The Shirley Years Part 2
The Shirley Years Part 2
1976 Continued
With the success of “Say You Love Me,” which was a rock tune, we started to feel the need for a bigger sound. We hired a drummer, Marv Kanerek, a guitar player, Lou DeAdder, and a bass player, Lonnie Glass. I dusted off my Hammond organ and Moog synthesizer, and in late October, we took up rehearsal residence in an old building on Carlton St. across from Maple Leaf Gardens. For two weeks, we worked on reinventing the act. We put a harder edge on the up-tempo tunes and a bit of drama into the ballads. The folkie days were over, although we made a point of retaining some of the acoustic sensitivity that had worked so well.
On the Friday of the third week, we had our showcase at Convocation Hall University of Toronto sharing the bill with Shirley’s fellow Attic recording artist, Ken Tobias. Despite an annoying buzz in the PA system, we did alright, I thought. The real test was coming up. The very next morning we headed out to Winnipeg in Shirley’s van.
Five people and a lethal amount of band gear spent twenty-four hours skidding around the top of icy Lake Superior. Coincidently, it was the first time I heard “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.” Just recently released it was in full rotation already. It must have played half a dozen times on the radio by the time we rolled into Winnipeg Sunday afternoon.
Here was our agenda.
Two shows a night Monday to Saturday at a show bar, the Rick Neufeld (CBC television) show on Tuesday afternoon, a university and two colleges for shows on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon. With the exception of Friday it was a complete tear-down each night after the show, a set-up and tear down in the afternoons and another set-up for the shows in the evening.
Nobody complained! Not one gripe. Here’s the thing, Shirley was going over gangbusters with sell-outs every show, and we were pumped with enthusiasm. The bar owner was quite unexpectedly making a fortune. We were on a flat rate without a piece of the door. Shirley had been undersold.
I was irritated, but I tried not to let it spoil a difficult but wonderfully gratifying week…… And then there was the drive back to Toronto.
It was bad weather when we left Sunday morning and it got worse as we went east. All along the top of the big lake, it was a blizzard with frequent white-outs. Two and three hour stretches with nothing but the taillights of a transport truck to keep us oriented. We kept vowing that we’d stop at the next town, but when we’d get there, the lights would improve the visibility, our spirits would rise and on we went like stupid twenty-somethings. At one point, I awoke to the van sliding sideways down a hill towards a bridge. Lonnie did some pretty cool maneuvering and steered us out of the slide just before we would have either been airborne or a bridge ornament. We got into Toronto on Monday afternoon.
Shirley Calls A Meeting And An Ending
That was it. A week or so after we returned to Toronto, Shirley asked for a band meeting. I arranged that we would all get together at Marv’s place. There was a sense of foreboding as we waited for her to arrive.
When she did arrive, she put her cards on the table and informed us she wouldn’t be needing a band for the foreseeable future and was letting us go. I wasn’t in any kind of advisory position at the time, but even had I been, it would have been tough to debate her decision. Citing travel strains, smoky bar conditions, small profit margins, and a desire to focus on her songwriting, she made a good case for a winter hiatus and a direction re-think. Because I had no reason to think otherwise, I figured that was the end of my musical days with Ms. Eikhard.