Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?

Subject: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:23 PM

My friend Detty (Detlev) Peikert was in the sixties Toronto bands Cat and Roots of Evil and a couple of others. At one point, he used to jump out of a giant egg playing an electric guitar. He wants to know if anyone remembers him, or the bands, or has any photos.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 11:46 AM

Hard to remember. Names don't immediately ring a bell. If either of his groups were on those package evenings they used to have -- usually with Luke and the Apostles or Shawn and Jay and the Majestics, etc., etc., -- then I am sure I saw him. I was too young for bar bands -- except for some reason we used to be able to get into the Mynah Bird no questions asked -- but we saw all the pop/rock groups when we could.   

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: number 6
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 03:53 PM

Nope .... don't recall them at all.

.. other Toronto bands of the 60's I remeber ... Kensington Market, Mckenna, Mendelson Mainline, Mandella, Ugly Ducklings. Anyone remember the City Muffin Boys?

sIx

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Peace
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 10:01 PM

Where's Toronto?

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: John Hardly
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 10:12 PM

...with the Orlone Oranger.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Peace
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 10:36 PM

LOLLOLLOL

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 05:56 PM

wefwesh you stupid wabbit.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,chinmusic
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 02:51 PM

My hangout was the Riverboat back in those days. I was totally capitivated by performers like John Prine, Tom Rush, Jackson Browne, the late Colleen Peterson and many more. I once walked around the Village with Ramblin'Jack who entertained me some wonderful stories, while he was inbetween sets. On another occasion, I had the opportunity to sit on the back steps and chat informally with Gordon Lightfoot, who had just dropped by the evening. These are just a few recollections of a magical time in my youth.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Mike Dowson
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 09:08 PM

I sure was. I played the Purlpe Union with Willy Jon and The Wildcats. Also played the Myna Bird and El Patio. What a great time that all was! Elmer Fudd stated he has a friend...Detty Piekert. I remember Detty. He was the Guitar Player in CAT and I was the Organist in Cat. Would like to hook up with Detty if possible. It's been 40 years but I'm still performing but under the stage name of Michael Keys www.michaelkeys.com So, please put me in touch with Detty [e-mail]
October 10/05.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 09:28 PM

Mike, I emailed your info to Detty. He'll be thrilled. Thanks for checking in.

Elmer

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Glen Reid
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 09:24 PM

On Toronto's Young St strip, Steels Tavern was a commercial hotspot for Folk music of the time, with acts such as Ian and Sylvia, Gord Lightfoot.
Rick Fielding was another of the great acts that graced that stage and he also unselfishly arranged my first gig there in the spring of 68.
Oh what a time to be a part of that great city,s music scene and the folks in it.
Cheers, Glen

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 12:14 AM

I remember Detty Peikert from Cat. I am an old friend of Mike McQueen. Layla

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Duke
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 10:19 AM

I was born on Yorkville Ave. I spent a lot of time around the clubs but mostly the folk music scene. My home, if you will, was the Village Corner Club. It was on Avenue Rd. and Pears Ave. I would go anywhere the music was playing

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Willie-O
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 11:29 AM

i wasn't, not really, but last night I saw Cedric Smith and David Woodhead performing together at Blue Skies Festival...hey, maybe the Perth County Conspiracy does exist!

W-O

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 11:25 AM

I'm glad Cedric is still performing

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,cliff
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 12:59 PM

Does anyone remember Fat Alberts 310 Bloor St. W. in the basement of the church.
Any memorys from then?

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Audrey
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 03:32 PM

I grew up in Toronto in the 60's but was too young to go to the gigs (except for free outdoor ones). Someone above mentioned Kensington Market, and may be interested to know that I was at their gig last month at a venue called Howards Room(?). Keith McK was on great form, but the band was without the brass section. This was so much a part of the KM sound, songs like 'Aunt Violet's Knee' and 'I Would Be the One' didn't seem right without it.
Does anyone remember the summer '67 free Jefferson Airplane gig in Nathan Phillips Square, when a group of hippies started playing in the pool and stole the show?!
Cheers,
Audrey (Hereford & Worcester, UK)

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: PHJim
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 06:42 PM

I think you mean Hugh's Room Audrey.

Does anyone remember John Layton? He played a sunburst Goya Dreadnought M26 and played often with a fellow named Brian.

I also recall a jug band with the longest name of any band. The Tubby Fats ....Jug Band. (I can't remember the rest of the name) It was made up of a bunch of high school kids including Ken and Chris Whiteley.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 09:34 PM

No, I'm a bit too young for the 60's.

In the 70s, on Avenue Rd. just north of Davenport was a coffee house where I played 1 night with Veronica Boyd...anyone know of her whereabouts these days? We didn't know anyone famous.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 10:01 PM

Duke, I know the guy who used to run the Village Corner in the late 50s to early 60s. His name is Mike Cavendish. We get together about once a week at a local song circle, and he is full of tales about those times. He says that the Village Corner was the first coffeehouse in Toronto to host the young Bob Dylan, and he's got many strange tales about Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, the TwoTones (Lightfoot and his early singing partner whose name escapes me at the moment), Buffy Sainte-Marie, David Whiffen, Maria Muldaur, Sonny and Cher, Cedric Smith, Joni Anderson (Mitchell), Joan Baez, etc...some of them may even be TRUE!!! ;-) Mike's quite a raconteur.

Mike kindly gave me an ugly little cap that Bob Dylan came to the Village Corner with one night in the very early 60s, and left it there. He was with Grossman that night, not playing, but just hanging out, and he was wearing the cap. I guess he maybe didn't like it that much, cos he left it there and never came back for it, so Mike kept it. It IS quite ugly, in my opinion, so maybe Bob was just looking for a handy place to leave it... ;-D

It looks like a Swiss mountaineering cap. And it's pretty dirty and scuzzy looking.

As for Fat Albert's, I used to go there from time to time. Saw Kristofferson and numerous others play the Riverboat.

I think the one on Avenue Road above Davenport was called the Purple Onion, wasn't it?

Some Toronto rock or blues groups I recall are Edward Bear, Whiskey Howl, Huron and Washington, and Kensington Market. Oh, and there were some folk groups too...like Stringband (Marie-Lynn Hammond, Bob Bossin, Grit Laskin).

And another folk place where you could play was Fiddler's Green, captained by the extremely annoying Tam Kierney (sp?) who had no time for mere mortals who dared to play anything that wasn't trad and from the UK or Ireland. ;-D

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 10:51 PM

I'm not sure if it was late 60's or early 70's. The Brown Derby on the corner of Yonge and Dundas featured an all girl topless band. Now there was this cute drummer whose twin 38's kept perfect time with the beat of the drumsticks. For some strange reason this kid from "the sticks" found this fascinating!

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 08:15 AM

Good lord! In Toronto the Good in the early 70's???? I can hardly believe it.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: open mike
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 11:34 AM

Hey Glen Reid, i have your "album" ! I did not know you were a luthier.
http://www.glenreid.com/
I was fortunate to be on the Cowboy Train across Canada in 2006 and
we held a concert at Hugh's room with Rosalie Sorrels, Tom Russell and some of the other musicians from the train. We had a special treat when Silvia came on as a special guest!
I also was very fortunate to meet "Curly Boy Stubbs" and Mrs. Curly, too, as well as our Balladeer.
Hey, where is Peace, I miss him!!

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Duke
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 12:24 PM

Little Hawk: I know Mike quite well. I remember when he first came to the Village Corner with Shelly Abrams. Later on they ran the place for a few years. I remember the night Dylan came and I remember the hat. We had a great time way back then and a lot of people became quite famous.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: PHJim
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 01:21 PM

Gord's partner in the Two Tones was Terry Whelen (sp?). I saw the Two Tones at Mariposa in 1961 and/or 1962. Gord played a tenor guitar and Terry played a baritone ukulele.
A couple of years later, when Mariposa was held in Maple Leaf Stadium, some of us got rousted by the police for sleeping in parks and Terry Whelen offered his back yard as a sleeping spot. I recall there were about 20 guitar/banjo toting kids sleeping in his yard.

That was a great festival with Gord Lightfoot, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Gary Davis, Buffy St. Maie, Joni Anderson, David Rea, The Greenbriar Boys...

Does anyone know where Al Cromwell is? He was very prominent on the Toronto/Hamilton folk scene in the early sixties, but I haven't heard anything about him for many years.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 02:31 PM

Duke - Great! I am delighted to get your confirmation on the ugly little hat. I figured Mike was on the level about it being Dylan's, but to hear it from a second source is a real treat. Yes, he has mentioned Shelley Abrams. Mike gave me that hat because he's heard me play a lot, he knows how much I love Dylan's music, and he says I'm "like the reincarnation of Bob Dylan". I take that as a real compliment. ;-)

Do you happen to know another old friend of Mike's from back then...Kevin Hall, the luthier? Kevin used to work at Ring Music in Toronto and he was Martin's top guitar repair guy in Canada for some time. He recently did some fine work on an HD-28 that I have...made a new bone nut and saddle for it, and did some setup work. That guitar plays like a dream.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Timberline
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 07:46 PM

I know Kevin.   In fact, I'm him. ;-) Just found this group after being aimed at it by a chap involved in a thread on the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum.

My time spent at Ring Music on Harbord was mostly building Ruby Banjos in the back with my two partners, Bill Wager and Bruce Dowd.   Bruce is still an active and very good repairman working in Toronto and Bill has disappeared back into the wilds of the US.

I've seen a picture of Bob Dylan wearing that ugly Tyrolean hat, standing next to Mike Cavendish many years ago. Mike had it up on his gun-room wall in the basement of his old place in Campbelville, so there's no doubt it once graced the immortal melon of the Bard of Hibbing.

KH

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Folk Routes
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 02:11 AM

Ahhh...the sixties. I grew up in Beaverton and when to Cannington High School. We had The Pav in Orillia, The Embassy in Lindsay, The White House in Port Bolster, The Commodore in the country, The Key in Bala, ands and so many more places that have been lost from my memory. It was The Mandala, The Stitch in Tyme, The British Modbeats, The Tryke, The Sciatic Set (The Jennifer), and then The Scugog River Bottom Band, The Status-Steel Blues Band, Ronnie Lane and The Diciples w/ Wicked Willie on sax & keyboards, Grant SMith and the Power, The Witness w/ Kenny Shields, The New Lighthouse (formerly the Paupers), DCT & The Bossmen, The Innocence of Virgil Scott, The BTB4, The Ugly Ducklings ... and so many more. I collect Canadian pop/rock music since the early 70's. And because of all the music I now produce a program called Folk Routes for the CKUA Radio Network ... a wonderful misspent youth.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,She in London
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 06:48 AM

Does anyone know the whereabout of Andy Krumins, formerly of the City Muffin Boys

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: MarkS
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 01:05 PM

No go for the 60s but in the 70s once I sat next to Margaret Crystal and Sylvia (!) at a Dave van Ronk concert at Mariposa Mainland.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 04:21 PM

Damn! Mike Cavendish had a picture of Bob wearing the hat??? I hope he still has it now. I had best find out. He says he has some pictures of the young Joan Baez stashed away too. Apparently he had a whole bunch of slides in metal cases, photos of almost every famous folkie you can name back in the Village Corner days...and they all got thrown out awhile back! ARGH!

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,she
Date: 06 Jan 11 - 07:04 AM

Does anybody know how to get hold of Andy Krumins formerly of the City Muffin Boys?

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Petrified Muffin
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 04:35 PM

I know where Andy is!

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,She
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:25 AM

Any chance you have an email address for Andy?

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 11:59 AM

This is all fascinating, but I wonder if anyone else is as anxious as I am to see a picture of Little Hawk in Bob's ugly hat?

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,fmr go go dancer
Date: 21 Aug 11 - 01:40 PM

my memories include: disco scene; Nepentha Club Blue Note, Devil's Den; Debbie & Cheri Manhattan a Go Go dancers; this jogging anyone else's memory?

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Apr 14 - 05:18 PM

Hi.. Peter McBurnie's daughter here, he was lead vox of City Muffin Boys.. so great to find this thread!

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Max DeWitt
Date: 15 Feb 16 - 09:30 AM

I lived with and played drums for Bill Wager in 1969-70. He was a draft resister from Brooklyn and I from Indiana. This was before he started Ring Music. He married his Brooklyn girlfriend Lucy. I have picture of Bill and I playing in a band called "The Sundance Kid". Les Whittington , a resister from Washington DC played bass. Les became a Journalist for the Star.

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: meself
Date: 15 Feb 16 - 11:44 AM

Last summer, I think it was, I watched a documentary on the Yonge Street rock scene of the 'sixties, with a lot of Robbie Robertson, along with others, spinning yarns. Watched it on an AC flight - wondering if anyone would know the title? Anyway, it sounds like Toronto the Good was long gone - at least on Yonge St. - by the '60s .... I didn't hit the strip till the '70s - what a place .... Saw John Hammond, Dizzy Gillespie, Rough Trade and I don't know who else on Yonge St. Oscar Peterson at Ontario Place. Lots of other jazz greats at Bourbon Street and Basin Street ....

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: meself
Date: 15 Feb 16 - 03:41 PM

Okay, here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eTJN3DOJGs

Subject: RE: Toronto 60s music scene: were you there?
From: GUEST,Lynda Ward (Harley)
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 08:11 PM

I remember Detty. He went to Thornhill High at the same time and was playing in the Cat. I was on a CHUM radio show with Little Caesar guessing band music and mentioned The Cat which gave him a chuckle

I spent time at the Riverboat listening to Gord Lightfoot. It was a great music scene at the time