Clearly, the Canadian pressing of "Why / Cry For A Shadow" was very popular this month. While we do not see this record up for sale too often, it was up for grabs 3 times this month alone and two of those with the rare imported red picture sleeve. The first copy sold was mentioned earlier this month and sold for 258$. A few days ago, another copy sold with the sleeve for 208$. The third copy was a stand alone copy as it has no picture sleeve and sold for 60$.
Another interesting item sold this week, even though a little lower on the scarcity index, this Helen Shapiro 6000 series LP called "Sings The Big Hits of the 60s" (ST-6020) went for 46.50$.
Finally, A shrwink wrapped copy of Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets sold for 93$. Many other interesting Canadian items are still for sale, so stay tuned for more recent sales soon!
I corresponded with David on several occasions when I was writing the Part 1 Beatles Canadian Discography book. He was extremely authoritative on The Beatles and was always keen to correct me on some very detailed "Canadian Beatles lore" which I really enjoyed and appreciated. David was a real Beatles "fan" in the truest sense. He was adamant that the first station to play a Beatles single in Canada was London, Ontario's CFPL and I know we sparred over that one.
Recently my colleague Kal Raudoja brought over his old banged up Sony reel-to reel tape player and we enjoyed listening to some old tapes of Dave Pritchard's "underground" show on CHUM-FM from the first half of 1970. Years ago Kal had acquired a stack of reels of material recorded off CHUM-FM from the 1960s and 1970s by a fellow named Steve Buck. Watching the vintage tape reels playing and listening to David Pritchard's "graveyard shift" nightly show from May 1970, recorded well after midnight, was really quite a thrill and brought back many memories of listening to underground rock radio all those years ago. You can certainly tell that it was all done "live" in the studio late at night and there is a very mellow feel to his announcing.
"Underground" FM radio flourished in the larger Canadian cities in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In Montreal there was CHOM-FM, in Toronto there was CHUM-FM, and in Vancouver there was CKLG-FM. There were of course Am radio stations that would play "underground" music later in the evening; good examples of this were CFRA in Ottawa (Brian Murphy) and CKFH in Toronto in 1967 (Big G. Walters and his "Whole Bag" radio show in 1967). That was a tres cool period for both AM and FM radio in Canada and all down to the technology of transistor radio.
We've just added a new audio clip of Paul McCartney presenting a toronto radio station.
The recording is by courtesy of the late David Pritchard.
Visit the Audio Clips for all the other interesting audio clips on the page, including Lennon's 1966 apology, John and Paul discussing the launch and purpose of APPLE (taken from CHUM AM Radio Toronto 1968 - from their documentary "The Evolution Of Rock" which was first presented on CHUM FM in 1977), Paul White talking about the Butcher cover and many more!
Many interesting Canadian records went up for sale again this month. Among them are another copy of the withdrawn Animals LP from the 6000 series, called House Of The Rising Sun that sold for 76$ USD, as well as a copy of the All My Loving single reissued on the retro rainbow with the unique Canadian picture sleeve that sold for 29$ USD. Last but not least, A pristine copy of the Canadian Why single on the yellow MGM label sold with the seldom seen red imported picture sleeve fetched an interesting 258$ USD!
In 1969, The Kinks played two evening concerts (8 PM and 11PM) on Saturday, December 6th., 1969 at the Hawk's Nest Club upstairs at le Coq d'Or Tavern in Toronto. The venue was located at 331 Yonge Street (on the east side of Yonge Street, just north of Dundas Street) and is now the site of the HMV shop. This was their first ever appearance in Canada. In fact they had been banned from playing in the USA since 1965 as a result of a decision by the Musicians Union. They had embarked on the USA tour in October of 1969 and Toronto was their only Canadian date on that tour. The first concerts on this tour were held at the Fillmore East in New York City on Friday, October 17th, and Saturday, October 20th.
The line-up that December night in Toronto was Ray Davies (vocals and guitar), Dave Davies (guitar), Mick Avory (drums) and John Dalton on bass. Peter Quaife, the bass player and one of the founder members of The Kinks, had left the band in early 1969 to move to Denmark. He had been replaced by Dalton who oddly had also replaced him in 1966 when Quaife was sidelined following a car crash in England. Dalton had played with the Mark Four prior to that.
To read the rest of the article, please visit the "The Kinks in Canada" page from the Articles tab in the menu.
Richard Paterson died in Ottawa this week after a lengthy illness. He will be missed by all those who knew him. Not just for the fact that he was an excellent drummer in the "pre-Beatles" era with The Esquires and later with Threes A Crowd and Canada Goose ... but over the years, Richard was very helpful with the background research for the two Beatles Canadian Discography books, I interviewed him several times for those and he provided such wonderful stories. We will miss his sense of humour and candour, along with his little drawings. My own memories of Richard go back to the 1960s when I used to see him "hanging out" at The Treble Clef record shop on Sparks Street in Ottawa.
For more details, read this article by the Ottawa Citizen:
Let's celebrate in a big way in 2011 !
International Record Store Day this year in Canada is Saturday, April 16th, 2011.
Why not get out there and support your local record shops !
And here is a list of the participating record shops in Canada:
www.recordstoreday.com/Venues?country=Canada
Bring in some of your old records to sell ... and buy some new ones.
Supporting your local record shop is a good thing to do for a whole load of reasons ...
T
he best of which is that they will be around when you need them.
The media frenzy in the USA and Canada in 1966 over John Lennon's alleged remark that "The Beatles Were Bigger Than Jesus" led to many news items touching smaller communities in the USA and Canada. Below is a scan of a newspaper story supplied by UPI to "The Telegraph", Painesville, Ohio, USA which ran this story on page 2 on Friday, August 12th., 1966. The story discusses The Beatles' arrival in Chicago for the summer 1966 tour as well as John's "apology". There is a lovely line here stating that "American Airlines had placed Bibles by their seats on the plane as a «special gesture»".
In the USA, Decca Records produced two LPs of UPI (United Press International) Audio Network material; one called "Playback '65" (DL 9153 mono, DL 79153 stereo) and one called "Playback '66" (DL 9157 mono, DL 79157 stereo). "Playback '66" was issued in the USA in early 1967 in both mono and stereo formats and is the only one of the two LPs to include Beatles material.
The "Playback '66" LP was also issued in Canada by Compo (see picture above) and to date only the mono copy DL 9157 has been verified. The news clips appear to have been recorded in mono anyway ... the audio clip half way through Side 2 of this LP lasts approximately one minute and features a telephone-recorded interview with John Lennon and also a brief interview with Birmingham, Alabama DJ Tommy Charles (a Dj who had organized a much-publicized campaign to burn Beatles records).
In this brief clip you can sense from Lennon's voice that he is pretty much tired of talking about this issue. However, the Christianity issue would dog him for the few weeks that they toured the USA and Canada in the summer of 1966. For example, reference was made to the same issue again during the Beatles' Toronto press conference at Maple Leaf Gardens on August 17th, 1966 when one of the media members there asked Lennon to comment yet again about the contentious statement that he had made.
Apart from all of that, the Canadian Decca LP offers a nice slice of one of that year's top media stories.