Prairie platters

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/09/2021 (1472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pucker up!

The New York Times recently profiled Molly Lewis, a Los Angeles recording artist whose debut EP, The Forgotten Edge, came out in June. That wasn’t news in and of itself; rather, it was Lewis’s instrument of choice that caught the reporter’s attention.

Lewis is a professional whistler; has been since she took home first prize in a Masters of Musical Whistling tournament held in Pasadena, Calif., in 2015. Before landing a recording contract of her own, the 31-year-old lent her lips to numerous projects, appearing on albums by the likes of rap icon Dr. Dre and indie-rock band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Reading Lewis’s story reminded us of The Whistler, an album recorded by prominent Winnipeg lawyer Harvey Pollock in the 1970s that we’ve owned a copy of seemingly forever.

Pollock grew up on a farm near Brandon. He taught himself to whistle at age six, in an attempt to mimic the sounds the wind made as it blew through the trees and bushes on his parents’ property. By the time his family relocated to Winnipeg in the early 1950s, he was accomplished enough at his art that he could easily duplicate popular songs he heard on the radio, learning each by ear.

“When I was in law school at the U of M, I had a colleague, Romeo Champagne, who was a pretty good whistler, too,” says Pollock, who is in his 80s, when reached at his downtown office. “The two of us would perform duets in the men’s washroom of the old Law Courts building, where the floor and ceiling were made of marble and the acoustics were absolutely perfect.”

Pollock was contacted by composer Victor Davies not long after he’d won an international whistling competition held annually in Nevada. Along with a host of musicians that included a string quintet, the pair booked time at Century 21 Studios, the result of which, the aforementioned The Whistler, boasted classical pieces such as Tchaikovsky’s Theme From Swan Lake and pop standards such as Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust. (Trust us, you’ve never really heard Simon and Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa until you’ve heard it whistled by Pollock.)

Pollock, who went on to perform alongside the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra, doesn’t whistle too much these days. He lost his wife Sylvia in 2011 after 56 years of marriage and that took “the heart” out of him, he allows.

“You’ve got to feel happy if you want to whistle properly,” he mentions. “Sylvia used to say she knew I’d had a good day at work whenever I entered the house whistling.”

From time to time on the long-running TV program Late Show with David Letterman, the host would hold up album jackets of obscure releases in a gag dubbed Dave’s Record Collection.

Given we share Letterman’s first name and given we’re no slouch in the record-collecting department ourselves — much to this writer’s wife’s chagrin, there are thousands filed in alphabetical and chronological order in the basement — we decided to sift through our own shelves in search of other Winnipeg- and Manitoba-centric treasures à la The Whistler; you know, aside from usual suspects the Guess Who, B.T.O. and Neil Young.

Consider the following, Dave’s Record Collection (Part 1)…

 

Free Ride (1981)

Key tracks: She Loves You, Bad Boy

Venerable Beatles tribute act Free Ride toasted its 40th anniversary in 2020, meaning the band, which has performed for hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe, has stuck it out 30 years longer — and counting — than the Fab Four itself. That said, Free Ride’s vinyl output pales in comparison to John, Paul, George and Ringo’s.

The group, of which drummer Wayne Hlady is the lone original member, recorded its one and only album, a four-song EP, in 1981, not long after a scheduled appearance in Atlantic City, N.J., attended by Playboy magazine magnate Hugh Hefner, who was celebrating his 55th birthday.

The recording, which garnered limited airplay on local stations, featured covers of two Beatles classics, She Loves You and If I Fell, as well as two band originals. We’ve had our copy since the day it came out, practically, picking it up in the lobby of the Royal Albert Hotel, one of Free Ride’s regular haunts, back in the day.

 

Archie Wood Presents Petite in Doggie in the Window (1967)

Key tracks: Doggie in the Window, Zippity Doo Dah, I Think I’ll Eat a Tadpole

For over 20 years, ventriloquist “Uncle” Bob Swarts hosted a noon-hour children’s program on CJAY-TV; first Archie Wood and His Friends, which made its debut in 1965, and following that, Funtown, which aired until 1986.

How popular was Uncle Bob round these parts? Popular enough that Swarts and his cast of characters, which included Marvin Mouse, Petite, Robbie the Robot and Archie Wood, recorded a series of albums through the years, each one a bestseller in the Winnipeg market.

Doggie in the Window was the gang’s first. Not only did it offer songs heard on the show, the back cover listed traffic tips Archie wood, er, would remind young viewers about, on a daily basis. Heck, we still think of Archie and Duchess when we “look both ways before crossing the street,” or “walk on the left side of the road facing traffic.”

 

Good Morning (1976), Red Alix

Key tracks: Tiny Bubbles, Sunday Morning Coming Down

CJOB’s long-time morning man Red Alix is probably best remembered for Beefs and Bouquets, a daily segment that invited callers to air their grievances on any subject under the sun. What listeners might not recall is that Alix, who died in 2010 at age 83, could also carry a tune with the best of ‘em.

His lone album, featuring covers of 11 radio-friendly songs, was aptly titled Good Morning, a copy of which Bob (Knuckles) Irving, ‘OB’s voice of the Blue Bombers since 1975, holds dear to this day.

“Surprisingly, no one has ever asked me to record an album, their loss, but I am very familiar with Red’s because I have a copy of it,” Irving says when reached at work. “I could easily sing the first couple of verses of Good Morning — ‘Good Morning, good morning, good morning girl and how’s the world with you?’ because Red used to sing it quite regularly on his show. It has an uplifting, infectious beat and listeners loved it.”

 

Own the Night (1984), George McCrae

Key tracks: Own the Night, One Step Closer

American soul singer George McCrae had a worldwide No. 1 smash in 1974 with the disco-influenced Rock Your Baby. Ten years later, at which time he was living in Winnipeg, McCrae enlisted a somewhat unlikely duo to assist him with his comeback album, Own the Night: Streetheart’s Darryl Gutheil (keyboards) and Ken (Spider) Sinnaeve (bass).

“Our band manager at the time established a recording/production business and was looking to work with some acts,” Gutheil says from home, when asked about the association. “My understanding was that George had recently met and married a gal from Winnipeg and relocated here. He had essentially retired from the music business, but when presented with a chance to record again at Winnipeg’s Century 21 Studios, he jumped in.

“The material was organized so we completed our bass and keyboard tracks in about a week,” Gutheil recalls. “George was a pleasure to work with; easygoing and experienced. I believe the record gained a bit of traction in parts of Europe, and I know that George is still actively recording and performing to this day.”

 

Centennial Instrumentals (1967), Interlake Polka Kings

Key tracks: Lakes of Manitoba, Alberta Foothills Waltz, Holiday in British Columbia

We’d never heard of the Interlake Polka Kings when we stumbled across their 1967 release Centennial Instrumentals at a garage sale in the mid-1990s, where it was on sale for a lousy buck. Mind you, we would have bought it even if the price had been 10 times more after spotting the cover art: a shot of the Polka Kings themselves, posing alongside a pair of lime-green John Deere tractors, parked in the middle of a freshly tilled farmer’s field.

What we subsequently learned was that accordionist Bill Woloshyn, who died in 2009 at age 76, founded the group in 1964 with his wife Mary. “Their songs were about the common working man; all of them striking a note with people who work for a living,” read the Fisher Branch native’s obituary. “The songs injected humour into the lives of people who farmed, worked hard, believed in the future, had faith in their abilities and an undying belief that even if things were rough … next year would be better.”

 

The Men’s Music Club Presents the Winnipeg Boys’ Choir (1970)

Key tracks: It’s a Small World; Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring

The Winnipeg Boys’ Choir, founded in 1925, is considered to be the oldest boys’ choir in the country. Good on the troupe, given a newspaper article from the 1930s reported such an accomplishment was next to impossible, owing to, in the reporter’s own words, “for some unexplained reason, climatic or otherwise, boys’ voices could not be properly developed in the west.”

The choir’s 1970 release coincided with the proviwnce’s 100th anniversary, the reason the cover features a cloth pattern known as the Manitoba Tartan. We luckily turned our copy up a few years ago at Argy’s in St. Vital, but if you’re in the market for the album yourself, there’s a copy on eBay rated in good condition that’s currently up for grabs for $19.99.

 

Cross-Canada Fiddling (1985), Patti Kusturok

Key tracks: NHL Breakdown, Saturday Night Waltz

OK, you’re 13 years old and have just put the finishing touches on your second album in as many years. That’s probably something you can’t wait to share with your friends at school, right?

“Oh god, no, I hated having my classmates and teachers knowing I played (fiddle),” says Patti Kusturok, who took up fiddling at age four. “Not only did they tease me — it wasn’t cool back in the ‘70s and ‘80s — but at every single school concert, I had to bring my fiddle and play a solo, when all I wanted to do was be part of my class instead of ‘Patti the fiddler.’”

Thirty-six years later, Kusturok, who played her first live gig in 18 months last week, is immensely proud of her sophomore effort.

“When I look back now I think, wow, what an experience. Ralph Watts, an absolute legend, was the engineer and the afternoon we were recording I bumped into Rhonda Hart, who was recording in a studio down the hall,” she says. “Also, Graham Townsend, who spearheaded the project, let me play his absolutely gorgeous (Giovanni) Majini violin on a couple songs, something I look back on fondly to this day.”

 

Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Piero Gamba (1977)

Key tracks: Kaleidoscope, Les Préludes

Batons up if you remember Piero Gamba, the Italian-born musical director and conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra from 1971 to 1980. Gamba, who reportedly lives in New York City, headed into the studio with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Danish Orchestra, that’s true, but before all that, he recorded a well-received album with the WSO.

Good news if you invested in a copy of the imaginatively titled Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Piero Gamba when it first hit store shelves in 1977: a near-mint copy is currently available on vinyl record sale site Discogs for $32. (We don’t mean to brag or anything but the copy we scooped up at Value Village a few months ago only set us back 50 cents, a steal of a deal for the CBC Records product.)

 

Blue & Golden Years (1980)

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers turned the big five-oh in 1980 — from 1930 to 1935 they were known as the Winnipeg Winnipegs — and to toast that milestone the CFL club released a commemorative LP record. Among the greatest “hits” captured on vinyl were The Mud Bowl, The Bud Grant Years and an exciting track called The Grey Cup Returns to Winnipeg. Err, that would have been 1962.

The jacket, which features colourful, animated images of 18 Bomber legends, is worth the price of admission alone, but no worries if you don’t recognize Kenny Ploen, Leo Lewis or Fritzy Hanson right off. Included in the liner notes is a box-of-chocolates type guide informing you which player is which. (We thought that was Don Jonas!)

 

The Manitoba Balladeer (1974), Stew Clayton

Southwestern Manitoba gave the world Rick Neufeld, of Moody Manitoba Morning fame, but it’s also the home of country singer Stew Clayton, known to his faithful fans as the “Manitoba Balladeer.”

Clayton grew up on a farm in Kaleida, just north of the U.S. border. Legend has it he began his musical career at age 18, after ordering a $9.99 Lone Ranger guitar through the mail. According to notes on the back cover of The Manitoba Balladeer, one of close to 50 albums he put his name to, Clayton offered a “pure, unspoiled style of country music, the kind … one longs to hear but hears so little of these days.”

True that; The Wilf Carter Song, the lead track on The Manitoba Balladeer, is a heartfelt homage to the Canadian musician Clayton most looked up to. In a 2010 interview the then-80-year-old spoke of spinning the radio dial for hours on end as a kid, hoping and praying he’d land on a station playing his hero’s latest recording.

 

Sing Ukrainian Country Songs for You (release date unknown), Ed and Sally and the Country 4

Key tracks: Ed’s Kolomayka, Release Me

Annual Cymbaly Highlights Contest (1973)

Going by the liner notes, Ed is Ed Sheeshka and Sally is Sally Soloway, leaders of Ed and Sally and the Country 4. The duo recorded for Winnipeg’s V-Records label, an independent label that focused almost exclusively on Ukrainian-Canadian artists.

Ed and Sally were in good company recording for V-Records; their labelmates included the D-Drifters 5, who scored a minor, off-the-wall hit with The D-Drifters 5 Sing and Play Beatles Songs, and Mickey and Bunny, whose version of the folk standard This Land is Your Land, sung in Ukrainian and English, sold close to 100,000 copies.

Our favourite V-Records release? Probably a gem called Annual Cymbaly Highlights Contest, which documented a judged affair featuring musicians of all ages competing to see who the best cymbalyist in the city was (the cymbaly, also called a cimbalom, is a type of stringed instrument popular in eastern Europe).

Just a suggestion, but we find both albums go down best when accompanied by a steaming plate of varenyky, smothered in sour cream.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca