CANADA

I am now retired from 55 years in the music business in Canada, although I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1950.  As an audio engineer I was production assistant for Art Snider at Sound Canada and production manager at Papillion Productions in Toronto.  I was President of The Jade Entertainment Corporation running the independent label Coral Disc and JAPA Publishing.

As a producer in Toronto, I produced everything from ‘ERECT’, a New Wave Rock band, to ‘Piney The Talking Tree’, a Children’s Christmas CD and Live Play.  At Papillion I was on the production team headed by Darryl Peterson, doing the corporate audio for such clients as IBM, Scotia McLeod and too many commercials to count for memory Bank Advertising.  In between we managed to record many groups including ‘Dutch Mason’, Prime Minister of The Blues Album and The Phantoms and even several episodes of ‘ED The Sock’, recorded live for TV at Papillion.

As a musician in Canada I started playing in a variety of bands in Kirkland Lake on keyboards and Sax, including Latin in ‘The Cavalleros’, to Rock in ‘Christopher Khan’, a commercial cover band, ‘The Intervals’ and don’t forget tons of marches in the town band to name a few.  I spent 15 years on the road after that starting in 1970 mainly on the Ontario Bar Circuit, but I did perform in a few tours coast to coast.  I played in many cover bands and revues such as ‘The Platters’ with Norris Vines and George Cox, Comedy group ‘Strickly From Hunger’, Vocalist ‘Sonny Lee’ and I played Saxophone in ‘Atlantis’, a well known Toronto R&B Dance Band in the early 70s.  In the late 70s and early 80s I toured and produced original material with the New Wave Band ‘ERECT’ and ‘The Jade Group’, from the mid 80s.  After forming ‘The Jade Entertainment Corporation’ in the later 80s, I performed only in Toronto with ‘The Jade Group’ doing corporate and golf and country clubs, playing keys.   My partner Angela, (Lead Vocalist and Co-Writer in “ERECT” and “The Jade Group”) and I, ran ‘The Jade Entertainment Corporation’ for 10 years operating an independent record label, ‘Coral Disc’ and two publishing companies, ‘JAPA Publishing’ and ‘Russell Publishing’.  During these busy years I was also the ‘Head Engineer’ for ‘Sound Canada’ and publishing administrator for Art Snider’s publishing interest until his death in 1987.  In the 90s I was production manager at Papillion Productions.  We produced radio comedy and commercials and I did several live location sound jobs for Q107 and one of our productions of the rock band, ‘Klinist Wolf’, made it to the Q107 CD release.  We recorded independent bands for our publishing company, ‘Harp and Arc’,  did corporate audio for IBM and completed a musical ‘Piney The Taking Christmas Tree’, which we produced the artwork and manufactured and distributed the CDs.  We made available the studio for such producers as Mark Berry, Big Joe Bramante and Jack Boswell.  We produced everything from Rap, Country, Rock, Metal, Experimental and New Age Music.  After an extreme illness in the late 90s, I located to Midland, ON., in 2002.  There I wrote songs and played live with Leah Hawkins and also played locally as an instrumentalist on organ as a duo with a drummer.   I began producing corporate videos  for ‘Online Graphics Canada’, which I continued with when I relocated to Kirkland Lake .  My last live performance group project was ‘The Couchmen’, where I partnered up with another ‘Sound Canada’ Alumni, Bob Johnston, in my return to Kirkland Lake.  We produced and released not only many of our own songs, but also many other guest artist from up North on two CDs and one DVD of videos.  We were also the house band at ‘The White Eagle’ night club for three years as well as performing for many sold out concerts for the Kirkland Lake 100th. Anniversary and a online Facebook show ‘The Couchmen’ about local artist and songwriting..  In 2023 I retired from performing but I have been producing material from the past that I just never got the time to complete, including the instrumental compilation ‘Themantcs 2′ containing the Latin Dance hit Instrumental,’Baila’, for release in 2026.  I’ve been able, using the most modern technologies, to remix and reproduce songs from our archive that were never released or which had no videos produced.  Utilizing the original audio and imagery from the early eighties I have brought back such works as ‘The Living Dread’ (Gothic Rock) with video, ‘Feeling In Love’ ( Adult Contemporary Ballad) with video and ‘Movie Queen’ (Contemporary Country) with video.  There will be more to come.  Music producers never really retire and that’s a good thing, there’s always one more song to do…Cheers!