Some Figures From The Toronto Music Scene Pass On

Frankie Busseri of 1950's Toronto pop vocal group the Four Lads, the first Toronto group to score international hits ("Standing On The Corner", "No Not Much", "Moments To Remember", "Istanbul");

THE FOUR LADS ~ "STANDING ON THE CORNER";


THE FOUR LADS & FRANKIE LAINE;



Fred Keeler ~ Guitarist with 1960's Toronto band David Clayton Thomas & the Shays

DAVID CLAYTON THOMAS & THE SHAYS ~ "WALK THAT WALK";



Jackie Shane ~ 1960's Toronto R&B singer;

JACKIE SHANE ~ "WALKING THE DOG";



Joanne Brooks ~ 1970's R&B singer and later singer in New Wave band Rough Trade;

ROUGH TRADE ~ "BIRDS OF A FEATHER";


ROUGH TRADE ~ "BUTCH";



Johnny Lovesin ~ Rock & Roll singer/guitarist and a fixture on the Toronto scene from the late 70's onward including opening for the Ramones first Toronto gig;

JOHNNIE LOVESIN ~ "WORKING GIRL";


JOHNNIE LOVESIN ~ "BAD TALK";



Dave Bookman ~ Radio DJ from the 80's onward on CIUT, CFNY and INDIE 88m club booker and supporter of indie music, also singer in 80's for indie band The Bookmen;

VIDEO TRIBUTE FOR DAVE BOOKMAN;



Leon Redbone ~ Ragtime Folk Rocker from the 1970's and an influence on Tom Waits;

LEON REDBONE ~ "DIDDY WAH DIDDY";


LEON REDBONE ~ "SHINE ON HARVEST MOON";



Joe Hall ~ Artsy Folk-Rock and Comedy singer songwriter and another fixture on the Toronto club scene from the 1970's & 80's

JOE HALL & THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT ~ "SWEET GYPSY NOSE";


JOE HALL & THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT ~ "LOS HABLOS TELEPHONOS";



Ed Bickert ~ Jazz guitarist from the 1960's onward;

ED BICKERT ~ "JUMPIN' THE BLUES";



Mose Scarlett ~ Folk & Blues singer from the 1970's onward;

MOSE SCARLETT ~ "SWEET GEORGIA BROWN";



Herb Dale - Toronto Country singer/songwriter;

HERB DALE ~ "JUST LIKE GOOD OLD WILLIE NELSON";



Justin Haynes ~ Toronto guitarist & mandolinist;

JUSTIN HAYNES;



Brian LaHaie ~ Drummer for Toronto folk band the Donefors & Cindy Doire;

THE DONEFORS ~ "IN A CORNFIELD";

So; What Were White People Listening To Before Rock & Roll Anyway?

Recently a number of musical figures from the fifties died who can answer the question; What did white people listened to in the pre-Rock and Roll post WW2 era of the late forties and early fifties (obviously black Americans already had a variety of good Blues, Jazz, R&B, Doo Wop and Gospel)...well if you were cool and lived in a big city then you listened to Jazz. Especially the Cool Jazz of Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan. If you were a bit older and weren't worried about drugs then there were still a few BeBop fans, if you were even older then there was still some swing hanging around. If you were young and political you listened to Folk like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, The Weavers and the Kingston Trio. If you were young but not political there were the collegiate type vocal quartets like the Four Freshmen, Four Lads, Four Preps, Crewcuts and The Lettermen. Whose names all imply their College Frat roots. And if you were working class and living in the south or west you listened to Honkytonk Country, Western Swing, Bluegrass or White Gospel. But not everything that happened in the 1950's was cool you know.

( Note; Very few white people, no matter how cool, listened to the blues or black gospel in the 1940's and 50's other than a few young folk musicians and critics, by the end of the decade that would change as the Folk Revival discovered the likes of John Lee Hoooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, Rev Gary Davis and a legion of other survivors from the 1920's & 30's and introduced them to a new generation)

Speaking of bluegrass; Earl Scruggs, one of the classic bluegrass pickers just died at 86.

EARL SCRUGGS & LESTER FLATT ~ "SALTY DOG BLUES";


Bluegrass great Earl Scruggs, who played banjo with the classic Bill Monroe and his Blue Sky Boys band from 1945 till 1948 when after a tiff with the notoriously hard assed Monroe he left with fiddle player Lester Flatt to form the Foggy Mountain Boys. Monroe never forgave them. Flatt and Scruggs would become his only real rivals for classic bluegrass and even today Scruggs pioneering three fingered style is still considered the only legit way to play for bluegrass pickers. The Foggy Mountain Boys would breakup in 1969 with most of the band staying with Flatt and and Scruggs would go on to a long respected solo career. In the film "Oh Brother where are thou" the band formed by Clooney and co. is called The Soggy Bottom Boys by way of tribute. Flatt died in 1979.


FOGGY MOUNTAIN BOYS ~ "WHEN THE ANGELS CARRY ME HOME";


Also dying recently is Everett Lily, one of the Lily Brothers & Don Stover, an important Bluegrass band of the late fifties.

Short Doc about the Lily Brothers & Don Stover;



Another bluegrass picker; Doug Dillard, played with The Dillards and later with Gene Clark and The Byrds;

The Dillards on the Andy Griffith show;




Or if you were Celtic there was The Dubliners, one of the classic Irish folk groups from 1962 on, along with the even older Chieftains. Which is not technically pre Rock and Roll. However for most people on Ireland, Newfoundland, Cape Breton Isle of Man or the Scottish Highlands it might as well have been. The old ways still held firm there for a while yet. Founding member "Banjo Barney" McKenna, who sang and played banjo and mandolin, and who had previously been in the Chieftains, died this week at age 72.

The Dubliners ~ "Whiskey in the jar";






OK that's all well and good but what if you weren't cool enough to be listening to jazz, political enough to be listening to folk or white trash enough to be listening to country or white gospel? Well then the pickings get pretty slim indeed. There is always classical music of course, if you were an educated snob. Then there is the world of whiter-than-white post war pop best exemplified by these four who also just died;

THE MCQUIRE SISTERS ~ "SUGAR TIME";


Dorothy McQuire ~ Singer with 1940's & 50's Pop Vocal group The McQuire Sisters. (aged 84) The McQuire Sisters were the most successful female vocal group of the Fifties. Starting off while still children singing in a church where their mother was a minister by the end of the forties they had moved into secular entertainment taking inspiration from the biggest singing group of the forties, the Andrews Sisters. Although they were already seasoned performers with a record deal they appeared on the top-rated TV show "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" in 1952 where he gave them a residency that lasted seven years and gave them the exposure to score a few dozen top forty hits throughout the decade. Besides the usual syrupy fifties pop fare as the Rock & Roll Era took over they became one of the pop acts including the likes of Pat Boone, Guy Mitchell and the Crewcuts, to adapt to the times by recording bland versions of R&B hits like "Goodnight Sweetheart Goodnight", "Sincerly", "Tears On My Pillow" and "Rhythm 'n Blues" which show a serious lack of either rhythm or blues but plenty of wholesome perky bounce.

THE MCGUIRE SISTERS ~ "RHYTHM & BLUES";


These records, which are clearly inferior to the originals would be deeply resented by black artists and become much loathed by rock historians as exhibit A in illustrating the concept of Cultural Appropriation and are laughable today but they did play a role in bringing Doo Wop to a larger audience.

THE MCQUIRE SISTERS ~ "SINCERLY";


The era of the super white cover versions only lasted a few years and was over before the fifties was even done but the McGuire Sisters were popular enough to continue on TV and Vegas until the end of the sixties when Phylis McGuire went solo and the others essentially retired aside from occasional reunions. Phyllis would become better known in the sxties for her relationship with gangster Sam Giancana.

THE MCQUIRE SISTERS ~ "BLUE SKIES";


Marion Marlowe ~ (aged 83) Pop singer who scored some hits in the early fifties and was another regular on the Arthur Godfrey Show. After she was dropped by her record label she was fired by Godfrey in 1955, later moving to Broadway

Marion Marlowe "Lover";



Russell Arms ~ (aged 92) Early 1950's pre-R&R pop singer, appeared as a regular on the TV show "Your Hit Parade" which featured weekly covers of top 40 hits, he managed to parlay this gig into a fairly successful recording career of his own as well as appearing in western musicals. Once R&R hit this sort of approach became impossible and "Your Hit Parade" was edged out by shows with actual R&R singers hosted by Alan Feed, Dewey Phillps and Dick Clark (aged 92)

Russell Arms covers "Standing On The Corner" (hit version done by Toronto vocal group The Four Lads);


Russell Arms ~ "Papa Loves Mambo" (originally by Perry Como);



Nick Noble (real name Nick Valkan); Another one of the pre-rock white pop singers who would be put out of work when rock hit. Noble actually manged to have a few more hits though as an easy listening and country singer (aged 85)

NICK NOBLE ~ "A FALLING STAR";

A trio of minor figures from Canadian music history pass on

It didn't get much notice and probably didn't really warrant much but we'll take a sec and mention a trio of figures from Canadian music who died recently;

Connie Codarini;
Bass singer with the Four Lads; Granted the Lads were not even vaguely cool even by the standards of the Pat Boone era of white schmaltzy pop of the early rock era. Hell, they were not even as cool as their Toronto mates the Crewcuts, and definitely not the Diamonds. But they were the first, scoring their first hit in 1952 and following up with 26 more top 50 Billboard hits in the next decade, making them the first Canadian group of the Rock and Roll era to do so. They also managed to score hits in England, Australia, New Zealand and Europe making them the first international Canadian stars.
Of course they weren't really a rock vocal group unlike the Diamonds who clearly were, or the Crewcuts who weren't but were able to fake it for a few years anyway. The Lads never tried to be either, they belonged firmly to the ultra white vocal groups like the Four Freshmen, Four Preps and Five Keys, and none of these groups even tried to figure out the new sounds of Doo Wop which were about to make them obsolete. However by sticking to what they knew they manged to keep their syrupy sounds around well into the rock era, scoring their last chart positions in 1959 and influencing Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney among others. They also recorded as back ups with Johnny Ray and Frankie Laine, including some credible gospel numbers. Then they went off to the adult contemporary circuit for the next thirty years with some success, albeit with numerous lineup changes over the years. Connie Codarini was a founding member but he left some years back, he did live to see the lads honoured by the Canadian Music Hall of fame in 1984 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Codarini was 80 when he died of heart failure on April 29.

The Four Lads with Frankie Laine;



Rob McConnell;
Trombonist Rob McConnell was born too late to be part of the Big Band era he loved but he still managed to become Canada's most successful big band leader from the 1968 when he formed his Boss Brass on till he died of cancer at age 75 on May 1. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1997, was given the Order of Canada in 1998, won a bunch of Junos and also recorded with Mel Torme and Maynard Ferguson all without acknowledging that anything had changed in jazz since the end of World War 2.

Gene Lees;
A well respected jazz historian (and hater of rock and roll) from the late 1940's on. Lee's wrote for a number of papers and magazines as well as his own Jazzletter along with hosting a show on the CBC. He also wrote a number of books including the definitive bios on Oscar Peterson, Woody Herman and Henry Mancini as well as a study on the effects of racism on early jazz. Lees was actually a successful songwriter as well having songs recorded by Frank Sinatra, Charles Aznavour, Sarah Vaughn and Bill Evens. He also found time to record a couple of albums of his own. He died of heart disease at 82 on April 22.