FYI Interview with Grant Smith

1st of a 4 part interview by Lisa McDonald

Lisa McDonald is back again, this time with an in-depth interview with Canadian R&B legend, Grant Smith. Lisa knows what questions to ask, and brokers a lively interview with whoever she has in her sights. Please feel free to add your comments after you read this interview, Lisa will appreciate the feedback. The Grant Smith Interview will run for 4 consecutive days starting now…

Grant Smith has been in the entertainment business for more than 45 years.  Starting out in 1964 as a rock and roll drummer with The Missing Links, it wasn’t long before Smith found himself fronting his own band, a 7-piece R&B act called The Power.  Grant Smith and the Power ripped up Toronto’s club circuit with their high energy sold-out shows throughout the years of 1967-1970.  By the middle of the decade, Smith had rubbed shoulders with many of the iconic 60s rock stars known to all of us today.  Along with securing an MGM recording contract, Smith starred, directed and co-produced Red White and Hot!, a Vegas-style variety show featured at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.  With a life-long talent for painting, this multi-media artist produced and acted in television movies, hosted the Miss Teen Canada Pageant and Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy telethon, and made several appearances on everything from the Tommy Hunter Show to the Juno Awards.  Spending considerable time in Las Vegas, Mr. Smith has worked as a singer for jingle writers, as a choreographer and as an entertainer landing him numerous return engagements to Caesars Palace.  Currently, Grant Smith has been on double duty writing his first novel and wrapping up his latest film project, a documentary exploring the phenomenon of the Elvis Presley fan.  Mr. Smith joins me now to discuss not only his upcoming Soul’d Out show at the Estonia House on Nov 14^th, but to tell me fascinating and often hilarious stories of all the celebrities he met along the way….

There’s stuff written about me on line, inaccurate stuff but I never correct it.  It doesn’t really matter to me.  I’ve lived my life in the spotlight and it doesn’t bother me what people say, especially people I don’t know.  But my life drastically changed about 18 years ago when I had a stalker.

Really?

It was horrible.  It was really horrible.

Was it someone you knew?

Not really.  It was someone I’d spoken to briefly.  She worked for a police department so she could easily find me.  She was fixated on me.  Being a pop singer, I was use to this type of thing, so I laughed it off at first.  But it wasn’t long before I realized how serious it was.  I worried about my life and I had to move my family.  As a consequence, I never really got on the internet.  I’ve stayed away from it for the most part.  But with the Estonia House show coming up, my wife created a Grant Smith and The Power site on Facebook.  I was surprised to find 200 people signed up in less than 24 hours.  And then after ten days or so, we had something like 600 people.  And fans leave little messages.  One guy in Windsor said he thought I was the cat’s ass after seeing me at The Junction.  That was pretty neat.  He went on to say he named his first born after me!  I didn’t realize emotional things like this were associated with me.  It sounded heartfelt, you know?

On-line social networking sites make it easy to find people and communicate with them.  Facebook is a phenomenon.

But to be honest, I’m not comfortable asking someone to be my friend!  (laughs)

Speaking of friends, can you tell us about the show at the Estonia House on November 14^th and what foundation you are raising funds for?

We’re raising funds for the Domenic Troiano Guitar Scholarship Fund.  Troiano was a great Canadian guitar player with a following all around the world.  And he was a friend of mine.  Just before he died of cancer, he established a foundation to put young musicians through university.  The foundation has helped six or seven students over the last few years, but their endowment is shrinking.  Domenic’s brother and John Harris of the Harris Institute of Recording Artists run the foundation, but neither are showbiz people. I thought I’d step up to the plate and put on a show.  But if you look at the poster, I didn’t really advertise the foundation.  The “in support of…” is very small print.  Doing this show is a personal thing for me.  I want to raise money certainly, but I don’t want to just be reaching into people’s pockets.  The economy is tough right now, and I know people can’t afford it.  But I hope to sell out.  The show’s called Soul’d Out after all. (laughs)

I know George Olliver’s on the bill, but tell us about him and the other acts.

When George Olliver and I started out back in the 60s, we were rivals.  You were either a fan of Grant Smith and The Power or you were a fan of George Olliver and Mandala.  Over the years Olliver and I became good friends.  When I produce shows, I always call on George.  He appeals to exactly the same demographic as me.  At the Estonia show, we’ll both do a set and then we’ll do something together.  In addition to Olliver, Rita Chiarelli is on the bill and Toronto’s R&B institution, Jay Douglas.  When Douglas first came here from Jamaica, I was one of the first people he met.  I helped him get his career started, and we became friends.  I’ll also be introducing Diana Salvatore for the first time.  Diana is a really attractive, vivacious young singer.  I’ve known her since she was a little girl. There’ll be five separate acts for the Soul’d Out show, and they will all be great.

So in addition to performing, you’re also producing the show?

Yes, my wife and I.  We hired the room, we hired the chefs, we hired the staff and we put together the menu.

We’ve been in the hospitality industry all our lives.  I was born with a restaurant in front of my house.  For me, one of the attractions of the Estonia House is the caretaker, Matty.  Matty’s the go-to guy for all the nuts and bolts.  Matty’s been associated with the entertainment business for a long time, so it’s a plus to have him.  It’s a really nice room, but I’m trying to get the front of the stage painted.  There’s a daycare type situation happening during the day where children tape things to the front of the stage.  The perfectionist in me asks, “can I come here before the show and paint that?”

And it’s that kind of perfectionism that I wanted to talk about.  Only six months after forming Grant Smith and the Power, the band began breaking attendance records all over Ontario.  Journalists in 1967 described your shows as “finger-poppin’, hand-clapping, high energy, driving the little girls out of their minds”.   The band was also described as “polished with skillful stage presentation and well-rehearsed choreography”.  Are you from a musical family like the Jackson 5, where you learned and trained at a very young age?

My mother was musical.  She played the piano, the ukulele, the harmonica, and autoharp, but she was too busy to teach me anything.  My mother ran a restaurant.  I was twenty nine years old before I found out she could play piano.  But I always knew what a good show was.  In 1964, I was the drummer with a band called The Missing Links and we played the bar circuit in Northern Ontario and Quebec.  Intrinsically, I knew how people wanted to be entertained.  While other musicians were concerned with how they played, I was more concerned with how people perceived what we played.    People listen with their eyes and if they’re impressed with what they see, it sounds better to them.  If they see a dirty looking, unkempt band with a lot of space between songs, it gives them an opportunity to think critically.  If you can dazzle the audience with a non-stop show, it’s more entertaining.  I knew to associate myself with good musicians and I had no trouble getting gigs.  My band was a good looking band.  It was a pre-requisite.  My band was always clean and, they wore a suit.

Well maybe you learned how to please people from watching your mother work in the restaurant.

Sure.  For me, it’s always about the customer.  It’s always about the audience.   In any restaurant, if you’re a good host or hostess with good service skills, people will respond positively.  It’s always been my job to please the public.  Because of this, it took me a long time to call myself an artist.  Generally, my idea of an artist is someone who focuses on one thing; the painter who searches all day for that magic moment when they get it right.  My interests are so eclectic that I never really focus on one thing. But I’ve always gravitated toward musicians, writers and other creative people.  All my life I’ve been a hard working guy.  People hire me and they get what they pay for.

What age were you when you started to perform?

Day one.

You say, “I always knew what a good show was”. But really, perhaps you were influenced by seeing Elvis Presley on television for the first time?

No.  My earliest memory is of dreaming to be an entertainer.  I would have been six, seven, eight years old and I use to dream of being an old guy.  Back then young people always wanted to be older.  It was a rite of passage to finally get your first suit.  I always loved playing the drums so my heroes were Cozy Cole, Buddy Rich, and Gene Krupa.  I also really like Charles Aznavour, the old ruffled up Frenchman that even in his 70s still gets the women.  Aznavour sings ballads about broken hearts.  He’s the quintessential French romanticist.

Are you a sucker for the romantic ballad?

I’m a sucker for brilliant song writing.  Aznavour’s songs are very dramatic and theatrical.  He wrote a song about a female impersonator who people look down upon.  This female impersonator takes care of his mother, scrubs floors and washes dishes, but people think he’s less than a man. Standing up to bullies, he asks, “What Makes a Man a Man?”  It’s brilliant song writing.  Charles Aznavour has recorded so many albums that it can be sort of a hit and miss.  For instance when disco became huge in Europe, he recorded a disco album.  Aznavour disco is still good song writing but its cheesy European-type disco.  Europeans missed things in music on a number of levels, but they own the romantic ballad.  They absolutely own it.  Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour are all iconic international stars from France.

But I’m still trying to picture a young Grant Smith; a really young Grant Smith being blown away by some artist who set you off on your career as an entertainer.  So many musicians tell stories of the first time they saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show for instance, deciding right there and then, “that’s what I want to do!”

I wouldn’t say I was blown away by any artist but when I first worked Las Vegas, I saw Frank Sinatra.  At the time, Sinatra wasn’t even on my radar.  I mean, I was an R&B singer and Sinatra was just this old guy who had a few hits.  He was not a role model for me in any way.  When I opened at Caesars Palace, he opened the same day.  The entertainment director asked me, “are you going to check out Frank’s rehearsal?”  I was like, “what are you talking about?”  He tells me, “Sinatra’s rehearsal is at 4 o’clock.  Go into the big room and sit at the back.  Be quiet and just watch.”  I had no idea what to expect.  But when I got there I saw a 44-piece orchestra.

What year would this be?

It was the mid-70s.  So, I’m listening to this huge orchestra.  Dadaladaladala… dadaladaladala!  The symphony orchestra is a cacophony of sound.   Dadaladaladala… dadaladaladala!  When all of a sudden the doors fly open and Jilly Rizzo, Sinatra’s bodyguard walks in and Sinatra comes in behind him.  And when Sinatra walks in, everything just stops.  The room went quiet and the entire orchestra stood up.

Wow!

I thought, “Well that’s neat.  My band’s never done that for me!” (laughs)  I watched Sinatra shake hands with all the guys.  He obviously knew a lot of them.  But he didn’t waste much time before he looked at the conductor and said, “okay, let’s get started”.  The conductor had his podium and Frank had a podium next to him.  And Frank had the conductor’s scores.  Have you ever seen a conductor’s scores?

Uh-uh (but I can’t wait to hear more of this story!)

It’s like a 40-page continually unfolding piece of music with everybody’s parts on it.

And this is what Frank is reading?

Yes.  And I’m sitting back thinking, “ya right, that’s bullshit”. (laughing)  I thought it was just for effect, right? (laughing)  So they start the first tune and the conductor’s conducting and Frank’s following along, turning the pages.  Again, I thought, “Na! Singers can’t read music!”  At least I couldn’t at that time.  But when they get through the whole thing and the conductor stops, Frank looks up and says, “uh yea, okay, in Section B, bar 485, someone played a B flat.  Who played a B flat?  Who played the B flat?”  You see everyone in the orchestra look at each other before a hand rises up. “No. It’s a B!”  It’s a B! So pencil that.” He goes through the whole chart.  Sinatra goes through the whole chart penciling in corrections!

Really?  Wow!

“Okay, Section G bar 845, somebody is off early.  It’s a G and they’re off early.  It’s one of the trombones… pencil that.”  I was amazed!  I watched the whole rehearsal.  Sinatra did this with every tune.  And then he left.   It really opened my eyes. I’d never seen a big orchestra rehearse before.  And I’d never seen a singer or anyone do THAT before.

It must have been awesome.

Oh, it was!  So on opening night, after I finished my show, I went up to the sound booth to watch Sinatra.  He did two shows, one at 8 o’clock and one at ten o’clock.  Sinatra walks on with no introduction.  He walks on and everything just stops.  You can hear the intake of breath from the entire room.  All the hair on my neck and arms stood up.  This was the first time I knew what the word thrill meant.  I’d never experienced anything like it before in my life.  I felt I’d seen it all before and was disappointed too many times, ya know?  But when Sinatra walked on that stage, the feeling in the room was absolutely palpable.  It was unbelievable.  And then a huge standing ovation erupted which went on and on and on.  When the audience finally quieted down, Sinatra sang for 40 minutes.   He didn’t speak more than twenty words, basically going from one song to the other. I couldn’t have named five Frank Sinatra songs at the time, yet the songs were all familiar.  And that’s because I’d heard them a million times, but never paid any attention before.  It was phenomenal.  Every song is an institutional part of my memory

Having an experience like that would leave an enormous impression!  And you can’t get more perfectionist than Frank Sinatra.

But when I met him, I wondered if he was telling me the truth.

What do you mean?  Were you afraid of him?  So many people were afraid of him, right?

I’m fearless and afraid of nothing.  But when I was introduced to Sinatra at the reception, he said, “yea, nice show kid.  You’re doing a nice show.”  Whether he actually came to my show, I don’t know.  He may have watched from the tech booth.  Many of the stars, who didn’t want to make a scene by coming into the audience, would watch from the booth.  But I don’t know if Sinatra ever saw me.  But Sammy Davis Jr certainly did, and so did Tom Jones.

Tom Jones? Really?

Grant answers that question and more tomorrow in Part two of the Grant Smith Interview with Lisa McDonald…

About Lisa McDonald: “I’m a city girl. A vegetarian who enjoys yoga, pilates, and cycles to keep active but live music is my real passion. All things music really, and I’ve been known to write about it..

I value a strong work ethic and good manners, but what really turns me on is confidence and experience.”