Palace Pier

Email from John Dowson
Apr 18, 2020, 2:39 PM
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Sorry for the delay in answering I’ve been busy with our One Act Play festival (in Newmarket).

I remember the Palace Pier In 1956. Vic Windsor and the Variety Kings were the house band and we backed up the visiting acts.

In those days when a country singer was traveling through Canada on tour Sunday was an off night and the Musicians Union was very strong and they’d have to pay union scale for their band so the acts wouldn’t have their backup band and we’d back them up on stage at the Palace pier. 

We backed Johnny Cash and he brought Luther also Bobby Helms “Jingle Bell Rock” and Bobby Lord and some others Hawkshaw Hawkins and Kitty Wells . When Vic’s band broke up, the guy that ran the Sunday Night Jamboree at the Palace Pier called and asked me if I could get a backup band for the Sunday night shows. I said yes and got together a band Eddie Lacquer guitar Gordy Stewart drums myself on Bass and I think it was Bono on rhythm guitar, 

I was driving my car and on the car radio I heard an announcement that Johnny James and the Volcanoes were playing the Palace Pier next Sunday. I called the guy and said “who is this band the Volcanoes” and he said “ you didn’t give me the name of your band so I named it the Volcanoes I needed a name for the radio ad” so that’s how it became Johnny James and the Volcanoes.

I’ve got some photos of us on stage at the Palace pier I’ll scan and send them. I just loaned my guitars to my son and granddaughter - they’re playing them on face book.

 Tweet and John Dowson 1954

I’ve also attached a play list that we used to tape to the guitar for Tweet and I at the Thornhill Jamboree 1953 ...

Take a look at that - we were pretty good and Ted "Tweet" Smith went on as a solo in a traveling group. 

We called him cousin Tweet and Gordie Tapp caught Tweet's show and he copied the character (cousin Clem) for the Tommy Hunter show and later on He Haw with the same costume as well. We had it first.

Everyone had a nick name and because Ted Smith was always whistling between his teeth we called him Tweet. We met at Queen Mary Public school in Willowdale and he later moved to Toronto and his father died with a heart attack. 

Tweet died of a heart attack Christmas 1966 he was 31 years old and he had a heart condition he never knew he had He had Married Betty Holbrook that some use to call her the Ostrich because she had a long neck  Good old days

John Dowson Ch lp (STAY SAFE)

60 Harrison Dr. Newmarket ON L3Y 4P4