Country Centre Ville
While I was a member of the ROCH VOISINE band There was months of down time when we were not recording or touring. I discovered that during that time our band leader Marc Beaulieu was also the musical director for a TV musical variety show called COUNTRY CENTRE VILLE. It was produced by CONNECTIONS PRODUCTIONS a maritime based firm. Marc was changing personnel and asked me to become a member of that band. The core members at the time were Jean-Guy Grenier on pedal steel, guitar and banjo, Marc Beaulieu on piano and accordion, Marty Melanson on bass, Donnie Chapman on drums and me on guitars, dobro and banjo. Our backup singers were a rotating crew with popular maritime singer Danny Boudreau as the core member. The show was hosted by Quebec country singer RENEE MARTEL. We would shoot our entire season in a three week period on set at the EMPRESS THEATRE in MONCTON N.B. and then air the shows over the entire season. I stayed with that show for several years.
Pour L’Amour du Country
CONNECTIONS PRODUCTIONS decided to reformat the show and retired RENEE MARTEL due to health issues and brought in new host PATRICK NORMAN. They moved the set location to L’OSMOSE at the UNIVERSITY of MONCTON and renamed the show POUR L’AMOUR DU COUNTRY. While the format was similar much had changed. The set was far more elaborate with far better lighting and audio and much more space for camera placement. The backup singers were established as DANNY BOUDREAU and CAROLE DAIGLE and well known fiddler RAY LEGERE who had sat in periodically on the old show became a full time member. This line-up was far more versatile as Patrick was also an accomplished guitarist and had a huge repertoire of songs in addition with his multiple albums already on the market. This meant that the producers had a far deeper pool of music to select from and in fact started featuring individual band members as on screen artists.
…band on the move…
After a few seasons the set was moved to THEATRE L’ESCAOUTTE in MONCTON with the same crew and band members. While the show grew in popularity the government of N.B. decided to cut funding for cultural projects and CONNECTIONS decided to pull out and move everything to HALIFAX, N.S. into the old CBC building. It was bigger and …in theory…better suited for the job with proper sound stages to work with…however it was old and had reached the end of it’s practical life and was in fact slated for demolition sooner than later. Too bad, the accommodations at the LORD NELSON HOTEL were wonderful. Off we were again but this time across the bridge to DARTMOUTH and into the ALDERNY LANDING THEATRE. This was perfect. Great size, lots of dressing rooms, newer facility but too far from hotels for the band to stay in. Remember the way we worked was to move in and shoot an entire season for three weeks. That’s a show a day with a few days off every week. Production decided it would be easier and less costly to rent condos for the band at THE ANCHORAGE. They were absolutely beautiful and walking distance from the theatre. It gave band members some much needed privacy so as to maximize their time learning new material for the following day’s show and cut down greatly on transportation costs and time. It was a win/win for everyone. I ended staying with that same TV band over the incarnation of shows for 24 years with a break of 4 years while I was touring elsewhere.
Auberge du Chien Noir
Scott price was the musical director as well as an actor for the french language tele-series AUBERGE DU CHIEN NOIR. The show was based on an auberge that had been willed by the deceased owner to his dog and the characters were the “staff” who had stayed on. Many of the scenes were set in a bar at the Auberge with story lines intertwining characters who were members of the “band” called LES WESTERNERS. This posed a unique challenge as the ‘actors” portraying musicians in LES WESTERNERS had to be able to actually PLAY their instruments. It was a four piece band consisting of Scott Price on piano, Pierre Hebert on drums, Bobby Cohen on bass, Rick Haworth on guitar, Evelyne Gélinas and Gary Boudreau on vocals. The early morning shooting schedule was reason enough for Rick Haworth to leave his post as guitarist and Bobby Cohen who is actually a guitarist who doubles on bass, moved over to that position. Scott calls me up, as we were already working together on other TV productions, and offers me the acting/playing job as bassist for LES WESTERNERS. Done deal. Bobby Cohen was eventually replaced by Kaven Girourd on guitar.
Star Academie
I received a call from well known musician and band leader Scott Price to sit in on 12 string guitar for one show early in the third season of Quebec variety show STAR ACADEMIE hosted by Julie Snyder. Scott had an exceptionally good band made up of drummer Pierre Hebert, keyboardist Jeff Fisher, Scott Price on keyboards, bassist Sylvain Bolduc and Pierre Dumont-Gauthier on guitar. I was absolutely thrilled to be…again…surrounded by musicians who were older and very skilled. I showed up on the set with my one guitar and was needed to accompany Dennis deYoung of STYX fame to play the song SUITE MADAME BLUE. That alone was thrilling enough…but just the band’s setup was astounding. Loads of gear and loads of room with excellent technicians.
This band was by far the most efficient unit I had ever seen. they all could read music charts like the wind and they learned songs almost as fast as it took to play them once. They could generate almost any kind of sound and emulate almost any style. As I was just standing there for most of the rehearsal Scott suggested I play 12 string in all the songs. Show done, paid a king’s ransom and I was on my way. Next week Scott calls back and this time asks me to play acoustic guitar for Chris deBurgh. I was thrilled to be back, not just for the paycheck and to play with Chris deBurgh but to see the guys again and get to play with them. By the end of the show Scott informed me that he had cleared it with production to add a musician to the band and if I wanted the job I could have it. I agreed right away. Now I had to learn to work at the speed of that killer band.Adding me gave the band another color to their palette of sounds and styles and having a second guitarist took some of the weight off Pierre’s back. Instead of having to cover TWO parts sometimes, now he could concentrate on executing one part while I did the other. I ended up staying with the STAR ACADEMIE band over three seasons spanning eight years and it was thrilling. Every week brought another huge recording artist in a seemingly never ending cavalcade onto our set that included BRYAN ADAMS, CELINE DION, FRANCIS CABREL, GINO VANELLI, JAMES TAYLOR, JASON MRAZ, LADY GAGA, LIONEL RICHIE, MIKA, REO SPEEDWAGON,ROGER HODGSON (SUPRTRAMP) and SIMPLE PLAN to name a few…and this often pleased us band members greatly!
En Direct de L’Univers
In 2009 while still in the STAR ACADEMIE band, Scott Price informed me that there was a new TV variety show in the works and asked me if I would be interested in being a multi instrumentalist in that band. I was thrilled to be part of the new EN DIRECT DE L’UNIVERS band.
The show was a variety music show hosted by France Beaudoin. The band consisted of drummer Pierre Hebert, keyboardist Jeff Fisher, bassist Sylvain Bolduc, Scott on keyboards and me on guitars, dobro and flute. As band leader Scott had some significant pull and managed to arrange the shooting schedule so as to not conflict with the STAR ACADEMIE shooting schedule. This meant that we could do BOTH shows and work constantly. I spent several seasons on this show.
A conflict
After a few seasons Scott notified the band that the two shoot schedules would no longer work and we were going to have to decide what to do. We spoke about it and the majority of the band decided it would be best to choose STAR ACADEMIE of EN DIRECT DE L’UNIVERS. I wasn’t so sure but I went with the band’s decision knowing full well that the new band leader coming in would have his own preferred musicians to work with and my job would not be guaranteed. So there was a huge end of season “wrap party” and the production staff and camera crews bid us a heartfelt farewell and we packed our gear and headed off to the STAR ACADEMIE set. Right or wrong we made a group decision and stuck with it. We stayed for two more seasons of STAR ACADEMIE. The off season gave some band members the call to accompany some of the artists featured on the show on their individual recording and touring projects. I was tapped to work with William Deslauriers as well as season five winner Jean Marc Couture. After season five the show’s producer PROD J decided to pull the plug on the show and we were out of work. EN DIRECT DE L”UNIVERS is still running and will be starting it’s 13th season this year in 2021.