(3 current guitars: left to right: electric Rickenbacker 12-string, Marr-Mackenzie 6-string acoustic, and 6-string electric Gibson ES-335TD. Not shown here: my SR 16 drum-rhythm machine.)
I began performing for audiences in 1965 and ended in the 2000s. (Last gigs were my school’s grad at the Convention Centre and a fall noonhr. show in Gold Bar Park.)
Overall performances for thousands include operettas, musicals, folk-solo gigs, folk-duos, folk-groups, rock-groups, teacher-bands, and, memorably, Fudge (with Ken Klause).
There were also well over 20 personal songs that were demo-ed thanks to the amazing vital assistance and playing/recording knowledge of high-school buddy Wayne Fraser (we go back to 1965).
Some bands and gigs:
(played with Betty Plus Four, Cold Lake area 1974-75)
(numerous teacher gigs at Scona, 1986-2002)
(Ken Klause, music teacher, and I started Fudge in 1990 at Scona; Ken Kulka later played lead guitar with us)
(but ‘it all began’ in high school: above, musical of Brigadoon–me carried as serving tray– my impromptu idea picked up by music teacher Barry Anderson, and 2 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas)
(above, relaxing at one of many Scona teacher stags that I and Fudge played at; below: Don Richards–one of many singing Scona teacher partners)
(gr. 12, early 1967 as the Marlon Brando-ish Usher with red handkerchief in Trial by Jury)
(early 1966: at one of the high-school cast parties improving The Animals’ “I’m Mad” with hilarious Ed Greene on vocals and Eric Crone on harmonica)
(1975 Xmas Lit, McNally High; mustachio-ed and bewigged, doing “Takin’ Care of Business”)
(with the first student-membered folk-rock group I put together in the late ’70s at McNally; with girl singer; we are doing Dylan tunes)
(1975: Betty Plus Four: the long-haired days, when I started teaching in Grand Centre/Cold Lake area; I have always played rhythm guitar and sung lead vocals for material spanning the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s)
(1990s: one of numerous stag musical entertainments fronted by me and Ken Klause–keyboard)
(1969, YMHA or CA, Winnipeg” Clover, with high-school friends Wayne–left of me, and Chris Harman–right of me, now a gynecologist in Poe’s Baltimore, on backup vocals)
(early ’80s, Calgary; demo CD hi-jinks with Wayne)
(one of the Calgary aggregations; with Ward, Wayne’s cousin; another with old Edmonton drummer-friend Murray Smith)
(early Fudge gig in Scona hallway, noonhr.; kids donated to shamelessly-open guitar case; my student-teacher on my right, Jeff Goldie, a frequent back-up singer on my left); cue cards left over from 60 Minutes Live from Loon River, a Fringe show I co-wrote)
(above: March 1993; the Fudge shows were well-attended up to 2002’s finale at the Convention Centre; we even got Examiner coverage twice)
(my Dylan days, 1965, when I fell under the influence of Dylan and performed many of his songs in early shows)
(1968-69: as I appeared then, with my Gibson, in my first folk trio with Ian Gardner, bass–later he played with Burton Cummings, and Glenn Hall, lead guitar–later an avant-garde T.O. saxophonist)
(the Scona Room gigs of the ’90s were ‘big deals’; here, we’re likely doing “The Sultans of Swing” with Kulka playing letter-perfect lead guitar solo)
(in the ’90s, reading at Harry Ainlay School coffee-house event backed by the legendary Tommy Banks Trio; Tommy on left, me on right standing at mike)