Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Tears Are Not Enough: Toronto Mike'd #814
Episode Date: March 8, 2021Mike chats with Cam Gordon about the 1985 charity single Tears Are Not Enough. How did it come about? Who was involved? Who should have been there but wasn't? Be prepared to be buried in fun facts!...
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Gordon, how are you? Good, good, good. Listen, I know you're in the middle of doing a session,
I know you're in the middle of doing a session, but I gotta have, just give me a break and just
let me, just take off Sunday, just take off Sunday. I talk to Foster, we'll do the chorus
first, we'll blow everybody else out of there, and then we'll let your first two lines, Gordon,
for God's sake. What up, Mike? Toronto!
VK on the beat, check.
I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love.
I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love.
I'm a Toronto Mike, wanna get the city love.
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I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me for this very deep dive into the 1985 charity single,
Tears Are Not Enough, is Cam Gordon.
Michael, it's good to be back for the second time in, was it, four days since Pandemic Fridays.
And this really is a companion episode to our last Pandemic Fridays episode about bilingual jams, is it not? Well, here's how I think it came about, is that you chose Tears Are Not Enough by the Northern Lights as one of your four jams that include a language other than English
because, of course, there's a brief French part to Tears Are Not Enough.
So basically, you choosing that put it on, put it top of mind for you.
It put it top of mind for me because I, you know, I get the song
and I load it up and then I listen to it and then I'm like, man, this thing's great.
And then you start thinking about all the great artists who are on it.
So my mind starts working.
Then I have Greg Godovitz on the program.
And all I can think about is Tears Are Not Enough.
And I'm like, Greg, Kim Mitchell is there.
Where were you?
And then that riles him up.
And he's like, yeah, where was I?
He's like, i was a little pissed
at the time that my phone didn't ring off the top we heard uh bruce allen there and we'll explain
who bruce allen is but bruce allen didn't phone greg gotovitz he was waiting by the phone for
that call so all this is happening last week and then you and i are dming on twitter and it's like we need to do
an episode all about tears are not enough and here we are and here we are yeah i feel like stuff
like this then we'll get into a bit of the agenda for this show that's gonna be very unique but
kava who's in who's out pondering i i feel like as a music fan it almost triggers the same
part of the brain if you're a sports fan you know where it's you know you think of like a roster of
people i i one of my favorite things i've done this many times on my blog completelyignore.com
the fantasy um you know festival gig the big can con cello we were we were doing it on on twitter
this weekend sort of the hypothetical off was like the toronto mic fest or the 90s can con
fest we were all submitting you know you get pick eight picks so i think for those of us who like
sports and like music it's almost like wires are getting crossed and this just like enhances and then beyond that i mean not just being a great song and i just want to say off
the top to all the listeners i mean we're definitely gonna have some laughs during this
episode and it is fun to say okay who is there i sort of wonder why people weren't there
nobody out there think we're like at all making fun of this song, the cause,
anything to do with this.
Cause I,
I honestly think this is like a really kick-ass song.
I think it's better than we are the world.
And I mean,
you know,
we were,
we all remember what it was like in the eighties when famine was like
raging across Ethiopia and,
and,
you know,
still is to some degree to this day.
And just what,
what a like global catastrophe this was and, and what it was like when to this day. And just what a global catastrophe this was
and what it was like when all these massive charity singles
were all happening in Live Aid and all this stuff.
Yeah, I mean, Cam, that didn't even occur to me
that anybody could interpret it in that regard.
Because of course, utmost respect, wonderful song.
And it's a great example of a bunch of Canadians
coming together in a very
short period of time to do something to help where help is needed. And I think it was wonderful that
they did it. The final product speaks for itself. We're talking about it. Did you do the math? So
am I right that this is 35 years later yeah 35 years later i mean they they recorded
the song in early february of 1985 and so 31 yeah so i guess 30 31 30 sorry 36
math is not my strong suit here but yeah 36 years ago this was recorded yeah and as part of the research i don't
know if you stumbled upon this there's there's a great documentary that's on youtube and like
three parts just the making of um the video well that's where i pulled the uh the the intro clip
uh yeah from part one of that absolutely and that's well worth a watch just to see some of
the behind the scenes stuff and and you know you know, all these really unique combinations. I mean,
I was trying to wonder too,
what would be other candidates where that much Canadian musical talent was in
one room? You know, a few things came to mind.
There was the live eight concert like 2005 or so at,
at Molson park, which also had like some weird non-Canadian people.
I remember Deep Purple was there.
And Run DMC, and I believe that band Buck Cherry.
Of course.
Played, because they did the big super jam of Rockin' in the Free World.
And like the Buck Cherry guy was like all up in Neil Young's face.
I thought that was kind of well what i really liked about that performance was a photo that emerged from that final performance of rocking in the free
world with gourd downey and neil young on the same mic singing and because literally like maybe
maybe two of my favorite musicians of all time and i didn't have any photos of them together
like it was just like having gourd and neil in the same shot
singing on the same mic that came out of the live yeah like i i literally like got godlike goosebumps
think of that like right now because also like the tragic clip in neil young i feel like
they never really crossed paths and it's so strange that they wouldn't have because just
neil young's done a lot of stuff with a lot of people right um I don't remember this was perhaps one of his last public appearances but Gord Downie
was once I think it was a playoff game like a Raptors game and there was a video of him meeting
Drake right and like embracing like that was sort of another moment it's like wow this
like two massive Canadian superstars who sort of don't really seem to be in the same
like two massive Canadian superstars who sort of don't really seem to be in the same universe.
No grape.
I remember that moment vividly.
And basically this collection of artists that came together to record tears
are not enough is like that on steroids.
Like it really was.
And we're talking,
you know,
it's funny because on Hebsey on sports,
we often will talk about,
you know,
Fred Van Vliet did not get named to the NBA all-star game.
And Hebsey will say he was snubbed.
And then every time Hebsey says the word snubbed,
he says, the only time you ever hear the word snubbed,
he says, is for All-Star teams and the Oscars.
That's the only time anyone uses the word snubbed.
Well, we're going to use the word snubbed tonight
because I can't wait.
And again, I'll very soon give the itinerary for this evening
because we've got a lot of ground to cover.
But we're going to talk about who was there.
But then we're also going to talk about who wasn't there.
Like who was not on the recording of Tears Are Not Enough but should have been?
Absolutely.
And I have a long list of people that seem like they could have been in the mix.
Unfortunately, I spent like way too much time preparing for this.
I'll let the record show.
I mean, life in lockdown, I suppose.
Unfortunately, there wasn't really a lot of evidence.
There was probably about six or so folks
where I'd really tried to figure out
maybe if there was some sort of record,
why they were not invited.
I did the same thing.
Yeah, and I think you and I have talked about some of those names and we'll talk about them in a bit. Maybe if there was some sort of record why they were not invited. I did the same thing. Yeah.
And I think you and I have talked about some of those names that we'll talk about.
And some of those names that for, you know, inside because of how they're related to the, I always call it the West Coast Brain Trust that kind of threw this together.
The Vancouver based brain trust, which we'll talk about off the top in a moment.
But some of these, I won't call them snubs because you're right.
top in a moment but it some of these i won't call them snubs because you're right it might be that they weren't available or they were asked and they basically couldn't make it happen because
they were on the other side of the world doing something or other but uh i did my best to find
out like were they asked and they said no or were they simply snubbed and it'll be interesting to
have that convo with you as well i absolutely i'm just wondering maybe for the listeners do you want
me just to set up
kind of what the loose agenda is going to be just so people can brace themselves? So
here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about first, who was there? Now, interestingly,
as any Pandemic Friday listeners knows, we get a lot of information from Wikipedia.
Well, I discovered very quickly, there's actually nine people who were in the
band northern lights they're not listed on wikipedia wow which is really interesting and
mike hold on to your chair there one of them is that fotm whoa so this is there's gonna be a big
reveal there um so from there when we talk about who was there i'm going to do a top five list most obscure
northern lights members and who they are love it with some fun facts thrown in and there's some
good shit here now the second part of this episode we're going to talk about the snubs you know the
people we wonder why they weren't there i counted down because you may recall you know you have john
candy and you had katherine o'hare and you have rob have Robin Duke and you had some non-Eugene Levy. You had some non-musicians in
the mix. So I have a list of about 40 or so musicians and about 20 or so non-musicians
who's kind of interesting to say, okay, I was wondering, you know, why weren't they there?
Some really obvious, I think some glaringaring omissions some other people where you sort of see where they were in their career like oh you know
maybe uh i'm trying to think like one of the you know the guy from platinum blonde did he really
have to be there maybe they could have swapped in this person um so we're going to talk about some
of those names we're gonna have a little intermission where we're actually going to
talk about usa for af Africa a little bit and
their song We Are the World and specifically and you you might know that I feel like you might know
this Mike there's actually one Canadian who is in that band oh I know I actually I do know so we'll
we'll save it but uh I know the answer to that great uh trivia question we'll talk about this
individual and then also I'm gonna do a little little deep dive and this is very tangential,
but how USA for Africa was also instrumental in doing hands across
America.
I remember in 1986.
And there's,
there's some,
some fun facts in there.
Then we're just going to go into kind of the,
the et cetera pile,
a bunch of fun facts about Northern lights,
the recording of this.
And then to close things out,
I think we're actually going to hear the song one more time. And then to close things out,
I think we're actually going to hear the song one more time.
And then we're going to talk about a list of five changes to Northern Lights that, you know, I would say like as a song and as a production,
it's like, it's strong.
It's like about 92.
I've got like five, it's actually going to be six things.
I feel like if these things happen,
it would go from like a 92 to about like a 98 wow if not a 99 so i think i'm chomping at the bit here i'm like i'm raring to go
so i think off the top let's give the the like the 101 like the the origin story uh and i mean
i'll let you do the heavy lifting here but i I have done my homework, Cam. You know, I always do my homework and I'll chime in where appropriate.
But how did it come to be that David Foster was tasked with putting this charity single together?
Tell us the origin story.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like from the way it's described, kind of a patient zero, if you will, of Northern Lights was a fella named Bruce Allen. Do you know Bruce Allen? Like, I feel like he's one of those names if you follow Canadian music, you sort of like, oh, yeah, that's somebody, but I for like if there's a Vancouver mic out there, he'd be all over this. Like I really think in fact, I see on the live stream on Facebook, Dale Cadeau, who's a big fan of Toronto mic. He's out in BC. He chimed in from that clip off the top. He said that sounded like Bruce Allen, good BC boy. I think Bruce Allen is far better known on the West Coast.
or no one on the West Coast.
Yeah, I think you're right.
So, I mean, Bruce Allen was a Canadian music manager who's managed a lot of people over the years.
Here's just a small sampling.
His clients included Bachman, Turner, Overdrive,
known also as BTO.
You had Anne Murray of Songbird fame.
You had Prism.
Right, right. You had Lover of Songbird fame. You had Prism. Right.
Right.
You had Loverboy.
Yes.
You had Jan Arden, you know, someone a bit more contemporary.
And you have Michael Bublé.
So you talk about like spanning generations of CanCon.
Those are some heavy hitters there.
He also manages Bob Rock, who, of course, was a great producer.
Bill is a great producer.
And also Brian Adams, right?
Well, most famously Brian Adams as well.
And when you think about when this song was recorded,
which is early 1985,
this is really when Reckless was out
and Brian Adams was really on top of the world.
Run to you? Oh yeah.
Yeah, just a monster album.
Certainly one of the most well-known Canadian musicians of that time, if not the most
well-known in terms of a global notoriety. So, I mean, Bruce Allen kind of, it seemed like he
pulled this together in response to things like Band-Aids. you know it's christmas usa for africa they were doing
we are the world in the united states and you know it seems like although recording the penalty
from usa for africa again we we mentioned this on last pandemic friday actually did end up on the
we are the world album so here's bruce allen he's up in vancouver he's managing brian adams he's got
a lot of contacts in the record news. And
it seems like he was like, we got
to do this for Canna. So
the core of this was a lot of his pals
in the sort of the BC
music scene. So not
just Brian Adams. So you got David
Foster there. David Foster's all over this.
Cam, if I may, I know you're kicking ass
taking names here, but you said patient
zero here, Bruce Allen.
Isn't it David Foster?
Like, isn't he the first Canadian domino to fall and then Bruce Allen?
Well, see, that's what I thought.
But I mean, again, according to Wikipedia, it says the project was organized by Bruce Allen, who brought together a large group of artists to record a song written by David Foster.
Okay, because the way I understand it, and I've been spending all week immersing myself in this world,
my understanding is that, okay, first you have Bob Geldof.
And who was the co-conspirator with Bruce Geldof on the Do They Know It's Christmas? That was Midge Urie.
Right, okay.
So that's first.
And as a result of that,
Quincy Jones is putting together.
We are the world.
That song.
I think it's a Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson,
a couple of independent musicians out of the U S who put that together.
And then,
right.
And I believe Quincy Jones taps David Foster on the shoulder and basically
says,
we'd like,
it's almost like you're franchising it out.
Like,
so we are,
the world happens first.
And then he taps David Foster and says,
how about a Canadian version of some doing something similar for Canada?
And I believe David Foster takes this,
you know,
uh,
to Bruce Allen.
And that's where Bruce Allen now starts,
you know, that call off the top.
This is a fun.
Yeah.
So you believe that call
and maybe you know it for a fact,
but that call,
which is from this making of documentary
where you have basically Bruce Allen
on the phone with Gordon Lightfoot
trying to get him to, you know,
make some time on a Sunday
to record this in Toronto.
You think that was staged?
I don't buy that for a second,
that that was actually,
that that seemed like that was like a work,
not a shoot.
I mean, I guess we'll never know.
I'm so gullible.
It was very theatric.
I mean, who knows?
Like maybe it was legitimate.
Gord, Gord, Gord, it's for charity.
Gord, Gord, Gord, Gord,
just give me a couple hours on a Sunday, Gord.
We're giving you the first line of the song, Gord. It's for charity, Gord, Gord, Gord, Gord. Just give me a couple hours on a Sunday, Gord. We're giving you the first line of the song, Gord.
It's for charity, Gord.
Like it did seem really phony,
but I actually bought it hook, line, and sinker
because I think I'm very gullible.
Yeah, maybe it was real.
I don't know.
I mean, you know, it's hard to say.
I mean, but it's part of the folklore of the documentary.
So yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Like I'm just going by what's on Wikipedia.
Okay, so I think, at least I did listen to david foster talking about it sounds like and
again well this is what's fun about this episode is as we hash this out but i think david foster
is tapped on the shoulder by quincy jones and said do this for canada and like once that happens
david's like okay i gotta do this now because quincy jones just told me to do it like he's
been past this baton and i think think David Foster, who is, again,
there'll be a lot of BC boys at the beginning of this project.
By the way, Bruce Allen might be known to a lot of BC people
as a radio personality.
Apparently he's a radio person that we might not know here in Toronto.
But Vancouver Mike is all over this.
So David Foster takes it to Bruce.
And Bruce, obviously the first call obviously is to
brian adams and his co-writer uh jim valance and we'll have more on that in a moment but then he
starts making calls and these dominoes start falling it's like uh you know absolutely and
somebody i'm wondering if he was had a role maybe just indirectly in Tears Are Not Enough.
God, I'm going to call it like We Are The World the whole episode.
Tears Are Not Enough coming together may have been Kenny Rogers.
Whoa.
Now, I say that only because, we'll get to this more in a bit,
but David Foster had just produced an album for Kenny Rogers in 1984.
Okay.
So it's an album called what about me?
Now I'm just wondering,
cause Kenny Rogers was also all over.
We are the world.
Maybe there was some connectivity there.
I don't know.
Here's what I think it is.
I think it was the Grammys.
I think that Quincy Jones and David Foster bump into each other at the Grammy Awards
because they're both nominated for something or other.
And that's where the famous tap on the shoulder for David is at the Grammys in LA.
Yeah, and I mean, David Foster had done a lot in the US up until his point,
not just producing for Kenny Rogers.
He had produced just in the years preceding this,
everyone from Kenny Loggins, another Kenny,
Peter Cetera, Chicago, Boz Skaggs, all sorts of stuff.
All sorts of yacht rock.
So I think it's just,
we'll take a moment here to shout out
our Pandemic Friday co-host, Stu Stone,
who loves his yacht rock.
Of course, yeah.
And he did work with Steve Lukather, who Stu is very fond of and comes up a lot.
And, you know, we have featured a David Foster song on Pandemic Fridays,
the Calgary Olympic theme.
Right.
Personal favorite of mine.
Good intro music to it.
Maybe when I'm in Ridley Funeral Home someday,
we'll play that at the wake or something
because it's a real banger.
So, Cam, did you get the story?
Because I thought it was kind of a cute story
of how the name Tears Are Not Enough came to be.
I did have that.
I was going to save that as one of my fun facts,
but I think it's why we just talk about it now,
because it actually came from...
Let me just go to my notes.
The Paolas.
Was it Bob Rock?
It was like Rock and Hide.
Right.
They had a different song called Tears Are Not Enough.
And was it Foster said,
I kind of like that title.
Can we use that?
Right, exactly.
And they used the title in none of the song.
Yeah, which I love.
But I do wonder, did that almost help Paul Hyde jump the line?
And, you know, maybe we'll get into that.
Maybe he's going to be like swapped out because, you know, Paul Hyde, the Paola is certainly like a big deal.
But, you know, when we start talking about some of the names that were not in Northern Lights and meanwhile, you got Paul Hyde.
I believe he was paired up with Carol Pope there.
So, God, there's so much meat on this phone.
So much to cover here.
This is so exciting. Needless to say, here we are speaking from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and definitely well aware that this thing is organized and sort of comes to be out of Vancouver.
Like this is a Western Canadian happening that is recorded in Toronto.
And we'll get into that.
But it's all these people around the Vancouver scene that are kind of in the war room as they plan how they're going to do this in a relatively short period of time.
Absolutely. And now and also like with that spirit, I mean, if I understood what I saw in the documentary correctly,
the vocals were recorded in Toronto, the big chorus was recorded in Toronto.
But I believe a lot of the music was recorded in Vancouver with a lot of some Loverboy folks in there.
It's a little Jim Valance and the whole BC crew.
So like a lot of the instrument, I think all the instrumentation was basically in BC.
Unless I'm wrong.
You're absolutely right.
In fact, my understanding is they recorded what I think the term would be a master track.
I'm not a musician, but a master track.
But basically, they put it down with the expectation that they'll re-record it
for real later,
but it was so strong and they loved it so much that that end,
not,
no,
it's not the master.
It ended up on the master track.
So whatever that first,
whatever it's called,
when you put down the music initially scratch track or something,
maybe.
And it was so good.
It was used on the master track.
So you're right.
This is composed by David Foster and they put the music together in B.C.
And then they book and we'll get to this soon, but they book a recording studio in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where everybody comes to record their parts.
Absolutely. And again, it's interesting to see just how West coast centric this was i i don't think i really quite realized it till i dug
like almost everybody involved in the like again the engine pushing this forward was all bc people
pretty much for sure which is interesting and i mean bruce allen david foster and jim valance so
and and of course brian adams but jim valance he's writing the lyrics essentially so david
foster's composing the track and it's Jim who's writing the,
I mean, with some help from people like Brian Adams,
who was helping to massage it here and there,
but Jim Valance is writing the core of the lyrics.
Totally. Yeah. I mean, when you talk about, you know,
one of the unsung MVPs of the song and a name that the average music fan
might not know, but you know everybody certainly
knows songs that jim valance wrote or co-wrote because i mean that there's not just um brian
adams songs there's there's all sorts of people he's written songs for i mean the list bonnie
ray arrowsmith uh carly simon rod stewart have you ever heard of any of these artists tina turn
tina fucking turner kiss the scorpions ann Marie, Joe Cocker, all sorts of people.
Yeah, just like an incredible.
And he's still, you know, still kicking around.
He's only 68 years old.
So I believe he's still in the game.
Now, here's...
Lost Tiger.
Oh, my God.
Don't forget me when I'm gone.
That was one of Anne Romer's jams we kicked out the other day.
Come on.
Is this an appropriate time to now talk about everybody who was there?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
So let me just hop over here.
So I don't know.
How many people do we have in Northern Lights?
I believe the number is 53.
Does that sound right?
It sounds about right to me
uh i contemplated for a little while this week and i thought maybe i will like literally go
through the song and extract each part and then we can talk about who's singing that part and
then i realized that might you know that might be a little bit intense for this episode yeah
so like i i don't know if we need to like just say everyone's
name overall i feel like we're going to talk about these people why don't we talk about
certainly there's the solo vocalists i mean i think they're like the real meat and these are
the real vips um and let's go in order uh i i can help you with this if you're not ready with this
but i was thinking we go in order in terms of the voices you hear on the track because the you know
you heard it in an opening clip uh but the first voice you hear belongs to gordon lightfoot
absolutely and i i believe gordon lightfoot was one of the first names they confirmed i mean this
is all you know this is almost like party planning where it's like okay if we get these two people to
go then we can parlay that into you know getting these other people in and it just becomes a real house of cards.
I think that's what kind of that theatrical phone call from Bruce Allen was
looking to kick off.
And it's a Sunday,
it's a Sunday afternoon or something like that.
And so they're doing it.
They're going to record all these vocals,
except for one,
which we'll have a nice story about soon with Bruce Colburn,
but they're recording these vocals in Toronto. And I mean that's a nice short drive for gordon lightfoot
right um absolutely i mean that this is one of my fun facts i i have a bit of a rundown of
the mode of transportation some of the northern lights took oh good because i want to hear about
platinum blonde i know that'll be a good one okay so. So Gordon Lightfoot, he opens up the recording of tears are not enough.
And Gordon,
again,
like a big name.
Uh,
and tell me if you think we're approaching this the wrong way,
but,
uh,
is there anything you want to say about Gordon's participation or just
that,
you know,
he's,
uh,
he's still with us and,
uh,
great Canadian legend,
like so worthy to be the opening line of this.
Uh,
yeah,
absolutely. I mean, we've all joked and I believe Gordon himself has joked about how he's
died about six times over the past decade. But yeah, I mean, I think he's a fine choice to kick
this off. I mean, I don't know, this is almost like putting together your baseball lineup.
You know, do you want,
because if you're thinking just arguably the biggest name,
I'd say, you know, in hindsight,
if you want to put like number one,
maybe Joni Mitchell.
I don't know.
I mean, Joni Mitchell certainly,
she, I feel like by the time like you and I
really got into music,
she was really not that visible.
I remember she did a much music intimate and interactive
in the 90s, and there was this stuff with her daughter,
that whole revelation, but has kept a very, very low profile.
And even in the 80s, I believe, the music she was putting out
was more like her jazz um
her jazz era stuff that was a pretty big departure from all those classic joni albums but you cannot
go wrong with gordon lightfoot and i think he's an appropriate choice and i will say that this is
kind of interesting i think because we're going back 36 years now but if you look at the solos
and you look at you know they grouped him into duets or trios, if you will,
for some of these lines.
I only knew of one person who passed away
and she passed away earlier this year.
So, I mean, everybody's still with us,
except for one name we sadly lost in early 2021,
but we'll address that when we...
Sorry, from the solo artists or just like an overall?
The solo and all the people who kind of had either a solo part
or were with somebody else.
Yeah.
I'm not sure about the chorus people.
And maybe you'll correct me when we get there.
But I can only think of one name who passed away from these solos.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I'm just scanning over some of the names.
You're right.
I mean, I see at least a couple people.
But they're in the chorus, right?
Yeah, just in the chorus.
You're right.
Okay, so let's move on. least a couple people but they're in the chorus right yeah just in the chorus you're right okay
so let's move on so from from gordon lightfoot who opens things up then uh the next voice we
hear belongs to burton cummings yeah absolutely when uh this was before he was sort of the
crotchety neighbor upstairs where he didn't like the tap dancing studio or whoever his neighbors
are right in moose jaw um i i think this is an interesting choice because you have
to think of the time too so okay so here's burden cummings years removed really from the guess who
although they had just reunited the year before and we're gonna get to more about that sure in a
bit um i don't know when you you look at how many solo vocalists do
we have here we've got 11 in total but burden had some monster solo hits like like i'm thinking of
like stand tall and there's a absolutely like he had some solo success in this country he definitely
did but this is you know this is this is like I mean, to me, he's sort of a bubble guy.
Does he deserve, and I love his voice. Like he's,
he's a great vocalist and I don't disagree with him being there,
but I think you could talk me out of him and someone else swapping into that
role. I will say that.
I'm trying to speak so we don't when we talk about snubs we talk about it
then but there is a name that's like a i mean i mean maybe i'll save this actually for that section
so i won't proceed with that except except let me just say that birding cummings is worthy of
a solo spot on uh this jam i mean the guess who yeah we're like i'm thinking of american woman
going to number one on the u Billboard Hot 100 this is a huge
Canadian band even before
the CanCon rules and stuff
I mean he's definitely
a candidate I just
wouldn't say he's a slam dunk like a
Joni Mitchell or a Neil Young
that's all I'm saying
but here's a slam dunk I would think I'm hoping you agree
but the next voice we hear belongs to
Anne-Marie yeah slam dunk I would think I'm hoping you agree but the next voice we hear belongs to Anne Murray
yeah
yeah I mean I don't
disagree but I kind of again this is
this is a ruthless
you only got 11 spots
Anne Murray in
1985 she's
Canada's songbird so beloved
I know
and also you want to represent as many
provinces as you can right like there's a reason there's a verse in French right you want to be
sent Canada's a very diverse country uh you know there's many provinces and that you can have us
a great singer from Nova Scotia that's some points for uh for Anne-ie i i will say this i do like ann marie's choice
of attire in the video that was very reminiscent of like every 80s mom
um i don't know i think just what how her hair was just reminds me of like my
mom in that era and what she was wearing it sort of looked like
not quite caught in jenny but more like kind of a step up.
Careful, Cam, careful.
Yeah, no, it was like a cheerful little outfit.
Maybe, you know, I might be a little biased
because there's a hippo in my bathtub
who was on continuous rotation in my house,
Anne-Marie's children's album.
So maybe I'm a little biased.
Stu and I have mentioned this before,
like Anne-Marie currently lives in Thornhill my house uh ann marie's children's album so maybe stew and i've mentioned this before like ann murray
currently lives in thornhill and uh is the scratch golfer at the thornhill ladies golf club so big
golfer you know we have our own biases too but i would also argue that uh the name i'm about to say
who follows ann marie on uh yeah you're right i'm gonna be on tears are not enough uh is probably
the only artist that jumps to mind as a bigger Canadian woman voice in music at this time.
Yeah, well, I mean, Mike, we'll get to this in a bit. I was going to get to it a bit more in the USA for Africa.
What I will say is going back and watching the video for this song far too many times this weekend especially when compared to usa for africa
it really does hit home the lack of diversity compared to the u.s record industry and that
level you're so right you're so right you're so right and not just in terms of male female but
just people from different backgrounds and yeah there's there's a few names we're going to talk
to that are definitely not white folk in Northern Lights.
But then smash cut USA for Africa, you got Quincy Jones out front.
You got Michael Jackson.
You got Lionel Rich.
You got all the Jacksons there.
You got Diana Ross.
You know, just seemed to be like a greater blend of people.
Well, I mean, I know that I think I counted two women of color, for example, on Tears Are Not Enough and some a snub or glaring omission in that regard.
But we will save that for that part.
Oh, there's some there's some big ones.
Right. So let's shout out the the next singer we hear after Anne-Marie, who I believe belongs like on your on your all star team here.
This is Joni Mitchell.
Well, Joni Mitchell is your next voice.
And Joni Mitchell, of course, is in the, I know the expression Mount Rushmore probably doesn't work for a Canadian song, but she is slam dunk, first ballot Hall of Famer.
Joni Mitchell's got to be there if she's willing to participate.
Absolutely.
Like we're talking, if this is, you know, fantasy baseball,
she's, she's easily a top five pick.
If you,
you're to,
to redraft Northern Lights in 1985.
I,
again,
I,
I sort of put her and Neil Young.
It's,
it's hard though.
Cause again,
like we're,
it's hard not to have a recency bias of how much,
you know, that the music and the cultural relevance of these artists haveency bias of how much, you know,
that the music and the cultural relevance of these artists have aged.
That's why, you know, I sort of poo-poo Anne Murray a little bit,
but 1985 Anne Murray was a still big fucking deal.
Oh yes, she was.
Yeah. So, I mean, you know,
I think maybe she's faded from popular culture perhaps a bit more than someone like a Neil Young or Joni Mitchell or some of these other artists have.
Right. Well, Neil never stops. Right. But Joni, Joni, unfortunately, has some health issues now.
But Anne-Marie essentially retired. Like she's she's retired.
She's done and she's been done for many years now. So you're right.
done and she's been done for you know many years now so you're right if you're a younger person and i was going to ask you how old you were when the single came out because uh like i i'm thinking
you're like seven or something seven yeah yeah like i was a little like i didn't know who any
of these people were right because i'm 10 years old 10 yeah that yes i'm 10 years old when the
single comes out and i remember it coming out and i remember the big deal around it but i've always
been kind of fascinated by it but jonii Mitchell, absolutely great having her there.
And then the voice that we hear after Joni Mitchell, Dan Hill.
What do you think of that?
I mean, well, I've mentioned this before on Pandemic Fridays.
The Gordon family has a relationship with,
well, we don't really have a relationship,
but I've mentioned that my mom,
who was a labor and delivery nurse for many years actually delivered a baby for dan hill in this
one um this was i i think when she was working at north york um general hospital um calvin the
early 80s i don't know if it was maybe it was right before tears are not enough um yeah i i love dan hill's like vocal performance here agreed um and he that
said i i think he's a guy on the bubble what i do like why you know as a solo vocalist he's one of
the few like people of color who get like i was gonna say that that to me uh i'm glad he's there
yeah yeah and like what what a what voice. I mean, you know,
it's not everyone's taste.
It's very kind of CHFI-ish,
easy listening,
but I don't know,
just like really sincere.
And he's very like sincere in the video.
And I think he does a great job in this.
I'm a big fan.
Yeah.
I'm glad he's there.
And sometimes when we touch,
you know,
it's easy to kind of make fun of it.
Maybe it's too saccharine or saccharine or however, however, very too sweet.
But it is a monster hit, not just in Canada, but also in the United States of America.
I'm trying to think what his second biggest hit would be.
I feel like he did some duets with some people.
I want to bop with you, baby, or something.
Isn't that him?
I think that was Dan Seals.
Is that right? Okay, you with you, baby, or something. Isn't that him? I want to bop. I think that was Dan Seals. Oh, is that right?
Okay, you're right.
But he had something.
Oh, can't we try?
Can't we try?
Just a little bit faster.
Yeah, I know that jam.
Oh, it sounds with Vonda Shepard.
Okay.
Who was,
oh yeah, she was like in Ally McBeal.
Yes.
She did a theme song for Ally McBeal,
didn't she?
Yeah, that's right.
I feel like she was also like she played a piano player
on the show and never thought that I could love.
Never thought
that I could love.
You hit that note, buddy. Good stuff.
So Dan Hill, we're glad he's there. And you're right.
He's something rare on this song. He's a
person of color. He's a black man.
Absolutely.
You did a great man. And then, of course, following...
You did a great job.
Following Dan Hill, I think he's the top of the food chain here.
He's the man, in my humble opinion, Neil Young.
Yeah, and he is.
But again, we're offering commentary through a 2021 lens.
Think about where Neil Young was in 1985.
You have all those weird albums he's putting out in the early eighties,
like everybody's rocking was still a fairly new album.
He was having his weirdness with the record labels. I mean,
these weren't peak Neil Young years.
He hadn't even put out like this notes for you and that whole thing.
And certainly, you know,
later with Harvest Moon and rocking in' in the Free World and the rebirth of Neil Young.
These really were some fallow years for Neil Young around this time.
So he's certainly a legend.
I still think he deserves to be there.
But this certainly wasn't his peak commercial period by any stretch
you're totally right about that but uh russ never sleeps for example that was 1979 so what are we
now we're kind of early 1985 but you're right there was that period before kind of before rock
between rock and in the free world and that there was this period where he did a lot of different
trans and then computer age and you know he did the the like
the electronic album and uh there was album landing on water i feel like was around this time
but you know what uh regardless i think he's the slam dunk of the whole thing like uh you know just
based on his legacy with harvest and everything that neil young man, I think he's, like I said, top of the pyramid. So
Neil being there, I think was huge. I'm glad he said yes.
Number one draft pick.
Right. Now after Neil Young, Brian Adams.
Brian Adams. Yeah. So like when I go back, you mentioned how old I was when this came out and I
was seven. When I just scanned the list, the people who I would have known who they are
might have only been Brian Adams and Corey Hart as a seven-year-old.
Obviously, Brian Adams was just a massive star.
Brian Adams, to me, in popular music,
has almost a similar spot to what Bon Jovi has now.
Someone where you almost don't think about them anymore just because, you know,
they're not at the top of the charts, but they still play stadiums.
They're like selling out stadiums all over the world in Japan and the UK and
playing castles in Ireland. And, you know, over here,
they're playing Budweiser stage just year after year.
Like Brian Adams is really at that level.
By the way, do you know there's a Canadian in Bon Jovi currently?
I was not aware of that.
Generally, no. Maybe we'll talk about that.
But I will say, I am offended.
I'm like almost going to hang up on our Zoom call here because of the Brian Adams and Bon Jovi comparison.
Because I, and again, super biased
because I'm a proud Canadian,
but I'll take like one note from Brian Adams
like seven days a week and twice on Sunday over.
Oh, I don't mean they sound alike.
It's just.
Oh, just how big they are?
Their level of fame.
You know, I think they're very different.
I mean, you know, we talk a lot about the
our little uh gimmick da da da is the whoever of canada right um brian adams to me almost
seems like a more commercial bruce springsteen or a more commercial uh john cougar mellencamp
maybe yeah well actually i would say tomchran is more the tomato, tomato.
But yeah, I mean, massive star.
When you talk about booking this in 1985, I would say Brian Adams is like possibly number one.
And it might not be that close through a 1985 line.
I'm with you.
I mean, the two names and we'll get to him soon but
you know cory hart and brian adams are the two guys you have that's like when we did that single
for the haitian uh earthquake and then you got you know drake and bieber on there it's like the you
know the drake and bieber of this uh i think are uh you know uh brian adams and cory hart
a thousand yeah that that would actually be fun. Maybe someday we do an episode of that song.
Like, I almost wonder if it's like the 10-year anniversary.
Right, with the Canaan part.
It's great.
We should.
That was a good song.
Yeah, and I love that song too,
but it's also like that song had like the Headley guy
who was all over it.
So, I mean, some parts of it have it.
It's a little problematic.
But glad that Brian Adams is on
because not only is he a big name at the time,
but when I listened to the song sonically,
the Brian Adams parts,
it's sort of like you mentioned earlier,
glass tiger,
uh,
and don't forget you when you're gone.
Like the best part of don't forget you when I'm gone.
Sorry.
Don't forget.
Don't forget me when I'm gone.
The best part is hearing Brian Adams in that kick-ass chorus.
Like his voice is just so,
it's got that great raspy hook to it.
Like, it just sounds sonically superb,
and he sounds great on this song.
Yeah, and he's definitely, yeah,
definitely adds a bit of sandpaper to the production.
And again, in a very similar way to Bruce Springsteen
did in We Are the World,
which I remember Bruce Springsteen's wearing like the denim jacket.
It's just like, it seems like he's going to explode.
Like his face, he's like, he's like, he's like really into the music.
Like a little bit of a Joe Cocker.
Yeah, but Brian was like, everything, like he's doing the fist pump.
Yeah.
He kicked ass. It's ass he was still so young then
oh yeah that's it that it's amazing his career has been amazing now um even though he said a
few problematic things lately as well but we'll leave that well you know the wet markets
now we get like a couple of artists together doing a song uh a line you get mike reno and
liberty silver yeah i mean mike re Reno's kind of interesting, the role
he has here, because he double dips.
You know, when you look at Wikipedia, who
got both a solo appearance plus something in a duo,
I think it's only Mike Reno and Bryan Adams that were
bestowed that. And again, there's the BC connection there, perhaps.
Well, for those who don't know, of course,
Mike Reno is the lead singer for Loverboy.
Absolutely. And he's not wearing a headband.
Oh, that's right. That's his thing, right?
Trademark head.
Yeah, I mean, he's a name, you know, now with a bit of time.
Of all the solo performers, he might be the guy you could leave out would you say
that's fair if you had to drop some time is a funny thing right because i think in 1985 and
i'm always for this whole episode i'm trying to put myself in 85 even though i was 10 years old
i mean you gotta think of just how big lover boy was like working for the weekend the kid is hot
tonight turn me loose like these songs were everywhere when i have like a barry davis on
the show to kick out
the jams i know i go i do his age i go okay he's got a few years on me i am absolutely getting a
lover boy song and i get it so this was huge in 85 well i feel like for folks that are maybe
i'd say like six to eight years older than you or I or Stu or whoever.
I feel like Loverboy would almost be like how we think of like I Mother Earth or something.
Yeah, maybe.
Kind of of that era was just ubiquitous. Like everyone knew all the Loverboy songs and The Kid is Hot Tonight.
Yeah, well, Working for the Weekend was like when I was growing up it was like a an anthem everybody's and then and turn me loose how many times did you turn on the the am radio
and maybe tune in cftr or something in here turn me loose absolutely yeah and i mean mike reno of
lover boy being in here i i think we'll probably talk about him quite a bit. I know I will when I start talking about some of the folks who are not here.
Right.
I can't wait.
Yeah.
I can't wait to get to that.
I feel like there's a lot of the lead vocalists of this band of this era.
Where are they?
And I have some,
I have some FOTM contributions as well,
because I let people know on Twitter,
this was happening and I got a whole bunch of that.
So you have your list and I will sprinkle in some of my thoughts and uh
of course some of the FOTM's thoughts on the snubs and stuff but uh talk to me about because
I'm not familiar with her work particularly but uh I am personally glad Liberty Silver is featured
on uh this song yeah well again you know one of the few uh people
of color and a female of color so great great to see her in the mix i mean the main thing i
remember about liberty silver she did a duet with i i feel like it was jeff healy bad case of oh or
was it no it was atlanta miles bad You? Doctor, doctor, give me the news.
Is that the jam we're covering here?
Bad case of loving you.
Now, I don't quite remember that,
but I do know, because I like trivia and fun facts,
that Liberty Silver is the first black woman in this country
to receive a Juno Award.
Yeah, absolutely.
So she won that, I guess it was in 1985 at the 1985 june awards best r&b
recording for a song lost somewhere inside your love um yeah she her she has some like fun facts
like she opened for bob marley once uh she's yeah tears are not enough she mentions mike reno here
did some vocals or background vocals with brian adams Murray, Joni Mitchell, people we've talked with.
Right.
And otherwise it's more sort of on the R&B and like jazz band,
but it's still live and kicking.
I feel like you still see her in like Toronto Jazz Festival.
She'll play shows and had something of a profile outside Toronto too.
So a bit more of a niche performer, but good for them for including her.
Honestly, again again it's
northern lights is not the most diverse band so it's nice to see someone like liberty sever who's
also like a very relatively new artist at the point like she was only breaking in 85 like this
was not yeah she was relatively new on the scene so uh yeah so like from a visibility perspective
to be paired up with you know working for Weeknd guy is a pretty big fucking deal.
And it's good to see her in the mix.
Right. And then so following Mike Reno and Liberty Silver, you've got nine singers on a chorus.
So I'll just skip ahead to because here's the first of the names I wasn't very familiar with.
OK, I had to do Googling to find out who the heck she was. But these three gentlemen, one of whom is an FOTM,
Carol Baker, romping Ronnie Hawkins,
not to be confused with the lead singer of The Lowest of the Low,
and Murray McLaughlin, who is an FOTM.
Now, we'll speak to each of them individually,
but to start with Carol Baker, did you know about Carol Baker?
No, not really.
When I watch back the video i'm like okay i remember
seeing this person before but i i have no idea when you go back she she was like a real mainstay
of like juno awards getting nominated country music like that's that's her genre and it was
a genre especially and i hope this sounds terrible but like yeah sure i heard kenny rogers growing up
i don't think i heard any canadian country growing up. No, like I, I,
I'm just going to assume that maybe she was one of those artists,
a benefactor of some CanCon laws for country stations. Cause again, she,
she seemed to be a mainstay when you go back and look at like June awards
from like the early eighties.
Right. Well, someone had to win that category, right?
Yeah. So this is obviously like the country music section now mike
you you're you're like me you probably thought well technically ronnie hawkins is not canadian
he is not canadian no yeah i mean you know he's not even dual citizen i don't i don't believe he
ever got his canadian citizenship even though he still lives here today yeah for sure um so i i'd
say he's not out of place here but
I don't want to say too much
no no save it because I know where you're going with this
I went the same direction I'm like
oh Ronnie's there and then I'm looking
for some hawks and we'll get to that in another
section of this conversation
so there's a
he's going to come up again for sure
I'll just say that I think Murray McLaughlin's a good
choice here
a big deal I mean very much they're all dressed like kind of again, for sure. Yeah. I'll just say that. I think Murray McLaughlin's a good choice here.
A big deal.
I mean, very much,
they're all dressed like kind of cowboys a little bit too.
Right, because I mean, Murray McLaughlin had those songs
that were kind of country-esque too,
like the Farmer song and all that.
So, you know, and Murray McLaughlin,
I was happy, I'm happy to see him
because finally somebody in the song,
Tears Are Not Enough, has sat, you know, pre-COVID, sat, you know, five feet away from me in my basement and was forced to answer my many questions for 90 minutes.
So shout out to Murray McLachlan.
Well, his wife, I believe, has been in the basement too.
Yes, Denise Donlan is the wife of Murray McLachlan.
So Ronnie Hawkins, I think we'd all agree, is an honorary Canadian.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I do sort of enjoy for these duos and trios, not in every case,
but there's definitely like, okay, this is going to be the country section.
And this is going to be this section.
And just like like it's so
obvious what they're doing and that's fine like i get it well you know what else i find interesting
i find it interesting i noticed the same effect so you you know how there was a uh a standalone
star trek series on uh captain luke picard i don't know if you know this okay so yeah and you
see picard and this is and let's say it was filmed in 2020, okay?
There's Picard, and then you think, oh, yeah, like when I first saw this actor,
he kind of looked like he does now.
Like he doesn't seem to age because of the nature of how he looked when he was maybe 40 years old.
So he hasn't changed.
You know, Steve Martin's similar.
I would put Ronnie Hawkins in that because 36 years ago,
Ronnie Hawkins looked like an old man to me.
Totally.
36 years ago.
He's still alive.
Yeah.
He was in The Last Waltz, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
I feel like he looked exactly the same in The Last Waltz as he did.
Right.
When he counted down the ball drop with Gordon Marneau.
In that fur jacket.
2008 or whenever the last time he did that with his fur coat and stuff.
Right.
Yeah. So there's your interesting trifecta anyway, but Vlad Hawkins is still with us.
Yeah, and he has some memorable parts in this little documentary too.
He seems like he's having...
Well, he's a fun old Arkansas boy.
Oh yeah, he's a real lark.
So on the heels of that country trifecta or rockabilly slash country music trifecta there, you have Corey Hart.
Corey Hart, yeah, for sure, who gives a very passionate performing.
I feel like he pumped his fists too.
Both him and Bryan Adams were big fist pumpers.
It's funny because when you watch watch the documentary he's actually wearing sunglasses
for part of it right so almost like you know a little easter egg for uh sunglasses at night i
don't know but um you know i i think we all sort of like chuckle when we hear the name cory hart
um these days but again like i mean mike you remember how massive cory hart was like he was
a big big
fucking deal huge like the boy in the box which came out i think that's the album after the album
that had sunglasses at night which was everywhere i i in my little world of top 40 radio there was
no bigger artist on the planet than cory hart he was huge my uh my sister had a poster of cory hart
because he was he was cute and he had the spiky
hair thing going on which was big at the time you know the wendell clark spike hair thing yeah like
he was in like tiger beat magazine like he was uh i i'd like cory hart being in here and we're
we're gonna come to some uh more quebec artists but he's from montreal he's from montreal yeah
and yes he absolutely of course course, remember the Steve Anthony story
with the boy in the box being Steve Anthony
on Chome in Montreal?
But he had to be there
because you're trying to sell this single
because the money is going to an excellent cause.
And at some point you have to realize,
oh, if we're going to sell to the kids
who are buying singles or whatever,
we need Brian Adams and Corey Hart.
Yeah, and you need Mark Holmes from Platinum Blonde, who
were kind of the hot young band
and definitely the teenagers
were into them. Right. Now,
because this song was representing
all of Canada, not
just English Canada,
we have this next trio of
artists, and I will do my best with the names
and I apologize in advance, but Veronique Belle Veronique Beliveau sounds like Jean Beliveau,
maybe a relation. I don't know how common that surname is,
but she with Claude Dubois and Robert Charlebois.
Yeah. So, I mean, three, the Quebecois artists, um, I,
I I'm not going to even attempt to talk about them because honestly
obviously like french language music is is a bit of a it's its own it's its own industry like
yeah it's a standalone industry and it's massive but it they there's not a lot of except for the
odd uh meet sue song uh there wasn't a lot of back and forth. Yeah, the one thing I will say,
because again, it does feel like it's a bit of
a tokenization of having them
in there, because not even in the chorus,
there weren't really any French language artists
in the chorus either.
So it would have been nice maybe if they could
have extended all bands, although we did talk
about on the last Pandemic
Fridays how there was actually a French
language charity single
around the same time yes and we should also mention at this point that we've given credit to
uh jim valance for writing most of the english lyrics well his wife is a french speaker who
apparently wrote this section for the uh french singers yeah i saw it seems like that happened
like fairly quickly like it is very much in tandem with uh penning the lyrics um but yeah i mean they
do they do a good job it just i don't know i remember seeing this and say oh this is kind of
cool here's here's three artists that you know i would never see otherwise so that i don't think
we had like music plus it did and it didn't uh. I will say I didn't know their names then.
And I don't think about them now.
There's no disrespect to their contribution,
but it was so off my radar that it's like I had to check my notes to even
know their names today.
Yeah.
Like the one fella that I seem to, for whatever reason,
have some awareness of is Jean Leloup,
who I don't really know why I know Jean Leloup,
but perhaps he's like an omission.
I don't know.
I can't really speak from an educated point of view on this one.
But anyway, good to see some French language in the mix here for sure.
Oh, absolutely.
And here's a little story that we can share regarding this contribution
because the next voice we hear belongs to Bruce Colburn.
Yeah, for sure.
This is going to be one of my fun facts,
but why don't we just get into it now?
So I don't want to steal your thunder.
You can tell the story.
I took great delight in reading the aforementioned Jim Valance.
Why don't we do it this way?
Why don't you tell the story?
Because then I have some commentary on the story.
So this is my personal views.
Okay, so I'll tell the story and then you chime in.
But so Bruce Coburn is not an FOTM,
although we're working on it because Bernie Finkelstein is an FOTM.
And apparently there was conversations between Bruce Allen and Finkel Spurney
regarding the fact that they would get Bruce Colburn on the single,
but he was in Hamburg, Germany.
So he had a logistical geographical barrier here.
He was in Germany.
He couldn't be in Toronto for the recording on that Sunday afternoon.
So for some reason, Jim Valance decided that he only had a
couple of days to turn this around, but Jim jumped on a plane and he came to go from Vancouver to
Hamburg, Germany. And apparently he had to fly to like Toronto and then he had to fly, I don't know
where he was in London or something. And then he ended up in Frankfurt and then he ended up in
Hamburg. So this took something like 44 hours, he says. So can you imagine? So 44 hours, where was he going?
The moon?
Okay.
So Jim Valance ends up in Hamburg
and he meets Bruce Coburn
and he's talking to Bruce
because they need to arrange for him
to get to a studio to lay down the track
so he can fly this back home
so they can have Bruce Coburn,
who was a huge star,
get Bruce Coburn on Tears Are Not Enough.
And Bruce apparently says to Jim,
I haven't decided I want to do this yet
or something to that effect.
At which time, so Jim, who just traveled 44 hours
and there's no time to get anything,
he's like, I guess at that point, I don't know,
I guess he tries to be diplomatic
because he's talking to Bruce Coburn,
and he does talk Bruce into doing it,
but I don't know where the communication breakdown is.
It sounds like, this is on Bernie.
Because shout out to Bernie.
F-O-T on Bernie Finkelstein.
But somehow there's something lost in translation.
Because Jim thinks this is a done deal.
He's just got to go and get it.
And Bruce hadn't yet decided he wanted to do it.
And yeah, Bruce did do it.
I think they had like a WhatsApp group.
And they were texting
it's like oh yeah there's no fucking computers like could you imagine just the logistics of
making this happen well that's it you can't put it in a drop box or something like bruce has to uh
lay it down and then the tapes i guess it's tapes i don't know in 1985 uh like like jim's got to
stick this in his luggage and fly it back to vancouver so david
foster who are we you know the producers and people can can put it down on the track so
that's the interesting story about bruce coburn's contribution to yeah well mike it seems like you
and i have both spent time on jim valance.com this week oh yeah you know what i love i love how he
writes this stuff he's great yeah now i I thought the story, there was even like,
there was Vancouver, but then Jim Valance
had to fly down to LA where they were mixing the song.
Oh, maybe.
At Kenny Rogers' studio.
Maybe.
I feel like maybe I'm conflating something
with We Are The World.
I don't know.
But anyway, my commentary on this is,
and I mentioned during the last episode where this song raised,
I think it was like $3.2 million within about five years,
which is great.
I mean,
you know,
$3 million is $3 million.
But when I just think of the expense of all these plane tickets,
all these long distance phone calls,
just to get one little clip.
They didn't pay for those flights.
I should say that.
Was it Air Canada, I think?
Air Canada like Compton.
The flights from Jim Valens' flights
were covered by the airline because of the
cause it was for.
Maybe I'm being too harsh.
44 hours each. That to me is
insane. I guess that's
just how it was. There was no direct flights.
Again, we all love Bruce Coburn.
Very famous guy.
Really successful.
Are you suggesting to me now that Bruce Coburn
could have been left on the cutting room floor?
I'm just saying I don't think Bruce Coburn's contribution
would make or break, tears
are not enough. But he's a big, big
he's a hit maker who has
success beyond the borders of Canada.
I think he was a big deal
in 85. He certainly was
but I mean, it's like, oh, hey,
Tom Cochran. No, it's too
early. I feel like, okay, well, we'll save this
for the snubs because Red
Ryder, it was Red Ryder, I i think uh yeah he had a couple of things happening there but he wasn't
you know he wasn't the tom cochran uh i don't know i don't know like lunatic maybe boy inside
the man was that out in 85 no i feel like that was more like we should save this for the snub part
but yeah i'll see the whole you know what yeah lunatic fringe is really that's the big one
but yeah you know i don't know if that gets you by the way and aside if you ever look at tom
cochran's discography it's incredibly confusing because some stuff is red rider yeah some stuff
is tom cochran some stuff is tom cochran and red rider right um it's almost like tom petty's
discography,
where some are Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
some are Tom Petty.
You know who else is a bit like that?
Neil Young, because sometimes you've got Crazy Horse,
and sometimes it's not Crazy Horse,
and you're right.
Or even Bruce Springsteen.
Sometimes it's just Bruce,
and sometimes it's the E Street Band.
It's hard to keep track of this show.
Well, here, after Bruce Coburn,
the controversial selection there,
is a slam dunk
no-brainer in a short drive i'm sure on a sunday afternoon getty lee absolutely and probably the
biggest uh blue jays fan by the way i was gonna say of the members of northern lights really nerdy
baseball fun fact from what i, there's two members,
their names are also Major League Baseball players.
So you got Corey Hart.
Right.
The baseball player.
And there's also Tommy Hunter,
who I think still pitches,
used to pitch for the Texas Rangers.
But Tommy Hunter of the Tommy Hunter show fame.
And I think it was also like a country artist.
Not on the, yes.
He had a TV show on forever. I used to catch
him as a kid. But you also,
he's not Canadian or on this song, but you've
mentioned Kenny Rogers a few times. So of course
shout out to MLB
player Kenny Rogers. Okay, we're going to burn through
the rest of this lineup because I realize we're going to spend
the whole 90 minutes on this. Geddy Lee, soaring vocals,
nailed it. Yeah, he did nail it.
He was really a fun part of this song, which we'll hear
by the way at some point in this episode. We'll play the whole
damn song. So now we have
a duet which includes the aforementioned
Bryan Adams and a gentleman I was unfamiliar
with, Donnie Gerrard.
Yeah.
We're going to go into like the top
five most obscure
members of Northern Lights in a few minutes.
So why don't we come back to Donnie?
We'll come back to Donnie then.
And then we have one of your favorites, I'd say.
Alfie Zappacosta.
Like, Alfie Zappacosta.
Is there anything you want to say at this time?
I've mentioned him many times.
He was on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
Right.
Sang the Pizza Nova theme song.
His whole career is a bit mysterious
to me.
I don't know. I feel like him and
Greg Godovitz to me are a bit of
a blind spot.
The song
The Letter, not the box
there was this other song
I've got to mail the letter
I remember he
had a song on much music um i'm not sure lisa del bello who i always forget she's the cousin
she's no she's the sister-in-law of fotm danny elwell so danny elwell married lisa del bello's
brother yeah um and co-wrote a song that lisa del bello recorded at some point in her career but
yeah this is a trio so lisa del bello which i did some digging lisa del bello was recorded at the
studio where this happened i almost wonder if there was some hook up there with like we're
recording at the studio that where lisa del bello records like Something there. Some of these thoughts will come out more
when we talk about the snubs.
Possibly there's a link there
between the studio
and Lisa.
Let's Tango.
I have to Google what year Let's Tango comes out.
That was the big much music,
Lisa Del Bello.
She had a stalker song, did she not?
Like I'm Obsessed or something. music lisa del bello and i feel like that's like a stalker song did she not like like i'm obsessed
or something i i will say getting back to da da da is the da da da of canada yeah to me
they were trying to craft a cindy lopper for the canadian market would you say that's fair
uh okay i'll go with you on that i'll go with you on that. Her image.
But I don't know.
You have to think of the time Alfie Zappacosta and Lisa Delbello were real emerging artists at that time.
So this is, I think, partially to get the younger crowd.
No, you're right.
Yes, and we'll talk about some glaring omissions there.
But Tango, which is the only song that comes to top of mind right now for her, is released in 1987.
Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, she had a song called gotta get close to you okay that was i think the soccer song but then in her trio
is an artist i think does belong there uh i'm glad to see carol pope there yeah so well i think carol
pope was paired up with paul hyde right yes That's the guy that fills out the trio here.
Yeah.
And I,
the nerdy part of me kind of likes this cause they had that song they did
together too.
I'm trying to remember what it's called.
Okay.
While you're digging that up,
I'll just say that,
you know,
I've I'm on episode eight 14 or something.
So I've had a lot of like Toronto-based musicians have come on
and including the Garys.
I'm trying to think, who are they?
What's his name?
The Garys.
So, I mean, Carol Pope comes out of often.
She actually came up in the Greg Godovitz episode
I referred to off the top.
But Rough Trade, monster single from Rough Trade,
of course, High School Confidential, Carol Pope, very cool artist.
I'm glad that they included her.
Yeah.
Definitely, you know,
when you talk about getting a bit of diversity,
I feel like she's sort of coming from a different lane than some of the
other artists and certainly at a different, although I mean,
like Rough Trade was also very, very like mainstream. A lot of the other artists and certainly had a different although i mean like rough trade was also very very like mainstream a lot of the songs i mean and they have a lot of songs that
sound very 80s but certainly were a lot more provocative oh big time like risque like you
felt like you were it was like oh should i be listening to this like i think they're talking
about like blow jobs or whatever like this is pretty risky stuff here but i i always thought high school
confidential sounded like it could have been in the rocky horror picture show oh well maybe that's
because you because the way that her hair her hair reminded you of yeah and just like a very
almost like theatrical that song um but yeah i i think they do a great job i mean neither of them
have kind of the you know traditional vocal chops of a getty lee or even a brian adams but uh again this seems like this is like the new wave section
you know we had the french section we had the country section we had kind of the up and comer
section with alfie and lisa del bello now we're like in the new wave land and paul hyde do you
think he's there because of the vancouver connection and how it all began and the taking of that title from the uh well like
honestly if he didn't have a singing part beyond the core i feel like that'd be a real slap in the
face would it not i don't know is it just me plus he's you know a pretty big deal at paola's and
sure uh later did america is sexy you remember that song is that him america sexy he wears her hair something yeah i totally know the
song okay that was him wow okay cool yeah and red dirty water he did with rock and hide with bob
rock right right right right yeah but uh i will say not born in canada oh yeah interesting so we
have another uh imposter here good to know good yeah Good to know. I mean, but I, I don't know. I think he
belongs. All right. One more trifecta here. Uh, and, uh, sadly we lost her earlier this year.
Uh, although I think she's been ill for quite some time, but Salome Bay, uh, is a name that I
think some younger people might not be familiar with, but I always think she was like, um,
Molly Johnson, uh, ask, uh, of her time, like ahead of molly johnson of course but just like a really
respected jazz musician and uh again a woman of color which is great to have on the track
yeah absolutely i mean she she was known as the canada's first lady of blues and uh it was it was
actually like an honorary member of canada or the member the order of canada yeah she was an
honorary member of the order of canada which is a huge honor that and yeah we unfortunately lost her
um last summer but this was that last summer it feels like it was like two months ago
yeah no it was august of 2020 oh my goodness okay yeah this this three threesome this trio is kind of interesting
because it feels like okay let's throw these people together because stylistically they're
all very different because you've got salome bay you've got lorraine sagato from the parachute club
and then you've got mark holmes from platinum blonde who are like a very mainstream
band and meanwhile like lorraine Segato too is you know
very like Queen Street
almost like
sort of you know activist music
Do you want a fun fact? Also
sister-in-law of
an FOTM, Jean Valaitis
That's right, yeah
and like Parachute Club was like a really
big deal. I feel like this was only
a year or two after Rise Up came out.
So they were a big deal.
And, you know, she was a pretty young artist at the time.
But again, Martin Morrison from the new wave.
And then, again, I've mentioned this before too,
but my mother also delivered a baby for someone platinum blonde.
I don't think it was Mark Holmes.
I feel like it was someone else.
Another blonde.
Yeah. So those are, I feel like those are the only
two musicians she's delivered
babies for, but I think I've
given the rundown of other people she
cared for. Everyone from Colonel Sanders
to Dominic Moore to some
guy from the Cancer Bats.
Wow. A real mixed bag
of folks. Okay, I think
we're at the end of the line here because we get another solo effort
from Mike Reno and who kind of, and then you get your chorus.
We're like all 44 singers kind of do the whole week and bridge,
bridge the difference.
Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, but the name of, uh,
I don't think we have time to go into everyone.
We're going to go into the top five most obscure ones with a few fun facts, but the name that really jumped out who I don't think we have time to go into everyone. We're going to go into the top five most obscure ones with a few fun facts,
but the name that really jumped out who I don't think I realized was in this
course was Oscar Peterson. Right.
Which I think is really interesting.
There's a line in the making of documentary where David Foster said,
if everyone who was involved, he said, Oscar Peterson,
who he's most excited about being there. Wow.
I'll just say, we'll come back to Oscar because I have some thoughts
about perhaps how his talents may have been utilized a bit differently
rather than just throwing him in the back.
Because, I mean, you talk about a legend and like a worldwide star.
I mean, huge.
I mean, like in my neck of the woods, sort of the lakeshore area,
West End, Toronto, there's a huge Oscar Peterson memorial in my neck of the woods uh sort of the the lakeshore area west end toronto we we got a
there's a huge oscar peterson memorial because he's a i guess he's a lakeshore village guy i
don't know if it was in mississauga or if it was in etobicoke but uh this is have you ever seen the
oscar peterson statue outside i think it's like the national arts center in ottawa i have not
it's like a like a bronze type statue, but
it actually pipes out piano music.
It's him standing. Oh, amazing. Yeah, which is
very cool. So tell me
because I think this will be very cool.
Cam Gordon, please tell me.
You teased me by saying you had nine names.
Nine new names.
Oh, shit. Yeah.
We have not even got into it.
There's so much here. We're going to burn here. I know. We were so stupid. Oh, we'll do it in 90 minutes. Who here we're gonna there's so much here we're gonna burn
here i know we were so stupid oh we'll do it in 90 minutes who are we kidding okay so what new
what nine new names that we wouldn't find on wikipedia today i'll make a ninja edit as you
say them uh please tell me because one of them's an fotm right yeah and you know what i i think
it's it's only um eight names because I had Carol Baker there,
but we did cover Carol Baker.
She's on the Wiki page too.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, here we go.
Let's start with the only non-musician
who is not featured on Wikipedia,
Robin Duke, who I think was a comedian.
She was on SCTV.
So you got Robin Duke.
You've got Sharon Lee lee williams and colina phillips who i'll be honest it was a little hard to dig up details i think we're primarily
backup singers so i'm gonna assume these are people that maybe david foster had worked with
or maybe they came with the studio like this yeah maybeberry. Maybe they're like studio musicians.
So we got Brian Good.
From the Good Brothers.
Good Brothers.
I hear a lot about the Good Brothers.
Yeah.
Who I feel like did a song with Pat Burns.
Yep.
You're remembering correctly.
Absolutely.
And also,
you know,
for the younger generations,
I don't know if Brian is Dallas Good and the other brother from the Sadies.
Pleading ignorance on that one.
Yeah, like, again, the Good Brothers, one of the good parents, kids are the Sadies.
Okay, gotcha. That's amazing. Okay.
Mark Jordan, who I feel like is sort of an adult contemporary.
I talked to him on the phone a couple of months ago because he was thinking of building a podcast studio
and I had a great conversation with him.
But yeah, he's a great songwriter.
Absolutely, Mark Jordan.
He lives in Toronto still.
Yeah, and I feel like he was a big deal in his time.
For sure.
So here's three more.
These are the big ones, Mike.
I love it.
So we got Aldo Nova.
Right.
Not Alta Moda. Ald nova right was there amazing uh so how did
what's your source like did you like i guess you just did so much homework you found some accounts
from that was i actually found a picture of the liner notes of the we are the world album
that actually lists out everyone who appeared.
And I did see reference to all these names on another website.
It might've been jimballance.com.
Oh, which is a great source.
Now, just one quick note on Sharon Lee Williams
before we leave her behind is that
Dan Jeffrey on the live Facebook stream here
says that she used to sing on the Night Ride,
the overnight global show
where you would just be,
a camera would be like
driving around the streets
of Toronto at night,
which I absolutely loved.
And jazz music would be
kind of accompanying the drive.
And apparently, yeah,
Sharon Lee Williams
could be heard.
Love it.
Okay, I know the song
because I've watched it.
I feel like Retro Ontario
has put these up on YouTube.
Yeah.
Somebody definitely did resurrect the night ride on uh on youtube i don't actually think it was ed
conroy i think it might have been somebody else i gotta dig up who that was but somebody has it
going like just continue like a reboot of uh right um so we got two more names um i'm amazed this
person did not make the wikipedia list Cause this guy's a big fucking deal.
We have Richard Manuel.
Wait a minute.
Because I have in my,
well,
when we get to the snub list,
there's going to be some hawks in there.
If you know what I'm talking about.
Sure.
But it sounds like at least one member who's sadly like took his own life
shortly thereafter.
If my math is right,
that's terrible.
But at least one member of the band uh was there
i did yeah but he wasn't singing right i mean i guess he's in the chorus but he was uh is it
keyboards or what was he doing yeah yeah exactly but like fucking richard manuel yeah that's a big
fucking deal because the band was a huge act absolutely and i mean you know the the band
during the 80s was really interesting because they put out these albums that seemed like they were kind of middling and were just playing like small rooms at the time. But nevertheless, I mean, just, you know, that those first three or four albums by the band were just iconic to this day.
Just the weight alone. If the only thing that band, the band ever recorded was the weight,
they could hang up their microphone and be praised for.
Yeah.
So this to me feels like a Wikipedia snob,
like Richard fucking Manuel.
Yeah.
That's a big one.
You have one more still in the,
in the chamber.
Mike,
I'm saying,
I think you're going to have like a full body exhale when you hear this.
Cause again,
this person's an FOTM.
Gord Depp of the spoons was there he's he's like way high on my list of snubs and now i need to delete him where's
my eraser here why is he getting no credit he should i don't know he absolutely should have
been there of spoons like the new you mentioned that new wave tribe trio. And I'm thinking where's Gord because the,
the,
the songs like romantic traffic,
there are areas and symphonies and all those songs that were coming out,
uh,
in the early eighties,
that sound that was big.
You know,
Mike,
I,
I just had a thought,
you know,
that clip you played off the top,
Bruce,
Bruce,
I was going to say Bruce Arthur.
He's talking to Gord.
Give him the first line.
Gord,
Gord,
get over.
Maybe it's Gord Depp.
You don't know.
You know what?
That's,
that confirmed.
They offered Gord Depp
the first line in the song
and he turned him down
and it went to the other Gord.
He's too humble.
Good,
good Burlington boy.
Yeah,
Gord Depp was there.
That,
that puts a count
at four FOTMs
within Northern Lights. And that's in addition to a bunch of like snub FOTMs within Northern Lights.
And that's in addition to a bunch of like snub FOTMs.
See, I would have had Sandy Horn there too.
Like, I don't know what Sandy was up to, but.
Totally. Yeah.
I mean, I think they could be like a pairing.
Right.
No problem.
Okay. That's huge.
Okay. So, I mean, I'm just collecting myself.
This is huge.
How about, is this an appropriate time to discuss the five most obscure Northern Lights members?
Yeah, yeah, of course. So let's go through these really quickly. Let me just peek at my notes here.
And I'll be very honest whether I knew who they were before this past week when I started my research.
Yeah, well, let's, I mean,
we talked about this gentleman already,
Donnie Girard.
Okay, yeah, who the hell is Donnie Girard?
So Donnie Girard was in a band called Skylark
that were a,
Wikipedia describes them
as a former Canadian pop rock band
active during 1971 to 1973
based in Vancouver.
Their biggest single, Wildflower,
was a 1972 number one hit in Canada on the
RPM adult contemporary chart.
Now that this seems like an odd choice,
because this is a semi obscure Canadian band that had a hit like 14 years
prior to tears are not enough.
You know why I think Donnie Girard was there?
I'm going to say it's because he was a client of Bruce Allen.
Very close.
David Foster was also in Skylark.
That's it.
That's for sure.
That nails it.
That nails it.
Now, I will say this.
Donnie Girard, a black man.
Oh, yeah.
Again, good to see some diversity in there
No doubt, otherwise it looks
A lot like the Scotiabank Arena
On Leaf State game day
So you want it to be as diverse
Especially in this city, you want it to be as diverse
As our city
Another name on the top five
Most obscure, these are in no particular order
By the way, Wayne St. John.
I saw his name.
His name shows up because, let me get this right,
there's what are called ad libs.
And I got this from Jim Valance,
but he talks about the ad libs that would pop in.
Like Donnie Gerard is on that list.
And Mark Holmes, of course, from Platinum Blonde.
And Wayne St. John is on that list.
So tell me about Wayne.
Well, you know what his most famous
song would be?
I have no guess.
Okay. You listen
to a lot of radio, Mike.
Yeah.
Cellafacations.com
Oh! Heard it many times.
Wayne St. John.
Wow. it's amazing
we got fucking
Alfie's Apocosta
439
Pizza Nova
we got Wayne St. John
selloffvacations.com
that's huge
there's an article
in the Toronto Star
anyone who's actually
listening to this episode
well
Dale Cadeau is listening
because he wants you to know
that Wildflower
was actually a very good
although it's obscure he says it was a very good song.
I'm sure it's great.
Donny Gerard.
Yeah, Wayne St. John was actually like a jazz funk musician in Toronto.
There's actually some great photos of him.
He was in an early Toronto production of Hair in like the early 70s.
So there's some photos of Wayne in kind of like hippie regalia that are kind of fun.
Was also in a jazz funk band
called Raven.
Not Raven as in like Edgar Allan Poe,
like raving, apostrophe.
Right, right.
Okay.
But he wasn't in Godspell, was he?
I'm not sure if he was.
Only because as any fan of SCTV,
and this will probably come up later
in this eight hour episode,
but all those SCTV guys were kind of in Toronto for Godspell,
which I think is like 1972 or something.
So was my next-door neighbor growing up, Jerry Salzberg.
Any relation to Russ Salzberg, formerly of City TV?
I don't believe so. Jerry actually passed away a couple of years ago
because actually somehow I ended up talking to 1236 about it
who knew Jerry somehow.
I feel like he knew Jerry's brother,
but Jerry was one of the few people from that Godspell cast
who really didn't make it.
I remember as a kid,
this was actually probably right around the time
of when this song came out,
going to a stage
production of little shop of horrors okay where jerry played the dentist you know that's a steve
martin role in the movie yeah i i feel like this was at the venue that's now the capital event
theater okay that's owned by michael landsberg i could be imagining that part yeah you mean
michael landsberg yeah exactly but anyway wayne st john sell off vacations.com I could be imagining that part You mean FOTM Michael Lansberg? Yeah exactly
But anyway Wayne St. John
Selloffvacations.com
Selloffvacations.com
This Toronto Star article is interesting
This guy Wayne
Jingles from everybody from Pepsi
Molson, Nissan, Air Canada, Wonderbra
And he said for selloffvacations.com
He only made $5,000
For that song.
He needed residuals on that one.
Yeah.
But in this article in the Trials Star from 2016, mainly talk about his career as a jingle guy.
It does talk about him performing at Tears of Not Enough.
His main memory was that Neil Young never took off his sunglasses.
What a rock star.
But Corey Hart did Which is interesting
Where's the midnight
Is that five or you still got more
No that's only like two
So I'll shut up so you can hear more cam here
Yeah we got Graham Shaw
This one
Honestly is a mystery
Was originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba
Shout out to Sammy Cohn
Shaw performed in several local bands,
including a stint in the Deverons,
alongside Burton Cummings before Cummings left
to join the Guess Who.
He formed the band the Sincere Serenaders, 1977.
This is another guy who got into jingles.
And also this guy, Graham Shaw,
also wrote a lot of themes and incidental music for CBC, including for such venerable programs as Venture and Marketplace.
Okay, sure.
I know those like instrumental theme songs you get for those.
Yeah, and also I sort of remember this ESO jingle, You're On Your Way With ESO.
I think it rings a bell.
Yeah, and I also wrote some music for some TV shows,
including theater, Tugboat.
So I always wonder if Stu Stone and Graham Shaw
would have crossed paths with the Edison twins.
No relation.
There's no relation to Hammy Hamster with the Tugboat show.
I wish.
Well, that's a story for another time.
No, that's when I need Retro Ontario in the house
for the Hammy Hamster talk.
Absolutely.
Fill in some gaps um
then we got dean mctaggart not to be confused with jeremy taggart he was in a new web band
called the arrows oh my god you know they're famous for hit me if your best shot right yeah
is that their jam exactly yeah that's i feel like that's the only reason i knew
because we we did a Pandemic Friday
of American covers of Canadian jams, I want to say.
That's right, yeah.
Or something like that.
Well, didn't someone die of COVID?
Yeah, yeah.
And there was two bands called The Arrow.
I think we kind of brought the arrows into Pandemic Friday
because of Pat Benatar's big hit,
Hit Me With Your Best Shot, being a Canadian song that was covered.
And then shortly thereafter,
you know,
Mark Weisblot from 1236 heard that.
And then he learned that the member of the Arrows had died of COVID.
And then they became sort of,
they became a discussion point on one of the 1236 episodes of Toronto Mike.
So the Canadian Arrows,
because there's also a British Arrows,
I think.
Yes.
Yeah.
So yes.
Super confusing. But I know who Yes. Yeah. So, yes.
Super confusing.
But I know who this man is.
Yes, I know this band.
Anyway, Dean McTaggart was there.
He went on, you know, we're seeing a theme with a lot of these more obscure people
where they went on to write either jingles or theme music.
Dean McTaggart went on to write music for other people,
songs for other people, including Win winona judd which is a big
deal terry clark yeah female also a big artist um this guy also wrote a lot of the biggest hits of
amanda marshall wow birmingham was a birmingham okay that's a huge hit yeah and dark horse which
was a number one adult contemporary they're both monster both monster jams. Both monster jams.
And that sent me off to like a little rabbit hole of what the fuck ever happened to Amanda Marshall?
Great question because huge, huge hits.
She had the look.
She had the voice.
She had the presence.
Right.
She looked like she was going to be Canada's Whitney Houston.
It seems like that she has had, and it seems like she was going to be canada's whitney houston it seems like that she has had and
i it seems like maybe even continues to have a lot of like label issues and like legal battles
with her music that's maybe like a really sidetracked her career that could really
fuck over an artist actually totally which i think was the case um and then yeah sharon
lee williams this would be my last one but that But I didn't even really have any fun facts about her.
But that Night Ride, what's it called?
Night Ride, I think, is Night Ride.
Yeah.
I feel like there's Night Ride and then there's Night Walk.
I only remember Night Ride because, of course, I guess the camera was in a car and it was just driving around Toronto streets at night.
And then you had the jazz music going.
It was really chill.
That's right. No, it's great. Like insomnia music.
Wow.
Okay.
So that was top five.
Okay.
Most obscure artists.
Are you ready though, Kim?
Because I know everyone's excited to hear us talk about some people who weren't there,
but maybe should have been there.
Are we ready for that?
I think so.
I feel like, how do you want to do this?
I'm going to start by going one by one,
and then I'll leave you to kind of drain the swamp there.
Because I'm going to, can I start with a name?
Absolutely.
Wait, wait, I was going to say,
do we want to do most egregious omissions or build up?
I don't think we need to go in a particular order,
just omissions.
Okay.
Because I just, on Friday,
I did an episode with Barry Witkin,
who is the founder of the Purple Onion.
And this was a coffee house in Yorkville
from 1960 to 65,
where you'd have Joni Mitchell.
She actually was Joni Anderson.
She wasn't even Joni Mitchell.
That's a stage name.
And you had artists,
just some interesting artists,
folk artists pass through. And you had artists, like just some interesting artists, folk artists passed through.
And one artist in particular,
who I always joked with my mom
that this was my real mom
because I was raised on Sesame Street.
Like you wouldn't believe
I was raised on Sesame Street.
And the time I was watching Sesame Street,
this woman was a huge part of Sesame Street,
a huge part of these influential years
of my early upbringing.
And she wrote her biggest smash
Universal
Soldier
Universal
Soldier
at the Purple Onion so I played
that song Universal
Soldier it's funny how I want to say shoulder
but soldier in its entirety
just on Fridayiday's episode
of toronto mic which is what an awesome song and yeah she's where the hell is buffy saint marie
yeah she might be number one on my list um an indigenous woman where is the indigenous
representation on the canadian uh charity single yeah i say, I mean, regardless of her background, her gender, anything, park that.
She still should be a no-brainer.
Plus, you know, there's no Indigenous representation.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I don't know.
I honestly, I don't know.
But she just seems like she should be, like, you know,
in the first five people you call,
not barking at Gord Depp or Gord Lightfoot
or whoever he was barking at.
You know, he was like yelling at Bernie Finkelstein, too,
part of the clip.
Unless he's like talking to Bernie Sanders
or like Bernie Nichols or something.
Now that you've got me thinking that was staged,
I'm so skeptical of it all now, but please.
Yeah, so Buffy St. Marie was worthy of being there
as a great Canadian.
You know, she's from Saskatchewan being there as a great canadian uh you know she's from saskatchewan
and she's a great singer and she like again in 1985 i mean again like i'm talking i think my
sesame street era is late 70s okay she was all over that like and she would have been great on
this single from her voice and her capabilities and it would have been wonderful to have some representation from an indigenous woman i i'm gonna give bruce allen and friends the best of the doubt i'm gonna assume that she was
approached for this it just it's hard to believe she wouldn't be right and again yeah when we should
be clear about this we're not suggesting these are necessarily snubs merely artists that aren't part of this
project that we believe should have been and we don't know whether it would they weren't asked
like uh greg out of it or if they were unavailable although they made it happen for bruce coburn
and he was in hamburg germany well i mean that's the thing and like he he sounded like he was being
like a bit of a dick. But they made that happen.
Jim Ballant scrolls into the town.
Why don't you hit us with a name? I've got a few more
big names, but you hit us with a name.
Mine are
basically in order.
I'm not going to pick the number one person on my list.
How about
Randy Bachman?
Okay.
I almost said it off the top
because, of course,
Birding Cummings is like
the second voice you hear
or something.
Do you know who represented
Randy Bachman
in his career
as a musician at that time?
Eric Alper.
Before he was on Twitter.
No.
Who was it?
It was Bruce Allen.
Yeah, of course.
Because like BTO and stuff.
Yeah, well, so think, just take a moment.
Realize that Burden Cummings.
Cummings?
Is there an S on the end of that?
So Burden.
Yeah, Cummings.
Yes, Burden Cummings is prominently featured.
Randy Backman, who's, you know, works with Bruceman, who works with Bruce Allen,
is represented by Bruce Allen, I suppose,
is somehow absent.
Now, again, we're not suggesting that,
of course, I'm sure Randy Backman was asked,
but he's not there.
He's noticeably absent.
And he doesn't only have the Guess Who pedigree,
huge hits from the Guess Who when Randy was in the band.
But then he went on and he was in a huge band called
Bachman Turner Overdrive, BTO as you said.
Because as Homer Simpson told me,
they shortened everything in the 70s
because they didn't have a second to spare.
Everything got shortened.
ELO, BTO.
So where the hell was Randy?
I'd like to know.
I mean, the guests who,
they had actually done a reunion tour,
I believe it was in 1984.
So, you know, I think there was a lot of friction
between Burden and Randy at times,
but as recently as 1984,
those guys were playing music together.
And of course, like the history of the guests
who was like very like murky. Well, they're still touring and none of those guys have anything
to do with it anymore yeah like it's it's the fucking weirdest thing nevertheless randy bachman
to me is like a glaring huge backman backman yeah he could have like in the last pandemic friday i
said bachman and somebody chastised me on Facebook or on the live.
So he's,
he was pretty high on my list of like,
where the fuck is this person?
Yeah.
Especially cause I can still hear him,
you know, he's still doing things on CBC and stuff like he's still out and about.
And unless he was really sick that weekend or I don't know,
I won't,
you know,
maybe,
uh,
I don't know.
We don't know,
but a glaring absent,
a glaring,
uh,
absence. Now glaring absence.
Now, there's another artist who I think was,
I talked about Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.
And where the hell was Leonard Cohen?
I'd like to, number one on my list.
Now, he had just put out various positions with,
what's now his most famous
song. Hallelujah. I can't say that word.
Now, of course that song,
I think it took years for that song to be the place where it is now in the
culture. I mean, it wasn't, wasn't really a huge hit at the time.
No, you're right. You're right. Yeah.
I mean, Leonard Cohen seemed like a no brainer.
Again,
I'm going to assume he was probably offered,
um,
like a huge,
like a huge,
uh,
musician in this country,
Leonard Cohen.
And he's from Montreal.
Yeah.
Which gives you bonus points.
And another gentleman will come in a moment from Montreal,
but,
uh,
I,
he must,
he was like,
I think he's one of the first calls you make and he must have said no.
I would think so.
I would say if you could get, I don't know.
I don't want to, I don't want to scoop myself with my top five ways you could improve.
Okay.
Okay.
So don't do that.
But I would, I'll just say if Laird Cohen's there, I think he's a solo vocalist.
Right.
And to the jokester, Dale, who on the Facebook feed
just laughingly, jokingly says they were looking for singers,
I just want to say this.
Neil fucking Young.
Well, I'll say, Dale, Kano, check out We Are The World.
They give Bob Dylan some time.
He could easily have filled bob please leonard leonard cohen uh like you have him number one he's probably number
one on my list as well so i'll give you another name then and i'm trying to get my timelines right
uh i apologize although he did have a a big hit already under his belt at this point but
he's also from montreal and he's got a very hairy chest.
And one of the great FOTMs, what an episode.
Cackling Brothers, been in your face.
Where was Gino Vannelli?
Like, he should have been there in 85, right?
And I think, when does Black Cars come out?
Maybe it hadn't come out yet, but still,
just based on what he had accomplished,
Andy Kim is there.
Well, I mean, Gino had like a shitload of hits
like in the 70s too.
I just want to stop.
Wasn't that number one?
I think it might have gone to number one
in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
It might have gone to number one.
He seemed like a no-brainer.
By the way,
it seems like when Andy Kim was in the course,
it was under his alias Baron Longfellow.
Right, right.
That's what he was at that time.
That's true.
Yeah, I mean, Gino should have been there.
Yeah, come on.
So anyway, not just because he's an FOTM, but I think,
and again, I got to check the time.
It might have been later in 85 when Black Cars comes out
because that's around the era.
Irrespective of Black Cars Cars irrespective of Wild
Horses
irrespective of Just a Motion Away
yes even a 70s
output he should be there I mean they have the fucking
like Skylark guy and
Arrows guy
anyway okay it was released so Black Cars
it was early but it was released in November
1984 but still like you said um anyway okay it was released so black cars it was early but it was released in november 1984
okay but still like you said irrespective of that album which was a huge but here's like a canadian
superstar you know his current music like he'd be perfect he's on the radio he probably moved
some more units get some more uh famine relief funds okay now i'm gonna go to some fotm comments
here uh let me give some love to some people here uh i've got
a good name to drop we've alluded to this for a while but brian shelly tweeted at me uh where the
hell speaking of indigenous peoples where was robbie robertson and rick danko and garth hudson
doing an oregon solo well i i was gonna say well well, is Garth Hudson not Canadian?
No, the only one who wasn't Canadian, as far as I'm concerned, is Levon Helm.
But he's a... Oh, is it Levon Helm?
Levon Helm is from Arkansas, I believe.
But he's not Canadian.
Yeah.
The rest were Canadian.
Well, the fact that Richard Manuel was there...
Right.
...makes it all the more weirder.
Now, I would say Rick Danko, just because he had so many issues right i can understand why he might not have been there because i feel like it was a very
tumultuous right time for him but where was robbie robinson because he's only a few years away from
like a huge solo effort with a bunch of big hits somewhere down the crazy river and uh
a whole bunch of big hits coming off. He's not far removed.
Showdown at Big Sky.
Showdown at Big Sky.
That's another big hit.
I don't know.
I think that's later in the 80s.
Maybe I got to check out what year it was.
It was after 85, I think.
But still, the band, the fucking band.
Where was Robbie Robertson?
That's a big, big, big miss. I just find it so weird that Richard Manuel, he's in.
The other guy's not in.
Here's a name.
This is one where I know why this
person wasn't there because this person
was retired at the time.
Just think about
Stomping Tom Connors.
Yep.
Shout out to Banjo Dunk.
I have his book right here. Shout out to Banjo
Dunk.
Let's give some credit to Mike Lynch who tweeted at me.
He says, I'm going to read his tweet.
I forgot how many Canadian music icons were involved.
I will definitely be tuning in.
He goes, was Leonard Cohen there?
Paul Anka?
Stomp and Tom Connors?
So we talked about Leonard Cohen,
but Stomp and Tom Connors would have been great in there.
He's such a folksy, beloved Canadian artist.
And Paul Anka.
Where was Paul Anka?
Paul Schaefer was there.
Where was Paul Anka?
You can't have
enough Pauls there.
But anyway, Stompin' Tom
Connors had left the music industry, I think,
around 79. I think
he was disgruntled about
CanCon laws and Canada not supporting
Canadian artists, which is interesting
because so many people are so critical
of CanCon laws and Tom Connors
was
the opposite. By the way, I feel like if Stomp and Tom
was around today, he would get cancelled.
Okay.
For what specifically, though?
I feel like when I was just looking at some of the
commentary he was given why he left the music industry i would say some of his comments were through seen through
a lens of today some people might find them problematic if he did a heartfelt apology and
told us all that he had uh you know evolved we might we might let him back we might cancel him
anyway i i what a moment it would have been
where this person who left the music industry i'm not performing anymore fuck you can con you're not
supporting right the moment he re-emerged was for this track his first like public appearance
okay so on that note so this fun fact comes courtesy of brian shelly but he reminds me of something uh
do you know who coaxed uh stomp and tom out of retirement it's an fotm david bedini was it not
correct amando yeah and it's it's a little frustrating to be honest because that only
happened like a year or two after this song if they could have like expedited if they could
have like ramped yeah because he had a huge resurgence in the late eighties.
Like he was all over much music all of a sudden,
like Margo's got the cargo.
Margo's got the cargo.
Sudbury Saturday night was back on high rotation.
Mike Rogotsky,
he's a great listener of the program.
He says,
if he recalls,
this is off the top of his head and I haven't done,
I haven't Googled it to see if the timelines work out,
if he recalls this is off the top of his head and I haven't done,
I haven't Googled it to see if the timelines work out,
but he thinks that Larry Gowan was on the rise at this time and should have been included.
Yeah. I had him on my list. He, he seems like just based on, you know,
timing would be a bit on the bubble. Um, just based on his, his rise.
Yeah. Like he would have been like a very, very new artist.
Again, not born in Canada,
technically, but nevertheless.
Yeah, I think Gowan.
I don't think I knew that.
Where was he born?
Scotland or something?
He was born in Scotland.
Okay, that's right.
Okay, I did know that.
What's interesting,
like Lawrence Gowan, Paul Hyde,
and another,
it looks like I'm doing
like a symbol or something.
There was another
Canadian musician of the 80s who was
not born in... I want to say Carol Pope
was born in London.
She was born in the UK.
I
don't know.
While you ponder that a bit,
I'm going to
start doing groupings.
Let me just finish the FOTMs really quick here.
Paul Dearborn
is a great name. Speaking of all
the Pauls we need, Paul Dearborn
says that he
points out that Honeymoon Suite and
Spoons were very popular,
but we've already established that Gord Depp
was in fact there. That's a mind blow.
And I actually, this conversation happened on Twitter,
but like with Larry Gowan,
Honeymoon Suite was sort of just emerging at this time.
It's a bit early for them.
I did have Johnny D, who was their vocalist from Honeymoon Suite.
I did have him on my list a bit further down.
I'm actually going on Google Doc and like erasing names.
While you do that,
a couple more last couple,
Graham Lofton.
I want to say is his,
how you say his last name,
but he,
this is an interesting one.
Frankie Venom.
Oh,
it wasn't on my list.
Um,
I'm a big teenage head fan myself.
Um,
I mean, again, like teenage head was a
bit in the wild at this point they i don't know if you know much about their story they they sort of
fell apart because there was a really bad um traffic accident that put gordy lewis uh again
maybe that's who bruce allen was yelling at gordy lewisy Lewis. Put them on the shelf where, yeah, by 1985,
I think they also had like record label limbo.
I think it would have been great to have like a more punk guy
in the mix there.
But yeah, I mean, Frankie Venom, that could have been fun for sure.
Okay, so Cam, you take us home with the rest of your list
of people who were not there but should have been there. Okay i'm gonna do some groupings here um i mean these three names have to go together
sharon sharon lewis and bram you know i i feel like it's a you know or raffy you know i i think
any of those i mean obviously they were both huge at that time like we should point out because i
know that i was i can tell you i, I was raised on Rafi as well.
Now, I don't know if it's just because we were kids at that time.
So they seem like no brainers, you know, whether, you know, I'm trying to think of like Eric Nagler or something for people a bit younger.
I'm trying to think of other like Canadian kids, Splashin' Boots, for example.
Or Fred Penner, you mean like Fred Penner, because he comes later.
Yeah, I feel like he's a bit later oh for sure um we got ivan from men not ivan payhar my former colleague ivan from men without hats yeah okay because when's the uh when's the safety dance
if he dances like 83 84 what a massive hit that was yeah yeah uh Let's go to the East Coast, Mike, okay?
Let's do it.
Stan Rogers.
Oh my God, but when did he die?
Because he's in a plane crash in the early 80s.
That's a great question.
I think he's dead by 85.
I think you might be right.
I'll do the Google quick here while you do the next one.
Oh, June 1983.
Yeah, I do know, yes, we lost him.
You know, now that sea shanties are all the rage, Stan would have been.
Could have been.
That's an obvious one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
OK, so, yeah, he died in Kentucky.
Yeah, because someone else I thought and I sort of knew he had passed was Glenn Gould.
Yeah.
He passed away in like 82.
Yeah.
Again, I'm going to lump these four gentlemen together.
I feel like this could have almost been one of those like group lyric things.
So you got David Clayton Thomas.
Yeah.
You got Denny Doherty.
Yeah.
From the Mamas and Papas.
Yeah.
Beloved Spoonful or the Mamas and Papas?
Let's give a bit of exposition.
Yeah.
So you got David Clayton Thomas from Blood, Sweat and Tears. Yeah. You got Denny Doherty from the Mamas and Papas? Let's give a bit of exposition. Yeah, so you got David Clayton Thomas from Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
Yep.
You got Denny Doherty from The Mamas and the Papas.
Right.
You got John Kay,
now not the erstwhile former editor
at the Walrus and National Post,
the singer for Steppenwolf.
Right.
Although technically born in Germany,
but nevertheless.
And then I feel like this gentleman passed away recently.
Yael Zanofsky. Yeah, I think five
years ago or so, but he was 11 Spoonful,
right? Yes, yes, yes. Those are all good suggestions.
Imagine those four guys together doing,
oh, here's the hippies, you know,
doing their little section. No, I dig it. I can
dig it.
Let's go back to Montreal, okay?
Let's do it. Luba. Lube is a good one you know i was
thinking luba because because that at that time of uh 85 she was uh all over much music
all the video channels yeah where's luba yeah um mike you remember we heard a little jam this this
was many months ago pandemic fr. I feel like this is the
final jam we played on one episode.
Lay in pipe.
Yeah.
David Wilcox.
Do the Bearcat.
David Wilcox should have been there.
Well, Kim Mitchell's there, right? So he's another
FOTM who's there. So why not do a
Kim Mitchell, Greg Godovitz,
David Wilcox trifecta?
Maybe a little Dominic Triano. That's a great Mitchell, Greg Godovitz, David Wilcox trifecta. Maybe a little Dominic Triano.
That's a great one too.
He's no longer with us now, but he was there
at the time.
I'm going to lump all these people together.
Okay, cool.
Rick Emmett, lead
vocalist of Triumph.
Ra McGuire,
lead vocalist of Trooper.
Michael Sadler, lead vocalist of Trooper. Right. Michael Sadler, lead vocalist of Saga.
Yep.
Miles Godwin, lead vocalist of April Wine.
Wow.
Brian Vollmer, lead vocalist of Helix.
So sort of like, you know,
the lead vocalist of all these great 80s Canadian rock bands.
Also of like the 70s.
Well, since this all comes out of Vancouver, this project,
how about somebody from Chilliwack, for example?
Yeah, whoever that guy was.
Bill Henderson?
Yeah.
I think it's Bill Henderson.
I think it's the guy from Chilliwack.
Where was Bill? Well, I was going was gonna say if we're still in vancouver
doug bennett dug in the slug oh for yet he's yes of course of course don't tell sammy cone though
don't tell sammy it's i'll just say it's too bad that doug bennett wasn't there no come on. Really? Like Doug Bennett, of course, in 1985.
He was big.
Now, this next one is very interesting.
So in the documentary, there's a good scene where it's Lorraine Segato
and it's Martha Johnson, kind of the two new wave singers,
female new wave singers from Toronto studying the lyric seats.
Where's Mark Gain?
Eminem?
Martha and the Muffins?
Martha Johnson's there. Why not Mark Gain?
Great question.
And not to be confused with
Mark Gain from the band Stereolab.
No, don't confuse me.
A different guy.
Jean Leloup, we talked about.
I have to get some water
in a second.
I can thank sponsors when you're ready.
Why do you do that?
I need to hydrate here.
This was a lot.
So I will just tell the listenership we planned on doing 90 minutes tonight
because I was going to put the kids to bed at 8 o'clock
and we were going to go like 6.30 to 8, bang off this.
Tears are not enough episode.
Well, I just checked the clock.
We're half an hour uh past
that deadline and we have so much to cover here i almost wonder if the usa for africa stuff has to go
on to a future uh sequel or something like that but let me just thank some sponsors who are making
this all possible uh mike majeski i call him mimico mike he's the real estate agent who's
ripping up the mimico real estate scene so you can go to realestatelove.ca to learn more about Mimico Mike.
Mimico is a great neighborhood.
You really should.
Great Lakes Brewery, not far from Mimico.
They're in Southern Etobicoke, a little bit north of Mimico, a little bit northwest.
Nobody cares about that detail, but it's fresh craft beer.
It's delicious.
Support the sponsors, including Palma Pasta.
They're in Mississauga and Oakville.
Sticker U, I mentioned the episode with Barry Witkin
about the purple onion.
Well, Barry's son happens to be Andrew Witkin,
who kicked out the jams here,
and he founded a little company called StickerU.com.
They're in Liberty Village.
If you ever order something in the GTA,
it gets delivered by the StickerU mobile
or mobile, I guess.
And that is actually driven by Barry Witkin
who owned the Purple Onion.
So there's a mind blow for you right there.
Much love to Barb Paluskiewicz.
If anyone's looking to outsource their IT,
contact Barb.
She's Barb at cdntechnologies.com. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.
I have this beautiful story to share about Ridley Funeral Home, but I'm not ready to share it quite
yet. But they go above and beyond for the community. And even if you have a question,
But they go above and beyond for the community. And even if you have a question,
just that's such a difficult time for the survivors
when somebody passes away.
If you have any questions at all, honestly,
the people at Ridley Funeral Home are so patient and compassionate
and will just give you the answers you seek.
So shout out to Brad Jones at Ridley Funeral Home.
And Cam, did you get your water buddy
i i did i'm hydrated and it's good because i i still got like another 15 or so names
oh my god okay well okay go why don't we just rapid fire sherry keen
the game should be you say the name and i just tell you if i know who you're talking about i
don't know that name sherry hey i feel like she was like a female singer from
like the 70s um we got holly woods from the band toronto oh i know the band toronto for sure your
daddy don't saying you dad your daddy don't know right that's the only song i really don't know
yeah um someone mentioned this in the facebook comment section good good call uh the nylons
oh yeah i mean it's a chorus, like vocals.
Like the whole Jackson family was...
No, it's a good point.
It's a good point.
That's a good one.
His ex-wife was in Northern Lights,
but this gentleman sure wasn't.
Ian Tyson.
That's a good one.
Yep.
Be a good one.
We got FOTM.
It's funny.
I almost said Hank Aaron.
Lee Aaron. Wait wait but years like when when did metal queen come out was that early before it was before tears are not enough i feel
like she would have been maybe too it was early for her that's well i don't know okay because she
would have been a welcome addition but she was maybe just too green or too early in her career
yeah i i'd say she's like,
definitely.
She's not a slam dunk,
but she wouldn't have been out of place.
Um,
Hank Snow.
I think he's like,
he's like the first Canadian to like hit number one on the billboard hot 100 or something like that.
Like really big deals.
Songs have been covered from like,
you know,
Johnny Cash and rolling stones and
all this presley um i'm just gonna check to make sure this person was alive please stand by
who is it i'll tell you i'm good at this game okay i'm not gonna say this person
well a name they thought of and i'm not saying it was Guy Lombardo.
Oh, yeah.
He's a Canadian band leader.
Right.
We discussed, yeah, that's a good one.
Because he did the Auld Lang Syne.
His version of Auld Lang Syne
is like the definitive version you hear on New Year's Eve.
The Royal Canadians.
Wow.
Got a few more here.
I just like this guy. I don't think he would have fit in
but imagine like Nash the Slash is there yeah I was thinking of him too but then I thought that's
just too obscure for the average Canadian unless you're ready for that ditto for Mendelsohn Joe
oh for sure yeah for sure I love Mendelsohn Joe but and I don't know I don't think he moved away
like he used to be a just a Toronto guy know, I don't think, he moved away,
like he used to be just a Toronto guy you saw everywhere.
And then I think he moved out of the city.
I haven't seen him in a long time.
Yeah, I feel like he... Like is he in the country or something?
Like I feel like he's...
Yeah, he's around.
I feel like he's on Twitter.
Okay, because I used to see him like walking,
like I'm thinking like DuPont or Davenport or something.
I used to see him.
Him and Moe Berg or whatever would be strolling.
Yeah, definitely like an unlikely much music sensation.
Right, right, right.
A few more.
So yeah, Greg Godovich we talked about.
Just the whole band, the Irish Rovers.
Yeah, especially at this time of year
because I may be kicking some of them out
at our next pandemic Friday.
I don't think we've talked too much jazz,
but Moe Kaufman.
Oh my goodness.
The As It Happens theme song is a Moe Kaufman performance.
That's someone I just would like to verify if Moe was.
Moe died in 2001,
so he could have been there.
I don't know.
Because I was kind of thinking Maynard
Ferguson, too. Yeah, similar
vein, yeah. I think there's
a City TV theme song by Maynard
Ferguson. I want
to say the Gonna Fly Now version
that they played at City TV on the
new City Pulse News was a Maynard Ferguson
performance.
Michael Burgess.
Oh, yes. Yeah, of course. Theess. Oh, yes.
Yeah, of course, the Phantom.
Yeah, and also sang many a national anthem
at Maple Leaf Gardens. And last but not least,
another FOTM.
It was nice to see Leroy
Sibbles in Northern Lights.
I think there should have been a place for Jay Douglas
too.
Just for no other reason, get some reggae love in there.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
Just to diversify it a bit.
Jay, what a guy, what a talent.
That was a great episode, by the way.
Thank you.
It just seemed like a good day.
I love the episode because it was nice to have a guest in person
during the pandemic.
You know what I mean?
Because as fun as this is, imagine you and I together
drinking our Great Lakes, talking about Tears Are Not Enough. It's a whole different dynamic in person during the pandemic. You know what I mean? Because as fun as this is, imagine you and I together drinking our Great Lakes
talking about tears are not enough.
It's a whole different dynamic in person.
So Jake came in the backyard.
Now, Mike, we're not done. Because as you remember,
John Candy, Eugene Levy,
there was some non-musicians.
I'm going to go rapid fire here.
Okay, go ahead. Some non-musicians
I could have seen there.
These are in alphabetical order by their first name.
Okay?
Okay.
Just stay with me.
Alex Bauman.
Yeah, the swimmer, because in 84.
But just quick, that was the first Olympics I watched,
and I was so impressed with Canada and so into it.
And then a few years later, it was pointed out to me
that the Russians and the Eastans and some of the uh other
such nations had skipped the 1984 olympics in los angeles so it was sort of like oh it sort of like
deflated the high but i remember the first ever uh wwf card i went to um was actually at cops
coliseum and uh you're Haku? Of course, yes.
Haku won a Battle Royal.
And I'm like, this guy fucking sucks.
Why did this guy win?
But then it's like, Kogan's not there.
Randy Savage isn't there.
It's like you float.
Because, yeah.
Dan wants us to make an FOTM.
Tears are not enough roster at some point.
So that's for the sequel episode. And I'm going to let you finish, of course. I feel like I'm Kanye
when I say that. But I just want you to know
Cam Gordon that maybe the USA
for Africa stuff is in the sequel.
Like we can park, I feel like
the USA for Africa sidebar
goes in the sequel where we
maybe we do like an FOTM, Tears
Are Not Enough. And maybe we do a, if we did
it today, who would be there kind of deal.
Cause there's enough here for a sequel,
but I totally agree.
I mean,
I had like two hours on hands across America.
So that's totally good.
So save all the U S stuff.
Cause this is all about us.
Crazy.
Okay.
So I'm going to go rapid fire here.
Um,
Brian Mulroney,
fucking prime minister with,
with baby Ben Mulroney and baby carolyn okay here's
they weren't babies but they were like children like brian mulroney with little ben and little
carolyn okay well uh ben was was he elected in 84 yes okay because joe clark i want to say was
prime minister am i am i it's Joe Clark? No, John Turner.
It was John Nathan Turner.
I remember that very briefly.
It can't be weird to have the prime
minister there, but who knows?
You don't want to politicize this, right?
This is actually a name of all
the non-musicians. This is somebody
I'm really surprised was not there
given the guys who are
organizing this. David Suzuki.
Yeah. David Suzuki. Why was he there? the guys who are organizing this david suzuki yeah david suzuki why was he there he wanted to save his carbon points i didn't want to fly uh for this i guess
so uh gayton boucher oh yeah speed skater from uh the olympics uh what was it 84 where was 84's Olympics? It's Sarajevo?
Oh, Lake Placid?
No, that was...
Anyway.
No, that was like...
Yeah.
Anyway, Gaetan Boucher.
Gaetan Boucher.
Also, it would be some nice K-Buck content.
Graham Green.
Yep.
From...
You're talking...
There's a couple of Graham Greens, actually.
So, you're talking about the Ponderosa...
The...
Steak? No. Ponderosa the Steak?
No, Ponderosa was the name
they gave. Oh, crap.
What was the Michael Landon show?
Highway to Heaven? No, before
that. Little House on the Prairie?
Am I? Okay, here.
Graham Greene, the great
indigenous. Oh, from Dances with Wolves
and stuff like that. Yes, exactly.
You know who I'm confusing?
Lauren Green.
Lauren Green. That's exactly who I'm
thinking of. Where was Lauren Green? You know what? That's fine
because he's on my list too. Yeah. Lauren Green
is who I'm thinking of. What was the name of that show?
Stage Coach.
No.
Come on. Michael Landon and Lauren Green.
What's that show called? Because we're too young
for this, but hold on.
I'm going to tell you in two seconds.
That freaking show, everyone's yelling at us right now through the... Yeah, someone on Facebook.
Bonanza.
Bonanza.
You know what?
It's because of our age.
Like, Bonanza was so big, but we never saw Bonanza.
No, like, Bonanza is not
in my purview.
Lauren Green would have been a great addition to this.
He's a famous Canadian at the time.
Were you a big fan of The Naked Gun?
Are you fucking kidding me?
I thought it was the funniest
thing I'd ever saw when I saw The Naked Gun in
theaters. Don't call me Shirley.
Leslie Nielsen should have been.
He became famous yes well
he was a straight actor uh i mean by straight actor meaning not a comedic actor and then he did
airplane and suddenly he became the straight guy you put in the funny movies uh yeah he should
have been there should have been there um lincoln alexander oh my gosh yes of course like what what
a legend uh have you ever driven
on the link in Hamilton?
The link in Alexander Perkway? Probably.
I actually feel like
other than David Suzuki, it seems
like it's something you
tried out the Governor General for.
So many people yelled Bonanza at me
in the Facebook. I feel terrible.
But you were no help with your stage
coach. Chuck Wiggin. I think they did name it for a while. I think they. But you were no help with your stage coach. Chuck Wigand.
I think they did name it for a while.
I think they called the show Ponderosa
in some markets or something.
Anyway, so go ahead. Also had the best
buffet. Yeah, that's right.
Weaver, right? Sigourney Weaver's
dad.
Sigourney's Weaver. Oh, maybe that was
Pizza Pasta Made Perfect, Mother's Pizzeria.
Sigourney Weaver's dad, Dennis Weaver, I think did ads for Mother's Pizzeria.
You know who was the co-owner?
Ernie Witt.
Ernie Witt, yeah, of course.
Everyone knows it.
This one would be a bit weird in retrospect, given what he's doing now.
But how about Mark Gurnow?
Right, because he's Canada's first man in space.
Person in space.
Margaret Atwood.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Obviously, they didn't know what to do with these authors.
What are they going to do?
Stick them in the chorus?
Martin Short.
Yeah, but then you can do, like, where was Bob and Doug?
Were they there?
I mean, I know Rick Moranis.
They're on the list.
Okay, because Rick Moranis is not Canadian, right?
Yeah.
He's American.
He's not Canadian.
Some of those SCTV guys are American,
so I sometimes confuse who's who.
I feel like those two guys are Canadian.
Oh, so Rick Moranis is Canadian.
Because Andrea Martin's American.
Yeah.
I feel like we haven't talked too much about Edmonton talent.
Yeah, he's Canadian.
Or foreign talent.
Yeah.
How about Michael J. Fox?
So he wasn't there at all.
No.
Now he's family.
I'm thinking back to the future.
Hasn't hit theaters yet because it comes out in 1985.
Like the summer.
I agreed.
Like he wasn't the,
he was just the star of us.
He was in a big popular sitcom,
but it had,
it might've been a bit early for Michael J.
Fox.
Yeah.
I think that's fair.
This guy, I think is actually not Canadian either,
but we certainly embraced him.
Ernie Combs, a.k.a. Mr. Dress Up.
He would be as Canadian as Romp and Ronnie Hawkins.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we made him a Canadian.
This could be like a group thing.
The Much Music VJs
well you do know from watching all those
Making Of documentaries that Terry David
Mulligan was all over this thing
all over this thing
I don't know what he was doing if he was just hanging out
but he's in all that footage where
these guys are planning
they're planning it in Vancouver
TDM is there
I got sort of like a Flavor Flav vibe
like his role. He was almost
just like the hype-keeping energy.
He was the Good Rockin' Tonight guy at the time, right?
Because when does Much West even
happen? I know they add Much West
later. Yeah, I feel like he was the
Good Rockin' Tonight guy before FOTM
Stu Jeffries took over.
He was also on a program that no one
seems to remember because we've asked the FOTM
before, Zig Zag.
Oh, I don't remember it.
But I do have breaking news.
An omission, not a singer, but does have some big singing hits.
Where the hell was William Shatner?
Oh, very, yeah.
Shout out to Rick on the Facebook who just says William Shatner.
Because he had musical hits he could have said a
spoken word verse or something he totally would have no he i'd say he's like top five non-musician
right um peter jennings the late great peter jennings sure sure you're yeah rich little
right he was everywhere in the 80s where was he where was he that day? Yeah, probably in Vegas.
Now, this is a guy, I feel like if it was a year later,
he'd probably be there. I feel like
this might have been a bit early.
Rick Hansen.
He was a bit early.
I feel like the timing was maybe off on that.
This is kind of a weird one. I
wouldn't invite him, but
Sam Snyderman, Sam the Record Man?
You're going to need a bigger room, I think.
Okay, well, I got a few more.
Terry Fox's parents or members of Terry Fox's family.
Fred Fox would have been a good selection.
Fred Fox would have been good.
Interesting.
Wait, quickly, because he just passed away.
Brian Shelley's pointing out that Christopher Plummer could have been there.
Oh, okay.
I thought he was going to say Walter Gretzky.
But then if you're doing Christopher Plummer, you've got to do Donald Sutherland.
That's a slippery slope.
There's a lot of Canadian actors.
I don't think this guy would have fit in.
He would have had been smoking a duvet back Tommy Chong.
would have had been smoking a dew bed back Tommy Chong.
And then last
but not least, just because we talked
about that scene
in the video with Wayne Gretzky and the Campbell
conference officers with Miroslav
Friedger and other greats.
Mike, remember when this is
filmed? 1985. The 1985
Toronto Blue Jays. Yes,
the drive. Jesse Barfield. Yes.
The outfield should have been there i know it was
like uh off season when this was all going down right so they were probably like i'm sure george
was in the dominican republic jesse was i don't know where he was in texas or whatever florida
whatever like steve was in he was in california for sure for sure but i that's a great idea uh
it's just i think it's harder to get those Blue Jays in the winter there.
And then a few final thoughts.
I'm just trying to also try to think
if it wasn't David Foster
producing this. I think it's aged
really well because David Foster's had like a spectacular
career. Who could have been David Foster?
And he composed a beautiful song. We're going to play it in
moments. But Tears Are Not Enough
is a great... If this song sucked
we wouldn't be talking about it
today but it's a great song i think it's i said this in the last episode i think it's a bear song
that we are the world and it's i don't think it's close it's closer than not close but it's i do
agree with you that uh because we are the world is a nice song too but tears are not enough is
is the better song the cooler song the. Uh, you wrap up the,
uh,
people who weren't there,
but should have been,
then I'm going to suggest we play the song,
which will give us a chance four minutes to stretch here.
Maybe I'll get a drink.
Who knows?
And then,
uh,
I think we close out.
We have fun facts that haven't been mentioned yet.
Yeah.
And I,
the good thing is I cover some of my fun facts.
You can, you can also change
throw in with your fun facts uh five changes to northern lights that you think would have made it
even better because you did some fantastic work here today cam perfect yeah and i'll just say if
it wasn't david foster and i i feel like this would have been a bit early for this really to
make sense could daniel lanois have done this i'm not sure i don't feel like
it wouldn't have been as um i feel like it wouldn't have been as maybe it wouldn't have
been as mainstream palatable i know just but you know but with you too and stuff like i mean that's
kind of a silly statement but the other name i thought of was bob ezrin yep who uh maybe he
could have got alice cooper to do it yeah no i i think dav think David Foster was like a no brainer and just nailed it.
Right.
And you know,
Ezrin got,
he did get Alice Cooper for splashing boots,
who I know you mentioned briefly earlier.
So can we play it?
Cause I mean,
we've talked so much about tears are not enough.
Let's,
let's listen.
And if you want to speak over it,
that's cool too.
Or do you want to just let the four minutes and 24 seconds
yeah i'm going to use it this just to enjoy the music and just look at my notes okay what we're
going to talk so this this is the uh the intermission then here we are the northern lights who came up
with the name the northern lights do you have that in your notes that that i i don't think i found
that because that's kind of a cool name for these Canadian musicians,
the Northern Lights.
So that's a good name.
And again, we already talked about the origin of the name.
Tears are not enough, but that's fantastic too.
But here we go. Here we go.
As every day goes by How can we close our eyes
Until we open up our hearts
We can learn to share
And show how much we care
Right from the moment that we start
Seems like overnight we see the world in a different light
Somehow our innocence is lost
Can we look away?
Cause every single day
We've got to help it and we can't
We can bridge the distance, only we can make the difference. Don't you know the tears are not enough?
We can change the world forever Heaven knows the tears are not enough
It's up to me and you
To make the dream come true
It's time to take our message everywhere
You know C'est l'amour qui nous rassemble
D'ici à l'autre bout du monde
Let's show them Canada still cares
Oh, you know that we'll be there
We can bridge the distance
Only we can make a difference
Don't you know that tears are not enough?
Tears are not enough
We can fall together
We can change the world forever Heaven knows that tears are not enough.
And if we could try, together you and I, maybe we could understand the reasons why.
We could understand the reasons why
If we take a stand Every woman, child and man
We can make it work
From God's angel in your hands
Second dose of Reno
We can bridge the distance Only we can make the difference Second dose of Reno. We could change the world forever Heaven knows that tears are not enough
Tears are not enough, no, no
We can bridge the distance
Only we can make the difference
Don't you know that tears are not enough
Tears are not, tears are not enough If we could walk together What a jam.
So listening to it now,
after talking about it with you for the last several hours here,
is just a couple of quick things.
One is, maybe you want to share the story,
or I can if you like,
but Neil Young's delivery is so Neil Young,
perfectly Neil Young, which I love,
but it sounds, you know where I'm going with this story,
is that, yeah, so possibly David Foster
was less understanding of the style
Neil Young brings to a lyric delivery
because I guess David wanted him to fix the tuning or whatever,
and Neil said something to the effect of that's my sound, man.
Or something like that.
I do give David Foster credit.
I feel like a lot of people in his position,
like sort of one does not,
sort of like how one does not tell Bob Dylan to sound less nasally,
you know just to give neil young some constructive feedback on his vocals is just almost sacrilege right because
he does have to just you know lou reed could you enunciate more oh yeah tom waits uh hey tom uh
take a drink of water and get back here uh Here's a fisherman's friend. Like just pop one of these.
Two other highlights for me.
Geddy Lee kicks ass like that.
It just,
for some,
the way Geddy kind of punches it up with his line is really,
really awesome.
And Brian Adams,
again,
back,
we mentioned this earlier in the show,
but Brian is sort of like,
he is to this song as Justin Bieber is to that Haitian earthquake relief song we'll do at some point.
Like he just is awesome on this song.
Yeah.
The one thing that really stuck with me is just how many like real legit kick ass vocalists Canada had at this time.
Even again, we talked about her her she didn't really have much of
a career after this but like lisa dalbello's part yeah she was great yeah yeah like dan hill brought
it down but it's just like a gorgeous voice neil young doing neil young stuff burton cummings has
like what a set of pipes one of the finest ever gordon lightfoot i mean god they're like just all
sorts of we should be very we should be very
proud of the northern lights well even like sharon lee williams like at the end they're like doing
those little vibrato type type gimmicks uh nailed it like awesome yes uh mark weisblot from 1236 uh
would like me to ask you did in your research did you find out if barry harris dj barry harris
oh shit was there because you know for those who don't know barry harris is the con can guy
yeah as i didn't really figure out one way or another if he was in it um
see i i'm looking now and i'll share this maybe via dm or maybe i'll tweet this out
i don't see barry harris's name in the liner notes which is where i saw richard manuel and
gord depp and some of these other folks so interesting i'm not sure those who don't know
con can k-o-n-k-A-N, you might know the song,
I Beg Your Pardon. That was like the big jam.
Of course. Yeah. No, I mean, that was like a monster jam.
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Okay. So we'll have to do further research. Barry Harris is on Twitter, so maybe we'll have to
find out.
It's like, hey, were you there, pal?
Yeah, seriously. Let's get it. Let's get the answer there. And now, Cam, I want you to bury us in random fun facts, if you will, about this song.
If you watch the making of documentary, one of the neat things is you get to see how all the folks arrived at this studio. And by the way, this studio is,
I'd like Sherbourne and Adelaide East.
I believe it's like 310 Adelaide East.
So it's also very interesting,
like a lot of things from Toronto of that era,
whether it's Degrassi Junior High or much music footage
or just like old news footage,
you might see pop over retro on terror,
just classic how much cities change.
Right.
You don't see a lot of tall buildings
around where this was filmed.
Oh, it's all parking lots.
Yeah, and now it's like condo central.
So how did some of these
massive stars arrive at this studio?
Which was incidentally called
Manta?
Yes, something like that.
Yeah.
Actually, I had some fun... I guess you're gonna hold on to the
fun i think the funnest will be and i don't tell us now but save it for the end would be uh
mark holmes or was it more than were any other members of platinum blonde at this recording
well no i mean that's that's the interesting thing that they seem to have a gimmick where
it was just the vocalists for certain bands were there,
whether it's Mark Caldwell,
Mike Reno was the only one in the course,
but other members of lover boy actually did some of the instrumentation.
Right.
Yeah.
This was called Manta studio.
Okay.
So I actually looked up what else was recorded at this place.
A bunch of stuff and sorry, my notes are out of order here but i i know
the first album oh there we go uh the first album from the diodes oh yeah it's tired of waking up
tired yeah exactly i love that song i still love that song yeah a bunch of mo kaufman stuff was
recorded there including stuff he did for the Moonstruck soundtrack. Oh, wow. That got Sharon
Oscar.
Brian Adams' first album.
Not surprising. He sort of did
a U-turn, came back for this. And also
the Geddy Lee parts of that
Bob and Doug McKenzie album.
Take off to the great wide north.
Yeah, recorded at
Mantra Sound. So yeah, this is
at 311 Adelaide Street East,
if anyone wants to pop down there and have a look.
Anyway, how did people...
Oh, the other album that was filmed there,
the film that recorded there, that's very interesting.
An album called America Eats Its Young by Funkadelic.
Wow.
Is that George Clinton?
Is that... No, it's Parliament. That's not George Clinton.
Yeah, George Clinton. Okay, that is George Clinton.
Yeah, very cool. Very cool. Yeah, which I
think is somewhat known that he spent some
time in Toronto. So yeah, part of it filmed in... He's in
that... What's the movie? Is it Ryan
Reynolds, who's in the
PCU?
Oh, PCU. That was filmed here. I think
George Clinton's in that. George Clinton's in it?
I think so. I think George Clinton's in that. George Clinton's in it? I think so.
I think so.
Gordon Lightfoot drove himself to the studio in a pickup truck.
Yep.
That's very Gord.
I can see that.
It's on brand.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell arrived by taxi.
I don't know if they were together.
I assume they're in different taxis.
Mike, I feel like we were talking about this one a bit prior to the show.
Platinum blonde in a white stretch limo. There you go.
And arrived to a chorus of screaming teenagers. But think about that. I know that at the recording
studio, much like when they recorded We Are The World, they had a sign on the
door saying, leave your ego at the door or something like that. No egos.
That's right. Yeah, which Quincy Jones had also done or something like that like no egos that's right
yeah which quincey jones had also done exactly no egos uh when you were recording this charity
single because it's all for a great cause but it's kind of funny uh to arrive to such a thing
in a stretch limo like a charity it's not a great look it's not it's not exactly appropriate i would
think for what they were doing which, have we mentioned the cause yet?
That this is for famine relief in
Ethiopia, right?
That's right, yeah. With a portion of the
proceeds also going to local
food banks and food organizations.
So a very good cause.
By the way, Mike, I was thinking that
taping the Leave Your Ego
at the door,
when you can have people back in your basement i
thought that might be a nice addition beside uh check your head i think you're right i think when
when we have for when we do pandemic fridays in the backyard and stew stone arrives i think
um yeah i had the whole gimmick about bruce coburn and yeah like the other part of that story is like
jim balance the second he got back from Germany, then he went down to Los Angeles,
gave it to Foster and assistant Chris Earthy,
who were mixing this track at Kenny Rogers lion's share studio on Melrose.
There we go.
Where literally at the last minute Coburn's vocal was edited.
Wow.
Wow.
This I think is going to be my final fun fact that this was really surprising
and you talk about something that i don't think is age well do i need to be do i need to be sitting
down for this because i feel like a big one's coming here uh it's actually like that this is
kind of a gross one i don't i don't like talk about this, but I think it's important. Did you watch much pop-up video back in the day?
Yeah, I did.
So, incredibly, this track was on pop-up video.
Wow.
So, I found this on YouTube.
And, you know, when was pop-up video on?
Like 2005-ish?
Yeah, it was a VH1 thing.
So, yeah, around that era, I'd say. Yeah, like the commentary and the pop-ups
were like really quite nasty about this song.
I just jotted down a few of these.
Okay.
It was very sarcastic.
It said 53 Canadian stars.
So it was sort of sarcastic about Canadian celebrity,
for one thing.
Not cool.
Personally, it never used David Foster's name.
It just said the record's producer.
Weird.
About three of the bubbles.
Some of the other bubbles that popped up during, again,
this charity single for Ethiopia famine relief.
Canadian women can get $70 for breast implants.
I don't know who that was referring to if maybe it was in reference to
someone who was on the screen now you remember there's the line every woman child and man you
know that line yeah when that lyric was on the bubble that popped up said every canadian woman
child and man producers 760 pounds of trash each year that's kind of rude that is a bit um there
was there was a a pop-up that said porkies was produced by a canadian yeah bob clark yeah i don't
know what that has to do with this again charity who also did black black christmas with uh margo
kidder oh is it black christmas yeah the one where the call is coming from inside the house.
Yeah, I think it's called Black Christmas. And the pop-up video
sort of ended on a nicer note
saying Canadians donated more to Libate
than any other country.
Oh, that is nice.
One more thing about Bob Clark
is that he also did a Christmas story.
I don't know if you saw Christmas.
Go ahead.
I've actually never seen that movie.
Oh, you know what?
Honestly, beautiful movie.
Wonderful movie. You got to see a Christmas movie. That's that's great porky's i saw it on late great movies
on city tv uh many times and it was you know at that time that was very exciting for me and of
course the black christmas i only actually saw it fairly recently but it's a really good uh like
slasher horror movie it's really cool well bob cl Clark, he's no longer with us, but he had the trifecta
there. Was he
a McMaster person? I feel like Porky's,
there was some tie to McMaster.
I don't know about that.
Might be thinking of something else. Anyway,
point being, pop-up video,
just seeing this,
it was a real
reminder just how much the culture's changed.
I feel like these comments on a show like that would not fly where you're
just kind of talking shit about like a charity single.
I feel like people are probably too sensitive.
I feel like this could actually be ripe for like rediscovery this.
And almost like I could see like almost like blog to writing an article
about this.
Well,
didn't we just,
didn't we just,
let me check the timestamp on this.
Okay.
So we're now two and a half hours
into our episode
about one four minute and 20 second song.
This is the spark.
We are now sparking the resurgence,
the redux,
tears are not enough redux.
This is now the beginning of the new boom.
Well, I almost wonder if they would do a re-recorded version.
I feel like that was the other thing we were considering for this.
If you re-booked Northern Lights,
an all-time Canadian all-star band who would be in it.
Well, that's what I think we could do.
We could cover that in the sequel,
because we're going to talk about USA for Africa,
and maybe that's perfect content for the sequel to this.
And again,
like I do like the idea of like a wave and flag episode,
which would be fun to revisit.
For sure.
Okay.
I think we're ready now to do the fantasy rebooks.
And you have five here?
Cause this will be the five to take us home here.
These are five changes to uh northern
lights that would have made it even better in your opinion again how do i describe it it's i i'd say
it's about 92 percent right now this should take it up to 98 okay i'm ready i'm ready i've actually
got six but we'll go through these quick okay so there's that section with Carol Baker, Ronnie Hawkins, and Murray McLaughlin.
Yes.
Put Stompin' Tom in there.
And put Hank Snow in there.
That could only improve it.
A great chorus of country artists.
Just getting Stompin' Tom in there, I think, is highly appropriate.
No one loved Canada more than that man.
My other option there was maybe taking out Ronnie Hawkins
and swapping in Stompin' Tom.
Well, you could boot Ronnie for being an Arkansas boy.
Yeah, yeah.
So that could be an option.
Right.
It's a numbers game, Mike.
Not that many people get to sing a solo
unfortunately
Anne-Marie
is going to have to
she's being relegated
to the chorus
so there's a spot for Buffy St. Marie
can you argue with that
no I want Buffy in there
I want Buffy in there and if it costs
Dustin and Marie I understand but I think there's room for both you argue with that no i i want buffy in there i want buffy in there and if it costs dustin and
murray i understand but i think there's room for both yeah well i i feel like you need to take one
of the guys out and get mike reno out of there he's got too much going on yeah like actually
reno could probably go um he has two spots too um i hate to say alfie zapacosta and Lisa Dalbello. They're gone. Gone.
We need more Cape Acquired,
at least like Montreal talent in here.
In their place, we got Luba and we got Ivan from Men Without Hats.
No argument from me.
Does that work for you?
Is Gino available?
Where is he?
Get him in there too.
Gino would be great.
The Montreal group.
He can be in the Montreal group.
Okay, so Burton Cummings.
Yes.
He gets to stick around there.
Oh, good.
But you know what?
I would like to see a swaying Randy Bachman right beside Burton
when he sings.
Honestly, it's like salt and pepper pepper you need them together on the shelf of course you
need uh randy back it's like something missing like burton did a great job but i want to see
his pal randy right there i agree with you 100 i i got two more um i i don't know where this would fit. I still can't get over the fact Oscar Peterson was there.
He needs like a 10 second piano solo.
Yeah, him, but Frank Mills is there too, right?
There's some names we haven't mentioned.
Yeah, maybe they could do like a dueling piano thing.
Sort of like when Billy Joel and Elton John toured together.
You got Oscar Peterson and Frank Mills.
And then number one spot,
I don't know where you fit this in,
but like Leonard Cohen needs a solo.
Leonard Cohen is a huge Canadian.
He needs to be there for sure.
What an omission.
Yeah, he's a gap.
I feel like you could just bolt him on.
Anywhere would be great to get Leonard Cohen.
Yeah, so those are my,
it's great as is.
I feel like these would take it up a notch.
Any combination
of these, but I mean,
I got no complaints as is.
And Cam, I have no complaints about
this two and a half hours I just spent
with you. I feel like
in some ways we've only just kind of
scratched the surface here
there's so much there was like a bunch of shit i can't even say well don't don't delete it or
throw it out because i i think we can bang off maybe next sunday we bang off the sequel
perhaps yeah there's still a lot of meat on this bone like that's how we roll here okay we can turn
on a dime we're nimble enough we could do that but cam great uh great effort man honestly that was a lot of fun thanks for uh go diving deep
with me as we explore the 1985 charity single tears are not enough awesome that was a lot of
fun thanks as always for having me on and apologies to stew stone for uh you know going
behind your back on this one but we'll be back on this one, but we'll be back.
Pandemic Fridays.
Yeah. We'll be back Thursday at 5 30 PM.
And if anybody listening wants the zoom link to join us on the zoom,
this is a very rare thing.
We're doing it because it's our 52nd pandemic Friday,
which means one year of pandemic Friday episodes,
which is just bananas.
Bananas.
Yeah.
I mean, I can and I can't believe it.
That's all I got to say about that.
And that brings us to the end of our 814th show.
You can follow me on Twitter.
I'm at Toronto Mike.
Cam is at Cam underscore
Gordon.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at
Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta
is at Palma Pasta. Sticker
U, that's Sticker U. CDN
Technologies are at CDN Technologies.
Ridley Funeral Home,
they're at Ridley FH.
And Mimico Mike, sorry Cam,
he's on Instagram.
Majeski Group Homes.
See you all next week.
I don't know what the future will do for me and you.
But I'm a much better man for having known you.
Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming back.
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