I remember Dave Somerville and The Diamonds

On a weekend in the autumn of 1956 I was getting ready to take my girlfriend out for the evening but before I left I wanted to watch “The Diamonds” who were performing on a live CBC TV Variety show. After their performance I picked up my girlfriend and we went to the Edison Hotel to listen and dance to a Rock n Roll band. The Edison hotel, which has since burned down was on the corner of Gould and Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. When we got there the club was crowded so the waiter seated us at a table with young fellow and his wife. A few minutes later “The Diamonds” walked into the club. They were still wearing the matching suits they wore on the TV show earlier that evening. They were well known locally and when they entered the club erupted into applause. The house band stopped playing and the bandleader asked “The Diamonds” to come on stage. He introduced the group and asked them if they would sing a number. They sang two songs, I can’t remember which ones but I’m sure one was “Little Darlin” and when they finished they came straight over to our table. I was surprised but it turned out that the fellow at our table was a singer from Vancouver who had been on the TV show with “The Diamonds” that evening and they came over to say hello. The singer’s name was Van (something) In those days the TV shows were live, and here we were all about the same age, sitting at a table talking to “The Diamonds” that we had just watched live on TV. They sat down introduced themselves and spent about 20 minutes talking with us. After they left the singer from Vancouver asked us to take him to some other nightspots where we could see some more live Toronto entertainment. We took them to a number of clubs, but we spent most of the night singing “Little Darlin”. It was an evening I’ve never forgotten. I later moved to Vancouver and in 1968 I saw Dave Somerville at the Queen Elizabeth theatre where he sang and performed on the Labour Day Telethon hosted by Leonard Nimoy. - John Dowson, 60 Harrison Drive Newmarket ON L3Y 4P4 - dowson@rogers.com