Part 3: Grant Smith with 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 is running for 4 consecutive days. This is the third installment…To read Part One and Part Two, follow the embedded links.

The Grant Smith Interview with Lisa McDonald Part Three

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….

The Grant Smith Interview continues…

I’m the youngest of six kids, so I remember wanting the better room.   And I remember wanting the record player.  But I must say, I don’t recall ever putting wires in my mouth!

I was a really smart kid.  When I was in grade 3, they were trying to figure out what to do with kids like me.  Later, with eleven other gifted students, I was shipped off to a teachers’ college where we partook in experimental subjects and what became the new math, like negative numbers.  Nobody ever took negative numbers before.  We also took Latin and all kinds of psychological tests and exercises.  And then I ended up going to school in Germany where my father was in the army.  At that school, I learned French, typing and more advanced math.  When I got back to Canada and entered grade 7, I was really ahead of the other kids in my class.

Ralph Miller, the trumpet player in Grant Smith and the Power is described as a driving force, and William “Smitty” Smith was recruited on grounds he could play bass on the pedals of his Hammond organ.  Tell me what it’s been like fronting this band.  I mean, there were a lot of musicians who played with The Power.  How many are still in the band?

None of the original guys from The Power are still in the band.  A couple of them are no longer in the music industry, some have gone on to have pretty good careers in the industry, but a few of them are dead.  Great musicians came through my band because I knew how to pick them.  And when you get a little success, you’re a magnet.  When I heard Fred Mandel, a young Jewish kid playing in a garage band, I offered him a job and he came on the road with me.  He got his education playing with me and then went off to play with Elton John for seven years.  He’s now a studio musician living in LA.  Coming through my band was like coming through Ronnie Hawkins’ band.  It was a finishing school where musicians learned they had to practice to maintain a certain level.  They were also taught not to chew gum on stage, not to talk on stage, to be clean, to be on time and not to fuck around in hotel rooms.  Many bands at the time thought it was cool to trash hotel rooms, but I never did.  I wasn’t brought up that way.  I did not think it was cool.  I fired guys for disrespecting the property of people who were paying me money.  But every year I used to take a month off to spend with my family.  Life on the road could have me drinking too much, smoking too much, and partying too much.  One year I was particularly burned out so I told the guys, “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”  I couldn’t say when I’d be booking the band again.  So during that time, Steve Kennedy, Smitty, Wayne Stone and Kenny Markle who were my rhythm section, formed Motherlode who ended up with a huge selling record called When I Die.

Was this the same song that David Clayton Thomas wrote with Blood, Sweat and Tears?

No.  (Grant sings it for me and it’s clearly not the same song).  But speaking of David Clayton Thomas, I recorded a whole album of his material.   David never got along with the producer so the material was never released, but I remember when David told me about the song Spinning Wheel.  This was before Blood, Sweat and Tears.  David played the song for me and I thought to myself, what a piece of shit!  What goes up must come down? Spinning wheel got to go round? Talking about your troubles it’s a crying sin, ride a painted pony, let the spinning wheel spin? What a piece of shit!  I was trying to be a serious lyricist! (laughing) David told me I could record any of his stuff except Spinning Wheel.  And I thought, thank god!  Now I don’t have to tell him I don’t like the song! What great intuition I had, huh?  (Spinning Wheel went on to become an enormously successful song, still heard regularly on radio today).

What about women on the road?

Oh yea, there were women on the road. But I never interfered with the personal lives of my musicians.  I mean, some of the women on the road were in the band.  But women weren’t really suited for the ruthlessness of the road.  Not at that time.

Grant Smith and the Power played Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre in 1968 opening for The Hollies and Spanky & Our Gang before heading to the US as a support act for Janis Joplin, Traffic and Rare Earth.  What are some of your memories of Janis Joplin?  She was certainly a woman who could handle the road.

Janis was always really loaded.  Because she was erratic, she had serious management control around her.  I didn’t see a lot of her on the road, but I got to know her in New York.  She liked me.  She appreciated I wasn’t an ass-kisser.  And she liked my band.  When she was sober, Janis was a quiet, vulnerable, soft-spoken chick.  But alcohol turned her into a loud, fearless, man-eating monster.

Did she try to get you to drink with her?

I was never in a position of drinking and then playing with her.  But we did drink together.  We didn’t hang out heavy but when she was recording in New York, she would come see me play.  We had lunch.  I think I was a respite from the people she hung out with.  I wasn’t like other people who treated her like a goddess, right?

So what did you think of Janis as a performer?

I didn’t think she was that great a singer.  She was dynamic, but I heard all the singers she was copying.  I heard all of her influences.  She was just like me, to me.

Have you seen the film, Festival Express? The partying of Janis Joplin is well documented along with members of The Band and the Grateful Dead.  This was just before she died.

Yes.  That was a strange era.  Everybody thought the new 60s sensibility was the way to go.   And many thought it would go on forever and ever.  But it was just a brief wave.  I’m eternally glad I came up through it all, but I was never a flower child. I was an R&B act.  However, nobody could help being affected by the greater sense of openness at that time, the acceptance of others, and the free love.  Sex was rampant.

As a band that formed in Yorkville in the 60s, you were there at a time when some of the most influential music was being made.  Are there any artists from that period that you got to know prior to the mega-success that led some of them to iconic status?

Joni Mitchell was an artist that everyone knew would become something.  Incredibly talented and foxy looking, Joni had a special air about her.  On any weekend in Yorkville, there would be eight bands playing within a two block radius; each one with their own style and following.  But on a social level, we mixed with everyone.  It felt like we were getting away with something.  I mean, it was just such a good time!  We were making very little money but you could rent an apartment in Toronto for $100 a month, or rent a room for $15 a week.  And a bag of pot was only $15.  Living on two submarine sandwiches a day was also easy to do.  It was an amazing time.

But unlike others coming up at that time, you already had the experience of touring the United States.

I was envied by some of the guys.  But most of them were shooting for the hit record, the big recording success.  If you didn’t write your own material at this time, publishing companies weren’t interested. I was influenced by the R&B acts still performing covers, but performing them in new ways.  But it may not have been such a great time for me had I not already had the level of success I did.  I’ve been very fortunate.

Tell me more about your first band and how you got started.

I got kicked out of school when I was 16.  I was told to clean out my locker and vacate.  I had two factory jobs; one lasted a week and the other lasted three weeks.  I tried my best, but I just wasn’t up to the physical labour.  One day when I was laying about watching tv, my mother who spent most of her time in the kitchen, came out and hovered over me.  She had cut an advertisement out of the paper and was dangling it in front of me. “If you don’t get this job, you’re going to have to find another place to live!” As she walked away, the ad fluttered down and landed on my chest.  I picked it up and it read, “Drummer wanted for comedy rock and roll band, must be willing to travel.”

Comedy rock and roll?  Ha!  And you’re like, “okay mom, thanks?” (laughing)

I called the number and an audition was set up.  I passed the audition and was on the road the following week.  This was the start of my career.  And I immediately set about changing the band (laughing).  It sounds like a pretty shitty thing to do but, I recognized the comedy was stupid.  It was outdated, slapstick comedy.

What was your job?  To provide a drum roll after every stupid joke?

The band consisted of three brothers from Denmark.  Their father was a professional musician but decided to move the family here to become beet farmers.  But once the boys started playing in a band on weekends, they decided playing music was far more lucrative than being beet farmers.  Their father went back to Denmark and the boys went on the road.  We were called Zeke and the Moonshiners.  They were really good musicians but after about a month or so, I convinced them to drop the comedy and change our name to The Missing Links.  We covered material by Roy Orbison and Frank Highfield.  We were a good rock and roll band made better by traveling to Todd’s Men’s Wear in Detroit and buying suits.

Did the band just tour Canada or did you cross borders?

It was just Ontario and Quebec then, but, (and George Olliver will disagree with this), we became the first white act recorded by Chess Records in Chicago. (laughing) It was never released, but I have the acetate of it somewhere. Recording at Chess was not a good experience for us.  There was definite cultural animosity.  I mean, we were a white band playing Roy Orbison stuff!  But we got the deal as a favour for our manager.  We travelled to Chicago in a 1958 Ford Fairlaine and when taking a break from the recording, we stepped out of the studio to find our car sitting up on blocks with no wheels (laughing).  Welcome to Chicago, boys!   We got a van and began working for an agent.  Agents had a circuit and if you worked with an agent, you worked all his clubs.  There were shitty clubs, mediocre clubs and really nice clubs.  I wanted to chase the money, so we had to travel a lot to play the really nice clubs.  We’d travel from Northern Quebec to Thunder Bay and from Thunder Bay to Belleville and Belleville to Montreal and Montreal to Windsor.  It was 1964 and we made more money in one week than my father did in an entire month.  It was great!

What was it like travelling with The Power?  It must’ve been chaotic with so many musicians on the road.

I kept it lean.  I had one road man, sometimes two.  If I needed anybody extra, I would hire casual help once we got there, or have our agent hire someone ahead of time.  The equipment wasn’t as big back then and we were a lot more mobile.  But there did come a time in the 60s when equipment started to out pace the talent.  Acts became enamoured with the larger sound.

Like Phil Spector’s wall of sound?

I always hated it.  I held off miking the drums for the longest time because I knew if I miked the drums, I’d have to compensate for everything else.  This was before everyone started cutting holes in their drums and the shit they do now.  I’d only put a mic in front of the bass drum. I was always conscious of being too loud.  I didn’t want to exceed a certain level.

Having completed a tour of the US, Grant Smith and the Power recorded a version of Keep on Running by the Spencer Davis Group at Art Snider’s Sound Studio.  The 45 became a hit single.

We got pitched Keep on Running by the publishing company after Spencer Davis released it in England.  Multi-track recording was new at the time, so I was excited about recording at Art Snider’s Sound Studio.   Art Snider was a producer connected to pretty much everything and the studio was located in Don Mills.  The studio was also known for its engineer, Greg Hambleton.  Keep on Running was good for our career but the song has haunted me my entire life.  We had just come off the road and I was asked to lay down a ghost vocal with the understanding I would do the final vocals after everything else was completed.  But one day, l got a call from my bass player telling me the record had been released and was being sold at Sam the Record Man.  I went down to Sam’s and sure enough, there was my record!  When I finally got a hold of John Irvine, the producer, he told me, “oh, the ghost track was good enough, don’t worry, it was good enough, it was good enough!”  I was so disappointed.  I didn’t get to record the vocals the way I wanted to.   And when the song became a hit, I had to listen to it all the time!  I was so pissed off! (laughing)

What was Tony Orlando’s involvement with this recording?

Tony Orlando was a huge recording star in the 60s, similar to Frankie Avalon and the era of syrupy pop songs.  But after he took a job with MGM Records as an A&R man, he came to Trudy Heller’s looking for talent to produce.  Trudy Heller’s was THE place in New York for the jet set to be seen.  And my band was playing there.  Orlando came to see us a few times.  We liked each other.  He would hang out with me and my bass player and eventually offered us a deal with MGM.  The deal led to the recording at Art Snider Sound Studio.  Not long after he left MGM, Tony Orlando hooked up with Dawn and had a hit with Tie a Yellow Ribbon.  I just talked to Tony last year when he was playing at Casino Rama.  He still looks great.  Obviously a little heavier, but…

Does he still have the moustache?

Yup.  Tony looks funny without the moustache; at least to me he does.  I saw him without it once, and his lip looked like it was a yard long!  Orlando’s a nice guy and he was instrumental in signing a lot of acts for MGM.

Back when James Brown played the Apollo Theatre, the audience was mainly black.  But later, his audience looked mostly white.  I often wondered what happened to cause such a noticeable change in the demographic of the audience.

Well, the black audience never really went away.  It was always there.  But as R&B became more financially viable and more popular a commodity amongst white people, the larger venues started booking the black acts.  Black audiences didn’t go to the large venues.  The Apollo Theatre for example, is quite small.

What was it like for Grant Smith and the Power playing black clubs in America?

I didn’t work too many all-black bars but I did work The Sugar Shack in Boston.  The only white people you’d see would be the fat blonde chick and her pimp!  After booking me, some black clubs would be totally surprised to find I’m white.  On the back of the album cover there’s a picture of William Smith who’s black, and they naturally assumed he was the singer.  I’d get there and tell them “no, I’m the singer.  Smitty isn’t even in the band anymore”. Touring the east coast of the United States, I noticed people really got into R&B.  But unlike some of the other bands who looked like they just pulled a needle out of their arm, my band was clean.  Clean and fresh faced with Beatle haircuts, wearing white shoes, white socks, and suits.

Again, I’m thinking James Brown.  His band wore suits.  And the JBs always had their eye on Brown, didn’t they?  Waiting for his hand signals?  James Brown is another one who, I believe was a perfectionist.

That’s why musicians like to work with me.  When I give hand signals, they mean something.  I know how to do it so they know exactly what I want.  Even though they may have played the song a hundred times before, it will be a different arrangement with me every time.  The band can’t slack.  A good friend of mine, Pee Wee Ellis co-wrote Sex Machine with James Brown.  Pee Wee played with James Brown for a long time.

Have you met James Brown?

Yes.

Really?!  Oh, do tell!  I love James Brown!

Continued in Part Four…

About Lisa McDonald: “I’m a city girl. A vegetarian who enjoys yoga, palates, 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.”