Canadian Classic rock icons the Stampeders return to Lethbridge for kick off their latest tour in Lethbridge at the Yates Theatre with two shows, May 2 and 3.
Drummer Kim Berly is looking forward to touring with long time band mates and friends, guitarist Rich Dodson and bassist Ronnie King.
The Juno Award winning band had numerous hits in the early ’70s including their signature songs “ Sweet City Woman,” “ Wild Eyes,” “ Carry Me,” “Devil You,” “Oh My Lady “ Then Came the White Man” and “ Hit the Road Jack ” to name a few.
They formed in Calgary in the mid ’60s trimmed down to a trio in the early ’70s, moved on the other projects, scattered all over the country then reunited in the ’90s on the Didi Petty Show and played the Calgary Stampede and have been together ever since.
“I’ve got some rehearsal under my belt already and it only noon,” said Berly from his home Vernon, B.C, where he has been living for at least a dozen years.
“Ronnies in Calgary, Richard stayed in Toronto, since we came there in 1966, that’s been his home. I lived in Toronto for 30 years. I stayed there for a long time too. and Ronnie too. He was the first to go back to Calgary. I stayed in Toronto too. My life was there until about 14, 15 years ago and everything shifted and I started to move around, now my wife and I are here in Vernon. Which is a very nice place to be,” Berly said , adding expect the Lethbridge shows to be full of hits.
“You’re going to be hearing all the stuff you’ve come to hear. You’re going to hear all the hit songs that people remember from the radio. And also people have told us over the years what their favourite album cuts because a lot of the really good songs weren't’ released as singles. Maybe they were too long or maybe they just didn’t have pop hooks, but they were good songs. So we do a number of album cuts, but all the hits. So it’s a pretty entertaining evening , lot of stories. We’re old guys now. We just show up with our guitars. We have a really nice sound system and a really good sound man up front. It’s easy. We somehow manage to summon 25 year old energy for 90 minutes, then we go back to the hotel and go to bed. The parties just aren”t what they used to be,” Berly laughed.
The Stampeders have a long history in Lethbridge.
“Lethbridge was prominent. One of our main gigs was the Henderson Lake Dance pavilion in the summers of 64 and 65 and it was. When we headed east at the end of June in 1966 . We stopped there on maybe a Thursday or Friday night. I guess we’d play on A Friday night and get a few bucks in cash for gas and then we headed on to Regina where we were supposed to play again and then head in Ontario. We had a series of gigs booked for the whole summer and that’s a another story, he said adding that story could take a while.
“I was 16 and 17 then. There was a six piece band. It was an odd band. We had the four man instrumentals like the Beatles, two guitars bass and drums and then two guys singing up front. Two frontmen. That was the regular stuff. We‘d go play Henderson Lake. That was a summer thing so maybe two or three times over the summer.”
They switched to a three piece after a few summers of that.
“That was after two years on the road. We got to Ontario with a six piece band. And basically the other guys, they were all older. Ronnie, Rich and I were all late teenagers. I’m the youngest by a year. They would have been about 19. I was 18 when we go to Ontario. We were all summer babies. So we all had our birthdays down there. The other guys were anywhere between 25 to 27. And after a couple years on the road they realized that if it didn’t work and we managed to get a deal with MGM records in New York. That was what we waited for. We went down there and recorded and nothing came of it. It didn't turn into a hit. It was just a one off. If we managed to crank out a hit single then they would do an album, but we didn’t. And the other guys decided well, this was our shot, we didn’t hit, we’re going home. And that]s what they did. One by one they kind of fell away. So by the autumn of 1968 we were a trio and another two-and-a-half, three years, we had a hit record,” he said, adding things took off from there as a trio.
“ That really was the whole deal. All the years that we had hits we were a trio. We made a bigger band in the latter ’70s and all that did was kick up our expenses. And that’s not the thing to do. Bands cycle, right, it’s a sine wave. You have your high times and your low times and we were heading into a low time. So we thought we‘d beef up the band with more players which just ate up whatever revenue we were collecting and bit by bit we fell apart at that point. Richard had gone and finally I left the band to have my own band. And the Stampeders with Ronnie went on for maybe another year. And then he was being too burnt out and went back home to Calgary and started a band there, which he maintained for a number of years. And we were actually apart for almost 14 years and got back together on the (daytime entertainment talk show) Dini Petty show on CFTV,” Berly related.
“And one of her producers, thinking of ideas of what to do for shows. He was a musician and got wondering what ever happened to Edward Bear and the Stampeders and April Wine and Lighthouse and all these groups that really cracked open the Canadian music business in the early 70s. So they went about hunting us down and found each of us and we actually got back together right on the show. the first time we’d even seen each other in a quite a few years was on the television show. Then we went for lunch and then we did a jam somewhere and one thing lead to another and people ended up asking us to play out in Calgary actually at the Stampede for two nights. So we put it together and went and did that then gradually the orders came in, so to speak. We got calls come and to play here and there. It just fell back together. Over the years we built on it. And we’re probably doing better business now than we ever have,” he said, adding reuniting around 1991 after such a long hiatus allowed them to put aside their differences and realize how much they liked each other’s company.
“You get all your bullshit out of the way early on. That’s why we broke up. We all had our egos to contend with and we all wanted to do something different. So we all did and nothing was as successful as the three of us together. Also you get back together after a number of years. A lot of those times, the early years were good times. We enjoyed each other and it was almost a family environment,” he continued.
“ So it wasn’t hard. As soon as we got talking and got back together we were old pals. We had none of the issues. None of them survived the break. We’ve been best friends now for 30 years or however long it’s been — 32 since we got back together. So rebuilding essentially by playing and having people realize that we’re still alive. It revitalized our career as performers anyway. So now we can go out and play all these lovely soft seat theatres all over the country,” he said.
Songwriting was an individual effort, with the band members fleshing out each other’s songs.
“ Richard, who was the most prolific of the lot of us. He just quit writing. After we got back together, in the late ’90s we did an album and we all wrote for that. I continue to write songs though I don’t write as much as I used to. But If I come up with something that I like I’ll see it though. We always were individual writers. We collaborated on the songs themselves. Before we would get in the studio, we’d rehearse. We’d go into the studio well rehearsed because studios are bloody expensive in those days and so we didn’t want to waste time learning and working on material in the studio. Richard and Ronnie helped flesh out my songs because I am the drummer and really, really basic guitar player, especially in those days. I’m better now. We’d arrange them together, but whoever was the writer would have the final say on how they wanted them to go,” he said.
The Canadian music scene has changed a lot since the Stampeders
“ We were at the birth of it, that’s just the way it was. There was no business here. There were some clubs to play. There was that kind of scene but until the late ’60s there really weren’t any studios. You had to go to the United States. A lot of the bands from the west would go down to New Mexico. there was a decent studio there. And the band from the east would go to new York. And also if you wanted to crack into the music business, you’d have to go to the United States,” he said.
“ Everybody did. There were Canadians who were successful, but until the Guess Who broke out there were no Canadian. Until 1970 when the government mandated content regulations for Canadian radio to boost up the Canadian music business or hopefully bring it into existence and that did. It did exactly that. There was a lot of pissing and moaning about it— a lot of grumping from radio programmers who just didn’t think Canadians had any talent. They thought they should go to New York and get some talent and bring some back home. Then we started having bands who were having hit records in Canada. I which translated into success in the United States. It was a different route entirely. Instead of having to go to New York or L.A. to break out and then came back and to have Canadian radio would start playing you. We were number one on CHUM in Toronto, the biggest radio station in the country before the record was released in the United States and that was with ‘Sweet City Woman. ’ That was our breakout song. We put out ‘Carry Me’ which broke the ice here in Canada and got us rolling. We got a U.S. deal on it and then ‘Sweet City Woman’ was just a big hit everywhere,” he said.
They toured a lot in the United States.
“We were usually the opening slot. The opening act. The headliner and us. It was good. We got seen by a lot of people and we got familiar with the whole American scene. We did television shows we did all that stuff. Then we’d come back to Canada in the wintertime and we were living in Toronto and we’d play all the high schools around, which was a whole scene back then. I think this thing ended a long time ago. All the bands that had records in Calgary. They could do two weekends every weekend in high schools in Toronto for $3,000, $4,000 which is like $12,000 or $15,000 in modern money. And 1,000 kids would show up for the show or more. And that was a viable thing. And all the colleges. We did all the colleges. That was a scene in the ’70s. And then we had our own shows in Canada. We would do Spring in the Maritimes, Summers heading out towards the west and the Autumn probably in British Columbia. It just became a thing,” he said
“And back then we’d mostly be playing in arenas. There was the occasional soft seater, but not very many. Kids were more comfortable in the arenas. The sound was horrible. The ’70s was quite a decade to live through because technology of music and amplification and sound systems just really started to explode. What was available at the beginning of the ’70s bore no relation to what you could get at the end. By the end of the ’70s, gigantic, efficient sound systems were all over the place and at the start of that decade we had a big truck and we loaded all the stuff in it. We had some roadies. And we’d show up at an empty hall with a stage and everything else was up to us including wiring our stuff into the main electrical system. Because all this gear started to suck a lot of power. You weren’t running off of room outlets anymore. And so it was. It was a fair sized show. We had three guys in the band and three roadies. Sound, lights and stage It was really efficient.They were great guys,” he said.
He is looking forward to this tour, which is all soft seat theatres.
“We have 17 play dates, We’ll basically fly around. We’ll fly to Regina and get vans there. We rent vans and use them. We’ll drive around Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and finish off in Regina so we can just fly out the next day. And go home. We’ll be out on the road in the Prairies for about a month,” he said.
“We still love doing it and that is why we’re out there and that what you see on stage is what we get. We’re old pals we really. are and we love each other and we’ve been together for such a long time, a lifetime really. We’re privileged to be able to do this at this stage of your life. it certainly gives a reason to get up and keep going,” Berly said.
The Stampeders play the Yates Theatre, May 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m. Each night. Tickets are $88.
— by Richard Amery, l.A. Beat Editor
