Aubrey Hanson being honoured posthumously
“If you don’t have a dream how you
gonna have a dream come true?”
I’ll never forget Aubrey Hanson’s resolute face in the dashboard lights, a half dozen years ago, as he piloted his white Cadillac up one country road and down another searching for the wonderful B&B which was our lodging for the weekend.
We were lost somewhere between Wolfville, Kentville and Canning, Nova Scotia, after a Wilf Carter Tribute Night … Aubrey had been a featured entertainer at the Wilf Carter Tribute in Canning, and he wasn’t slowing down even to read what few highway signs there were, determined to find it by sheer will-power alone! And, after an hour and a half, we did!
The crowd, wild about Aubrey’s singing, playing and tales of touring with Wilf had brought him back for several encores. On our arrival at Newcomb House, the night before, Aubrey, when asked, had put on a parlour concert for a Carolina couple and other guests whom, I know, will remember the warmth with which he imbued their requests, mostly old favourites, for a lifetime.
Two years ago we were invited to return for Canning’s Wilf Carter Library Room opening but two days before leaving Aubrey phoned. “I’m in hospital again” he said.. You’ll have to go alone.” I did but even with nine other terrific acts Aubrey’s absence robbed that night of a certain warmth and magic.
That’s the same Aubrey Hanson being honoured posthumously at Harbourview High, Saint John, Saturday, Oct.18 , 1993 at the 20 th Annual NB Country Music Hall of Fame Induction Banquet & Ceremonies, an institution he forged almost single-handedly.
It was with sheer will and determination that he made this great dream come true. And the last 21 years of Aubrey’s life were spent nurturing that reality, fighting for it’s life while he fought for his own against untreatable heart deterioration and other very painful ailments, yet, somehow, as well, found time to keep a major segment of the Fredericton music scene vibrant.
The first 50 years of Aubrey’s all too short life were just as packed with achievements. In fact he was only a few months old when he made his first headlines. His mother entered him in the 1930 Baby Beautiful Contest at the Fredericton Exhibition and, hard as it is for anyone believe, who knew Aubrey as a burly red-headed adult, that he won!
“So, you see, Aubrey started out immediately in life gathering glory,” his wife Faye said, shortly after his death June 18, 2002. “And, of course, born wanting to entertain he got at it as soon as he could. He was very tenacious when he made up his mind.”
Aubrey once told me he couldn’t remember a time that melodies weren’t running through his mind and, after infancy, lyrics. He taught himself to play harmonica before starting grade school and would always tuck a couple of them in his pockets when leaving for classes. One day he was asked by a couple of teachers to play a few tunes for them and their applause, hooked him for life.
“I can’t ever, even back then, remember feeling nervous before an audience” he said.
Wilf Carter who broadcast over the entire 250 stations of the CBS Radio Network continent-wide daily soon become his idol and became addicted to singing cowboy movies. Moved by these influences Aubrey taught himself to play guitar and eventually banjo. He, later, played drums for a Fredericton pipe-band.
While today’s country is a mix of rock, honky-tonk and what we used to call pop, what Aubrey performed always remained ‘country and western’ and that was what those attending his concerts, listening to him on radio and buying his records preferred, as well.
He gave his first public appearance during the Second World War, at age 12 on a show for servicemen. He also, treasured memories of visiting singing stars … he believed Hank Snow was one of them … coming to the Hanson farm because his father kept saddle horses and they wanted pictures taken on horse back for posters and song books. He also witnessed the last Fredericton stampede when box car loads of half broken western horses broke out of stock pens and ran wild through city streets.
“At school I wasn’t a good student, however,”Aubrey admitted, “couldn’t concentrate on blackboards. My mind was always too full of songs I was learning.”
Shortly, after he began to appear on concerts and minstrel shows he quit school to to work at the Hartt Shoe factory.
He did however, keep in touch with three musical friends at George Street High and when he got a call one day to join them in the gym after school to discuss forming a band, while practicing a few tunes, he took time off to go.
“The gym was full of kids,” Aubrey said,” and they began stomping their feet, as soon as we started playing. It wasn’t long before the principal stormed in breathing fire. He yanked the stage curtain down and yelled: ‘We don’t want that damn country music played in this school!’”
Well, that ended band practices in the gym but it didn’t deter Aubrey: the band were soon playing teen dances, socials. He bought his first car when he was 14.
“A week later we drove to Perth Andover and played an adult dance” Aubrey said.
After that, winter, fall, spring and summer they hardly were ever without a weekend booking
“But Aub never once considered leaving NB” his wife said, “Nashville, bright lights never appealed to him. He loved Fredericton, was happy to live here and always had a day job.”
“He worked at Hartt’s until his brother asked him to come work at a trucking business he was starting. When it was sold years later Aub became a provincial government employee and stayed with them until he retired.”
Aubrey’s radio career began in the 50’s when Burt Craigen offered him four dollars a night to perform live on CFNB. When Bart left the station in 1959 Aubrey worked a deal with station manager Jack Fenety to do an early Saturday morning broadcast which he did weekly for over 30 years until CFNB went ‘off air.’
Aubrey then moved his show to KHJ, later to CBC Radio. After that he did a show, Aubrey’s Picks’ on KHJ while doing a cable TV show as well.
During the 50’s through 70’s Aubrey was signed by three major labels and had single recordings released but his only lp, during that period, was distributed only in Europe where occupation forces radio had made ‘older country’ extremely popular.
Although I had known of Aubrey since the 50’s I didn’t actually meet him until I wrote an article on him and his Country Ramblers for a Sussex Fair section in the early 70’s. He had just done a Maritime Tour with his idol Wilf Carter and was estatic. What a great thrill it had been spending days as they travelled talking with Wilf.. They’d played Canning, in the area in which was Wilf’s home for four boyhood years. That’s why Aubrey and I were so warmly welcomed over 20 years later.
One of my funniest recollections of Aubrey happened in early spring 1982. He was recording his first independent album for Maritime distribution at Prime Time Studios near Sussex and I dropped in. At the time Gary Morris, the sound engineer, was balancing on top of a step ladder while Aubrey and his son Lloyd, layt side by side on their backs on a white carpet. He was trying to pose them so it would appear they were standing against a white wall for the disc’s cover. Impossible to do as it turned out.
Aubrey later recorded three cassette albums at his son Lloyd’s Reel North studio: Back To Basics, AUBservations, Memories, also a terrific 27-track CD album entitled AUBviously. Several songs he wrote and included on them attested to his great love of NB: City Of Fredericton March, New Brunswick’s The Province For Me, McEvoy Street Uprising, Road To Boistown, his CFNB Radio theme, Elm City Breakdown , many others.
In the fall of 1982 Aubrey and I were interviewed together in Oromocto for Camp Gagetown radio. Afterwards we went for coffee and he told me about his dream.
He was worried about the great NB entertainers he’d known, all of them aging, many already dead. Without some documentation how would they be remembered? He had toyed with the idea of starting a NB Country Music Hall of Fame. If he should go ahead with it would I help publicize it. I was the only one in the province at the time writing about local traditional folk and country artists. I told him I’d do all I could to help him succeed.
Well, others had talked abo ut it over the years and Aubrey had health problems even then,and he wasn’t someone able to risk a lot financially. But I didn’t realize then how tenacious and dedicated he could be!
Early in 1983 he called. “I’m going to do it!” he exclaimed. “Everything’s falling into place. Ed McCoy at the Sportsman’s Club is a friend and I’ve got it booked. Premier Hatfield is a country music fan and he’s agreed to help with whatever he can. Harvey Studios will supply frames. Balf Bailey, my drummer, will do the calligraphy. Ken Boyle will donate the printing: tickets, place mats, certificates. Jim Morrison who’s editor of the Hartford paper … he was editor at The Telegraph-Journal and Atlantic Advocate … will also help publicize it. Can I still count on you?”
“Of course,” I told him. And our association over the next 19 years became close. In the Hall of Fame’s early years I came to regard Richard Hatfield highly, also. He attended all our banquets during his years in office and helped in every way he could. When politics reign in Fredericton changed, however, that support quickly diminished and Aubrey’s health continued to worsen.
Finally in 1995, after a financial loss the year before, Aubrey’s health was at such a low ebb no Inductions were held. To raise the Hall’s image Aubrey had moved it to the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel then to the Sheraton Inn and the expense of it had, of course, risen.
A meeting that year of concerned members decided it was time to rotate venues with others providing the financial backing as Charlie Russell had done when he held the 1989 inductions in Woodstock. Since then Gary Morris, Sussex; Ivan Hicks, Riverview; a Bathurst committee; the Miramichi’s Susan Butler; Vance Patterson, Saint John; for a second time have hosted events twice and Mavis O’Donnell and this year Frank Hartt. The New Brunswick Country Music Hall of Fame is now governed by a committee put in place with Ivan Hicks, chair; Vivian Hicks, secretary treasurer; and Faye Hanson, honourary chair.
Aubrey’s advice was often sought in how to set up the legalities of similar tribute halls. In fact the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame founder, Gary Buck, made many calls to both Aubrey and myself in the months leading to its establishment. Aubrey was also advisor to the NS Hall Of Fame and Minto Wall Of Fame. .
My wife Carol and I were driving into Fredericton after attending the funeral of Hall of Famer, Erdie Phillips in Minto on June 18, 2002 when news of Aubrey’s death came over the radio. It felt like a lightning bolt had struck. He’d phoned Friday full of plans for his annual Officer’s Square show, was lining up acts for the River Jubilee and United Way events, but he said “I have to go in for another operation Monday.” I called his son Lloyd that morning before leaving for Minto and it seemed the operation had gone well. The radio announcement therefore was a great shock.
Besides Lloyd, his wife Faye, and another son, Loren, who although not part of the music scene, was a great source of pride for Aubrey.
I understand the Harbourview High tickets to the Aubrey’s dream on October18, Reception, Banquet and Inductions are sold out but there are still tickets available for the concert which will feature this year’s inductees, Gordon Stillwell, Francis and David Gogan plus many of the past inductees
