehearsed in a garage. Our first space was in Barry Lloyd’s dining room and living room. Had to be since he had a piano there and then a little later it is where he had his Hammond. It’s amazing to me today to think that we did not get any grief from the neighbours (it was a semi-detached house) or Barry’s Mom and Dad. After Barry left the band and Ray Reeves joined we moved to his basement in a small bungalow. Again no problems from parents or neighbours.

Summer of 1962 the group played the entire summer playing bars on the famed Yonge Street Strip. It was at one these joints that Richard (promotion man at Arc) saw the band playing and thought that a song the boys were playing could be a hit record and brought it to the attention of Bill Gilliland.

That song was CHARLENA!

The band had first heard “Charlena” on a record by The Sevilles (a band from Los Angeles) at a Toronto dance hall. It was was quite a rough recording but the band loved the song and at a practice learned how to play it, with a slightly different version due to the fact they were learning it from memory. It quickly became a favourite for the fans at the dances where the band played.

Finally in early 1963 Gilliland got the band into ARC’s studio (with house producer Ben Weatherby), actually it was the label’s office and storage during the day and doubled as the studio at night. With metal garbage pails lifted off the floor and stuffed with rags to stifle any sound the band started the recording process. There were to be no overdubs, vocals and instruments were to be laid down as one item on a mono tape recorder. The process took a few hours stopping each time there was any error or to move microphones and even one time due to a train passing behind the buildings which had no sound proofing. Four hours later Charlena was recorded with a “B” side of “You Got The Power” a ballad originally done by James Brown.

ARC Records approached the band with the idea of not using just the name The Mid-knights on the record label since most artists of the day were featuring the name of the singer. After much discussion the name Richie Knight was arrived at and the birth of the new name Richie Knight and The Mid-Knights.

“Charlena” was presented to radio in the Spring of 1963. A local radio station CKEY was first to play the record but the powerhouse station was CHUM who took a wait and see attitude. Eventually due to fan demand CHUM began playing the song and it quickly became a listener favourite. “Charlena” had an infectious beat that allowed it to rise to the amazing position on the chart of #1, a position it held for two weeks. This was the first time that a local Toronto rock ‘n’ roll band had attained the prized #1 position on the CHUM chart! The record went on to sell in excess of 100,000.

Every dance wanted the band because with a hit record the teens flocked to wherever the band played, it was a very exciting time. The band played such memorable places such as The Balmy Beach Canoe Club, Crang Plaza, The Met, Mazaryk Hall, The Jubilee Pavilion in Oshawa, and The Pav in Orillia. Simply put the band played virtually every dancehall in Southern Ontario. The band’s two biggest shows were at Maple Leaf Gardens, the first was in 1963 while “Charlena” was still on the CHUM chart and the station presented a Dick Clark Caravan of Stars show at the Gardens. They were not only the only Canadian act on the bill but they also had the record that was highest on the chart at the time. Other acts included The Dovels, Dick & Dee Dee and Gene Pitney.

When we played Maple Leaf Gardens on the Dick Clark Cavalcade of Stars show on July 19, 1963 we were still babies in the business. It was quite a shock to hear Dick Clark reaming someone out using a string of profanities that we couldn’t fathom the baby faced icon of the teen world knowing let alone using.

Before Charlena hit we backed up many artists that toured without their own bands here are some memories of some:

Barbara George – we backed her up at dance hall called Mazaryk Hall that held about 1000 teens. When we had a rehearsal it was obvious that Barbara did not have a large repetoire. The only song she knew other than “I Know” was Ray Charles “What’d I Say”. The performance was the two songs with “What’d I Say” going on for about 20 minutes, most of which she shook her booty with numerous guys she pulled up from the audience.

Jimmy Reed – this show was at a venue that was in the YMCA in downtown Hamilton, Ont. His stuff was very simple, straight ahead blues, the only problem was that Jimmy did not really use 12 bar blues, he would do 10, 11 and sometimes 13 bars, so we had to listen to where he was going and try to follow. This was further exacerbated by his penchant for also changing keys in mid-song for no discernable reason.

Carl Dobkins Jr. – his major hit was “My Heart Is An Open Book” and he surprised us by being the most together of all the artists we backed up. The gig was at a summer dance hall in Orillia , Ont. called the The Pavillion (a great summer venue that held an audience of about 600), it was always called “The Pav”. Carl showed up with sheet music charts for us, we only used the chord patterns and the gig was really good; he was a consummate professional.

Bobby Curtola – Worked a few times with Bobby, he was a pro and was always easy to get along with.

I am quite sure that most bands had the same experience we had when playing High Schools. It seems that the only door that the custodians would allow us to use to bring in our equipment was the door furthest away from the area we were to perform, even if there was an entrance very close to the stage area. It also seemed that as the last note of the performance was still ringing they were there telling us to pack up immediately and leave.

1963, from left, back row: Richie Knight, Barry Lloyd; front row: Doug Chappell, George Semkiw, Barry Stein, Mike Brough
1963, from left, back row: Richie Knight, Barry Lloyd; front row: Doug Chappell, George Semkiw, Barry Stein, Mike Brough

Richie Knight and the Midnights Arc 45 My Kind of Love

Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights Arc 45 Homework

Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights Arc 45 Come Back - Try Me

Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights Arc 45 You Hurt Me

Late in 1963 or early ‘64 the band records “The Joke” and soon after organist Barry Lloyd departs the band and is replaced by Ray Reeves. The second show at the Gardens was to open the show by The Rolling Stones, April 25, 1965.

Rich Hubbard (Richie Knight) – vocals
George Semkiw – guitar
Ray Reeves – organ
Mike Brough – sax
Doug Chappell – bass
Barry Stein – drums

Seeing the action, other Toronto bands entered the recording studio and the Toronto music scene changed incredibly because they knew there was a chance to get on the radio. Little Caesar and the Consuls, Robbie Lane and The Disciples, Jon & Lee and The Checkmates, David Clayton Thomas and The Shays, The Big Town Boys, Shirley Mathews, The Sparrow, The Mynah Birds and The Mandala. The music scene in Toronto exploded!

Third lineup, 1964, from left: Barry Stein, George Semkiw, Richie Knight, Doug Chappell, Ray Reeves
Third lineup, 1964, from left: Barry Stein, George Semkiw, Richie Knight, Doug Chappell, Ray Reeves
1966, sleeve for their RCA single, "That's Alright" / "Work Song"
1966, sleeve for their RCA single, “That’s Alright” / “Work Song”
back of sleeve for "That's Alright" / "Work Song"
back of sleeve for “That’s Alright” / “Work Song”

Ritchie Knight and the Mid-Knights RCA Victor 45 Work Song

RCA promo card, 1966. From left: Rick Bell, George Semkiw, Barry Stein, Richie Knight, Ray Reeves and Doug Chappell
RCA promo card, 1966. From left: Rick Bell, George Semkiw, Barry Stein, Richie Knight, Ray Reeves and Doug Chappell
The Mid-Knights Blues Band, 1966, from left: Richard Newell, Ray Reeves, Barry Stein, George Semkiw, and Doug Chappell
The Mid-Knights Blues Band, 1966, from left: Richard Newell, Ray Reeves, Barry Stein, George Semkiw, and Doug Chappell
The Mid-Knights Blues Band, 1966, from left: Barry Stein, Richard Newell, Doug Chappell, Ray Reeves and George Semkiw
The Mid-Knights Blues Band, 1966, from left: Barry Stein, Richard Newell, Doug Chappell, Ray Reeves and George Semkiw

Mid-Knights Latter Years

1966 saw Brough (sax) packing it in to move to Oklahoma with his regular day gig resulting in the band adding Rick Bell on piano. Then with the departure of Rich, also in 1966, the band took a different direction with the addition Richard Newell on vocals and mouth harp. This was the era of The Mid-Knights Blues Band. Eventually, Ronnie Hawkins cherry picked Bell to join his band The Hawks, the Mid-Knights, in chameleon fashion, changed yet again.

The Mid-Knights Revue, 1966
The Mid-Knights Revue, 1966
RPM, March 30, 1968 Thanks to Ivan Amirault for this scan
RPM, March 30, 1968 Thanks to Ivan Amirault for this scan

Mid Knights WB 45 Somebody Somewhere Needs You

The new result was The Mid-Knights Revue, a soul-charged R&B unit. Added to the core of Semkiw (guitar), Stein (drums), Reeves (Hammond organ) and Chappell (bass) were Bill Pinkerton (drums, yes 2 drummers, both had double bass drums!) , Dave Stilwell (trumpet), Rick Cairns (trumpet), Jerry Shymansky (sax), Mark Smith (trombone) and Newell on vocals. One single was recorded for Warner Brothers and Ronnie Hawkins came into the picture again grabbing Newell and soon dubbed him “King Bisquit Boy”. The band rebounded quickly adding vocalists Frank Querci (Robert E. Lee) and Karen Titko. This version of the band created a huge wall of sound playing mainly the R&B songs of the Stax/Volt type of artists.

The tracks by Mid-Knights Blues Band and Mid-Knights Revue are tracks recorded during our rehearsals, we were lucky enough to have RCA Victor studios as a practice place since George Semkiw was a recording engineer there. George was able to get us Studio A, a huge room, to rehearse in. It was soundproof of course and had the best recording gear of the day. At the end of many practice sessions we laid down tracks with George working the board and playing guitar. The size of the room really paid off when we got to the Revue stage of the band, two drummers both having double kick, bass, guitar, keys and a four-man horn section.

Some tracks are taken from tape, some from 45’s and others from laquers (also called soft cuts) so there is some scratching but it almost makes it all the more realistic.

The meeting place for most Toronto Bands on Saturday morning was a great music store called Long & McQuade, the original store at the corner of Yonge St. and Collier St. Players from most of the Toronto bands would meet and trade road stories. What an amazing little store this was, the two Jacks (Long & McQuade) offered musicians the ability to buy on credit financed by the store, they trusted that the bill would be paid. Pete Traynor had a space above the store where he built the original Traynor amps, he was an amazing guy who invented a great line of amplifiers and sound systems. The manufacturing was later re-located to a large manufacturing plant in Toronto and became a huge business.

This story is one where we did not even play. Jimi Hendrix played Maple Gardens, Toronto ( May 3, 1969) and the Musicians Union had a rule that any music show at the Gardens had to hire a certain amount of Toronto Local musicians whether they played or not, I believe the number was around 31. I became the leader for the gig and gathered other Toronto rock players to make up the number needed. We didn’t play, just sat in the nose bleed section and watched the show. Jimi and his manager were the producers of the show, so after they finished I went to collect the monies for the Toronto musicians. They said for me to meet them at their hotel the next morning to settle up. Of course when I got there they had checked out and fled the scene. So I filed a grievance with our Local 149. Amazingly about two months later the New York local showed up at Madison Square Gardens and informed Jimi of his debt and would not let him perform until they received the money due. It was sent to Toronto and our local lads got paid.

Doug Chappell, 2010

Where Are They Now

Richie Knight (Rich Hubbard) – after the band studied Finance and Marketing at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and in 1968 went on to manage Yorkville Records and Yorkville Talent Mgt., which was a part of ARC Records, The Mid-Knights original label. Presently owns a magazine publishing company.

George Semkiw – record producer, musician, recording and live event engineer

Barry Stein – runs own accounting firm

Barry Lloyd – retired from insurance industry, resides in Calgary

Mike Brough – after many years in men’s apparel industry now teaches business at Seneca College, Toronto

Doug Chappell – retired after years in the record industry (A&M Records, Island Records, Virgin Records, Mercury Records)

Ray Reeves – settled in Atlanta, Georgia

Richard Bell – after Hawkins he went on to play in Janis Joplin’s Full Tilt Boogie Band, returned to Toronto to do session work. Deceased in 2007

Richard Newell – after Hawkins he played with Crowbar, released records as King Biscuit Boy. Deceased in 2003

Frank Querci – was in the real estate business, Deceased

Leo Donaghue – presently resides in Australia

Recordings:

Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights

1963 – Charlena/You’ve Got The Power (Arc 1028)
1963/64 – The Joke/My Kind Of Love (Arc 1037)

Musicians on above songs: Knight, Semkiw, Stein, Lloyd, Brough & Chappell

1964 – Homework/Come Back – Try Me (Arc 1047)
1965 – Think It Over/You Hurt Me (Arc 1076)

Musicians on above songs: Knight, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves & Chappell

1965 – Packin’ Up/I’ll Go Crazy (Arc 1078)
1965 – One Good Reason/My Kind Of Love (Arc 1110)

Musicians on above songs: Knight, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves & Chappell

1966 – That’s Alright/Work Song (RCA Victor 3392)

Musicians on above songs: Knight, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves, Chappell & Bell

as The Mid-Knights (Richard Newell, vocals)

1968 – Soul Man/Somebody Somewhere Needs You (Warner Bros. 7180)

Musicians on above songs: Newell, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves, Chappell, Pinkerton, Stilwell, Cairns, Smith & Shymansky

Unreleased tracks

The Mid-Knights Blues Band

Goin’ To New York
Shotgun
Whatcha Gonna Do About It
99 1/2
Don’t Fight It
Keep on Tryin’
Respect

Musicians on above songs: Bell, Newell, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves & Chappell

Mid-Knights Big Blues Band

Knock on Wood
Uptight
You Don’t Know Like I Know

Musicians on above songs: Newell, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves, Chappell, Pinkerton, Stilwell, Cairns, Smith & Shymansky

Mid-Knights Revue

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
Turn On Your Lovelights
When You Comin’ Home
Keep Me Hangin’ On
Losing You
Piece of My Heart
To Sir With Love

Musicians on above songs: Querci, Titko, Semkiw, Stein, Reeves, Chappell, Pinkerton, Stilwell, Cairns, Smith & Shymansky

I’m sorry to report that Doug Chappell, who provided the photos and information in this article, and continued to aid research into the Toronto and Canadian music scenes, passed away on December 3, 2020.

All my condolences to his family, friends and fans.

August 19, 2006 Mid-Knight reunion BBQ, from left, back row: Richie Knight, Barry Lloyd; front row: Doug Chappell, George Semkiw, Barry Stein, Mike Brough
August 19, 2006 Mid-Knight reunion BBQ, from left, back row: Richie Knight, Barry Lloyd; front row: Doug Chappell, George Semkiw, Barry Stein, Mike Brough