cktimes.ca Archives for Classic Vinyl


Classic Vinyl

With John Gardiner

Blues beginnings and so much more

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Back in the summer of 1967, I was about fifteen years old and I was ready to break out. We'd started our first garage band in the last year or so and things were really starting to happen in my young life. My friends and I were watching the TV and seeing all kinds of wonderful things – hippies roaming the country, anti war demonstrations, civil rights marches, electric kool aid acid tests – what was next?
And back in those days, there were two real hot spots for my generation. One was the shrine-like Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco where the whole hippie thing had apparently blossomed (bad pun). To us, it was a lotus land where Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead could be found on every streetcorner. It was where the most beautiful of the beautiful people lived and worked to change the world.
But if you lived in Canada, there was a place that seemed a bit lotus-like itself. And that was Yorkville Village in Toronto. It was our own place filled with hippies and great music and wonderful coffee houses and just about everything else associated with the sixties subculture. In 1967, Yorkville was a very happening place indeed.
Also in 1967, my cousin, Larry, graduated high school in Hanover and took his first job away from home. As was often the case with young people from Hanover, he was sucked into the vortex of Toronto for that first job, and that meant he had to rent an apartment. Lo and behold, it turned out to be right on the end of Yorkville Avenue, overlooking the whole darned hippie district.
So, when he invited me to come and visit whenever I liked, who was I to say no? And it was thus that I spent some very interesting and fun weekends down in the Yorkville district and saw a lot of really cool stuff. I was likely exposed to some real cultural icons during those days, but I was oblivious to most of it. I remember thinking that it was all very cool, but beyond that, I just didn't get it.
Now the reason I'm leading you on this merry goose chase and have finally brought you to Yorkville back in 1967 really has nothing to do with Yorkville. It has to do with my visit to Sam the Record Man on Yonge and Dundas with a few dollars to spend. I was after a specific album on that trip – can't remember which one for the life of me – but I never got it.
Instead, as I was thumbing through the record bins, I became aware of the music that was playing over the store's sound system. I stood there mesmerized by the tunes that were playing. It prompted me to walk over to the clerk and ask him who he was spinning on the turntable. It was an album called "British Blues Beginnings" and I bought it on the spot. It was my introduction to what I like to call 1960's electric blues.
The album featured Cyril Davies and the All-Stars and Cyril is the guy credited with giving us the first electronic blues harp sound. But there were others on what was basically a compilation album. There were very early blues licks by Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and even Jeff Beck, I think. It was also the first time I heard John Mayall.
Now, this column is about John Mayall, who I think had a great deal to do with the revolution that happened in rock music back in the mid 1960's. Mayall brought the blues forward back in those days in a way that simply hadn't been done before. His albums, from Empty Rooms, to the classic Bluesbreakers, are all works of art that grow better with time.
Now and again, I lose track of a guy like John Mayall. Then, I'm reminded. This happened to me a couple of summers back. I was in Port Stanley and stumbled on a great collection of old LPs for sale. Within a few minutes, I'd snared an album called "Back to the Roots", a John Mayall double album I'd not been familiar with.
That evening when I threw it on the turntable, I was amazed. Pure spontaneous innovation from the king of the electronic blues – lead flute – lead violin – enormously entertaining stuff. But is it available on CD? I doubt it. And that's a shame.
And that's why I'm glad you guys are reading along. And I hope you're spinning a few LPs in honour of all the great old music that's been left behind. You'll not be sorry you did. It's great stuff.



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.