Category: Music History

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Country and Western In Memoriam Memories Movie History Music Music History Writing

Bob Nolan’s Inspiration

Hatfield Point Funeral Brings Back Memories of Bob Nolan

I had expected more Southern New Brunswick country music entertainers to attend a funeral in Hatfield Point two Saturdays ago.

The name in the obituaries that week filled me with a sense of deja vu: Robert Nobles, his place of birth, Hatfield Point. According to a brief bio, although born at the point his family had moved with him to Massachusetts when he was four. He was 89 when he died in Holliston, MA on Oct. 14 making the year of his leaving N.B. 1921. Another Robert Nobles, a cousin it was explained to me, had lived with his grandparents at Hatfield Point from the time he was three until he was 12. The Point’s Baptist Church from which the service was held overlooks the beautiful Belleisle from a high hill,

This Bob Nobles with a brother younger brother Earle had left there a year earlier in1920, to live with an aunt near Boston in that same state. Joining their father in Arizona a years later they found their family name had been legally changed to Nolan. Bob claimed his father had it done because Nolan sounded more ‘western’. That Robert Nolan would grow up to become a founding member of the Pioneer Trio, later the Sons Of The Pioneers. The other two singer songwriters were Tim Spencer and Leonard Slye, a name Hollywood studios signing him would change to Dick Weston, then Roy Rogers.

Bob Nolan would eventually become internationally famous for penning such western classics as Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Cool Water, Touch of God’s Hand along with scores of others including two of my all-time favourites: Song Of The Bandit and Echoes From The Hills. Many of the songs would be used in the 79 movies in which he and the Sons of The Pioneers would back western action stars of the 1930’s to 1950’s: stars of the calibre of Charles Starrett, Ken Maynard, Gene Autry, Dick Forin and, of course, Roy Rogers.

A study two decades ago published a statement that Cool Water at that time had been recorded by more different groups and solo artists than any other song. Those included blues artists, rock ‘n roll bands, jazz ensembles and choral groups. In a letter to an aunt in Hatfield Point Bob wrote that when he composed that song he was thinking of the cold, cl;ear spring on his grandparent’s farm. What a claim to fame for this province! But, as so often, we waited to milk the fame of it.

In the 1980’s when our provincial parliament was planning a Come Home To NB Year I suggested Bob’s wife, his brother and daughter: some of our most famous ex-patriots were being invited, all expenses paid. I was assured they would given a priority and lent them biographies, newspaper and magazine articles I’d collected. Bob had died on June 16, 1980. They assured me they would be returned. When I checked two months later I was told they hadn’t been able to locate even one of the three. With just six phone calls in 24 hours I had located and talked with all three. When I called the Come Home Committee spokesperson I was told it was too late, all funds had been allocated. Although I made requests I never saw my loaned items again.

Every country music history book written until a half decade ago, listed Bob as born in New Brunswick and Roy Rogers on his weekly TV show often said Bob had been born just a few miles from Saint John New Brunswick, Canada. When I asked his brother Earle if he was sure they had been born at Hatfield Point he said he was sure he had been but on a visit to the Point in 1938 he’d heard a suggestion that Bob might have been born somewhere else. Winnipeg perhaps. Bob, however, when he’d asked him, said he’d no recollection of living anywhere in Canada but Hatfield Point.

An Elizabeth MacDonald in BC, engaged by the University of North Carolina to collect details of Bob Nolan’s life and to assemble all the songs written by him, in talking with relatives was told of the rumour. Regretfully I mentioned Winnipeg when she asked me. She then hired a professional researcher who found Bob’s birth certificate dated April 8, 1908, Winnipeg. He’d always thought he’d been born on April Fools’ Day. When Bob was elected to the International Songwriter’s Hall of Fame a half decade ago the mayor of Winnipeg and assorted Manitoba dignitaries were there to take bows. New Brunswick was never mentioned.

The Bob Nobles buried in the Point’s Bayview Cemetery on Oct 23, had led a very interesting life, as well. He returned every summer with his parents to holiday at the Point and continued that ritual with his own family. His wife, Lillian J. (McKellar) whom he married in Scotland during the Second World War, in 2006, was buried in the same family plot. A Rev. Boyd who had been pastor of Hatfield Baptist for a dozen years in a eulogy, spoke of Bob’s interesting military career. He had, in one phase of it, manned a listening station in Scotland, part of a code breaking team monitoring German U-Boat radio trans missions. When discovered he was Canadian born, however, he was immediately replaced. Evidently it was thought Canada harboured terrorists even then!

Most of his family had made the trip up. It was one of the warmest, most family oriented funerals I’ve ever attended. And there was lots of talk about the other Robert ‘Bob Nolan’ Nobles, as well.

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Column Archives Memories Music History

Pegasus

Pegasus performs at Rising Star

Coffee House in Hampton NB

From the Taylor  COLUMN Archives, Saturday, Nov 5, 1994

Pegasus-winged horse of Greek legend- a constellation that can be seen well up in the evening skies of autumn in our northern heavens. Well, it’s autumn and Pegasus can be seen- and heard- a lot closer to Earth tonight, appropriately enough at the Rising Star coffeehouse in Hampton.

That is our Pegasus, a legend native to our particular area of North America; the instrumental duo of Allison Cran and Adrian Thorton.

A more appropriate encyclopedic defining of Pegasus explains it however; their licence to use the name. The Muses according to mythology held a contest. The music made at this competition charmed the streams and made Mont Helicon grow toward the heavens. Poseidon, the god, ordered Pegasus to strike it. He did with his hoof and the fountain of Hippocrene sprang forth. It’s waters inspired people to write poetry. In this way Pegasus is connected with poetry and music. A poet or composer is said to “mount his Pegasus when he begins to write.”

This modern Pegasus- Allison and Adrian- are two very skilled interpreters of the poetry of music. They have been entertaining and soothing Saint John audiences at receptions, weddings, parties and art and literature events for more than a decade.

Usually this respected duo- Allison on penny whistle, flute and recorder, Adrian on guitar and mandolin- is retained to create a pleasant atmosphere of low key intimate music, background interpretations of popular and classical melodies. But tonight in the non-regimented format of the Rising Star Coffeehouse they can really let their hair down and give their wildly inventive talents free rein.

Don’t miss it. Pegasus tonight along with the other very interesting duo, No Bridge To Walk. Sounds like a sequel to Woman Who Walks Far doesn’t it? I don’t think this musical pairing , Jen Mercer and Carl Killen share a drop of native blood; they do however share the ability to blend vocals beautifully. I heard them in concert at a Broadway Cafe Coffeehouse this summer in Sussex and was greatly impressed with the versatility of their repertoire, which merged modern folk style hits with originals, songs penned by Carl. They call their music acoustic rock and I guess that describes it.

Carl, the lead singer and instrumentalist has written more than 60 compositions so far. Vocalist Jan Mercer adds tight smooth harmonies that give any song interpreted by No Bridge To Walk a distinctive sound that is all it’s own.

Aside from these two great duos the Rising Star’s perennial favourite, Donnie Fowler, will be back with a wide and varied repertoire of songs. Another favourite Willie MacEwan is appearing for the first time in the solo spotlight with a selection of country standards. It is hoped that Valerie and Felicia MacDonald will also contribute a set of songs. Seating is at candlelit tables in the Masonic Hall on Church Street, just down the hill from the RCMP barracks beside the Catholic church.

Tickets $4 at the door. Barry MacDonald , as usual acts as emcee.

Also in this column,, Boiestown Jamboree, Clogger’s Workshop, Butler Family Concert and Frank Mills at Miramichi.

Sorry no photos available.

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Country and Western Folk Local History Memories Movie History Music Music History Writing

US Influence on Canadian Country Music

In my childhood, Wilf Carter was the only Canadian I heard on radio

From October 28, 1983

Any examination of Canadian Country Music would have to take into account the enormous influence of early American Country performers. In my childhood, Wilf Carter was the only Canadian I heard on radio;  later of course by 3 years came Hank Snow,then  Don Messer with Charlie Chamberlain, Duke Neilson and Ned Landry, but all the rest were US singers, morning, noon, suppertimes  and late nights. Soap operas and The Happy Gang ( they were happily, Canadian) took up radio afternoons and into the evening dramas and comedy sketches the length of the diual from 7 p.m. to midnight. There was Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, Amos and Andy and all other fabulous situation character epics that made up radio’s golden age.

Early mornings, in Eastern Canada, you could hear the WLS National Barndance stars such as Linda Parker, Bob Atcher and Bonnie Blue Eyes from six a.m.; perhaps you could hear them earlier but that’s when my father usually turned the radio on and I awoke and knew I had another hour before I had to get up for school.

At noon there were live or transcribed US country music shows and at suppertime, mixed with the news broadcasts, nearly every station had a request country music program.

There were singers like Jimmy Rodgers, Hank Snow’s avowed patron saint for whom he named his only son, Jimmy Rodgers Snow and Gene Autry who made” Silver Haired Daddy of Mine” a stock song of nearly every country singer in Canada. There was blind Georia-born tenor Riley Puckett, whose many solo recordings  included “Rock All Our Babies to Sleep”, later recorded by WIlf Carter and which is reputed to be the first disc to feature a country yodeller. Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers created an international hit with “Down Yonder” and Jimmy Davis gave the world “You are My Sunshine” and won an election as Governor of Louisiana in 1944 with it. He inscribed it indelibly in every Canadian country singer’s repertoire for many years to come.

Then late at night there was WWVA Wheeling with all-night disc jockeys and live music mixed. Saturday nights were special; that’ is when you could tune in the great WWVA World’s Original Jamboree with such top country personalities as Doc Williams whose “Old Brown Coat And Me” was recorded by many Canadians; Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper who made “Walking My Lord to Calver’s Hill a show finale with many Canadian  travelling groups; Lulu Belle and Scotty who wrote and recorded “Good Old Mountain Dew”, “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” and other great international country favourites.

Earlier on Saturday Night there was the Duke of Paduca, Amer’ca’s crown prince of country comedy and the inspiration for many Canadian travelling shows comedians; Judy Canova had her own radio program and who became the prototype of numerous standup girl comediennes both American and Canadian; Red Foley the first country star  to have his own US network TV show.

Countless great US country music stars crowded the dial including the Grand Ole Opry with Roy Acuff who made the “Wabush Cannonball” as well known in Canada as in the US.  (I’ve even heard a Norton area place name version of it.), Ernest Tubb, a Jimmy Rodgers disciple who arranged Hank SNow’s Grand Ole Opry debut and those two early bands, the Crook Brothers and the Fruit Jar Drinkers who inspired and influenced the creation of many early Canadian country bands. There was an endless procession of  performers, each possessing his own magic. Never to be forgotten either are the National Barndance Saturday night roster, Patsy Montana, the girl who wrote “I ant To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart” and was the inspiration of a host of Canadian girl singers such as Terry Parker and Marie King. Irene was Arky The Arkansaw Woodchopper who sang many lumberjack songs familiar to Eastern Canadians and America’s favourite comedian for two decades,  and on and on.

How could any single Canadian fledgling country singer not have been influenced by them? It would only have been possible to escape the i9nfluence if he or she had been raised in a completely isolated backwoods area without radio or phonograph.

I lived in a veyr rural section of N.B., ten miles by horse and wagon to the nearest town. Neither electric lights nor pavement reached us but the telephone did. We had the last phone on the line and it was my job toi run up Jordan mountain and “hollar” the message across to our neighbours.

Yet we did have a battery radio, one of the old timers, operated by a pack of telephone “round cells” . And we had entertainment over it that not even the King of England or the most wealthy potentate in the east could have commanded 30 years earlier in spite o  their power and riches.

That was the first wave of American influence, you might say, the radio wave.

Then there were the movies….the “B” Western was 100 per cent American.

Ken Maynard was the first cowboy to sing on the silver screen. The songs he did were rough, rowdy renderings of authentic western plain songs such as “Get Along little doggie”, “The Trail to Mexico” and “Home On The Range”, songs almost every Canadian was soon singing.

He was followed quickly by Gene Autry,. Maynard featured Autry in his first movie rold “In Old santa Fe” (1934). He brought to celluloid the rest of the Jimmy Rodgers  school of song writing and singing with professionally written songs, professionaloly staged and sung with phantom strings and choruses that seemed to issue from the sagebrush, probably from a vand of hidden Cherokees.

After him came a host of others, including Roy Rogers, Jimmie Wakely, Tex Ritter, Dick Foran and many more. There had to be a musical interlude or two in all these movies. It seemed to be an unwritten law; it was part of the receipe of success.  Those who couldn’t sing pressed the services of Bob Nolan ( a boy who grew up in N.B, and who wrote “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” “Cool Water”, “Wanderers of the Wasteland” and dozens of other classic western songs) and the Sons of the Pioneers, or Roy Williams and the Riders of  the Purple Sage, or a number of other groups of their kind who, in the guise of cowpunchers or dance hall performers, would gather at the round-up campfire or the parlor social hour to sing the latest western hits or a newly composed song the group had written for the occasion.

How could anyone not be influenced? Nearly every radio program record and movie bore the “made in the USA” stamp and most Canadians consumed a large portion of them daily.

Categories
Bluegrass Country and Western In Memoriam Music History

Aubrey Hanson Made His Dreams Come True!

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