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

MING'S Variety Store

From our dear friend, Charles Dowson...

Back in '87 I did a limited series full hand colored hand printed serigraph of MINGS variety. Soon there after I found out that he was closing after 30 years. He opened the store in the summer of 1957. The original owners name was Wong. He bought the store and then decided to keep the original name to help keep up his clientele.

I made two prints for him for no charge. When I came by before he retired to bring him the prints his daughter was there and decided to take a photo of the two of us for our families. He sent me this photo and a card giving thanks for our friendship. There were all kinds of old style stock for sale like bags of marbles, cheap sun glasses, boxes of old Princess Soap Flakes, small cap guns and a great deal more. Of course all the original in store signs were sold off. York Ice Cream and Pepsi Cola for example.

This photo was taken June 6 1987. All of the MINGS prints have been sold out for years. If I come across any original photos that I used for reference I will pass then along.

Rockin' At Big Daddy's

My son John-Paul and brother Mike sat in for a couple of songs at Big Daddy’s Bar and Grill in Newmarket November 4^th 2016 - John Dowson

Jerry Lee Lewis at Toronto's Le Coq d'Or

Yes I was right….I did see Jerry Lee Lewis and his band play at Le Coq’Dor in their downstairs lounge in the summer of 1959. 

I’m reading Jerry Lee Lewis’s autobiography and there it is in the book saying he played Le coq’dor in Toronto. 

For years people have been telling me I was nuts, I began to believe myself that it didn’t happen and now there it is in writing in his book. 

I was playing with Tommy Danton and the Echoes at the Zanzibar Tavern just up the street. We had just returned to Toronto from Quebec city where we played at the Bal’Taberan. We were at the Zanzibar all summer July and August 1959.  We heard that Jerry Lee Lewis was playing at Le coq’dor and between sets we would go down to catch his act, but because his marriage to his 13 year old cousin had taken place in 1958 and his England trip with his teenager bride was a disaster his star had fallen and he was playing, what he called “Beer Joints” so not many people were in the room during the week. 

As I remember it was just a trio piano, bass and drums, we even had the chance to speak with him. He was there for a week and we saw him at Bassels restaurant where all the waiters, and musicians would go to eat after the bars closed. 

As the years passed I wasn’t sure if he really played Toronto before he went to England or after but he says in his biography that it was after his career spiraled down. 

He writes, "I played juke joints in  Chicago, Iowa  and even Le Coq’dor in Toronto". 

So there it is. 

Did you or anyone else see him when he played la coq’dor Tavern in Toronto in 1959? 

About ten years ago I met the owner of The Simcoe Arms hotel in Sutton Ontario Gord Josie. He as a country singer and later manager of Le coq’dor and he confirmed that Jerry Lee Lewis played the tavern downstairs. 

So Russ you can put that on the site.

- John Dowson

Willowdale Woman Invents Solar Clothes Dryer

Stella Dowson of 68 Parkview has invented an energy efficient solar clothes dryer. In the attached photo Stella Dowson is seen preparing to operate the device, which is installed at the back of her house.

 

 

 

 

Another Willowdale Fifties First!

McKee Avenue Public School

As kids I remember laying on the grass at McKee Avenue School with Johnny Ryan and others and looking for faces or objects in the clouds.

Smog has been a wonderful feature of Toronto life for a very long time. When I was working for the Township (1958-59) we were way over where North York connected to Scarough - sort of up on a hill there - and you could look into Toronto to the west-southwest and see the smog over the city. Actually, I think you live over near there -- The Smog was bad and that was in the fall of 1958.

As kids we also talked about getting away from the "Rat Race" which was life in Toronto as we saw it. I don't think people in the GTA really think about the Rat Race any more. I suppose if you are in it long enough then you think that is all there is.

In Moose Jaw we have three rush-hours; in the morning - at lunch time because everyone goes home for lunch and then in the evening. In the thick of rush-hour, like this morning, there can be upwards of twelve cars in front of you.

The question now is, "Is there a rat race in Toronto anymore?" Out here a day has 24 hours. In Toronto, the young people spend 3 to 4 hours going to and from work - and 8 hours at work -- so days must be longer in Toronto - like a Toronto day has to be 27.5 hours long to be the same as a Moose Jaw day where it takes only 15 minutes to get to work -- or all the way across town for that matter.

But 2 hours one way to work ---whew -- that is a big part of the day. You can buy neat - fancy stuff with all the money but can only mess with your stuff on the weekend - as long as you don't drive to Muskoka - because then you are screwed because of driving time.

So Charles? Is there a Rat Race any longer or was that just old 50s talk. And is cloud watching no longer a passion for young kids?

And why am I not nostaligic for Toronto? Now Newmarket is different - I love that place! And Gravenhurst! And Dunchurch! And Parry Sound! - is there a theme here ---

-  Richard Dowson

Ray Harris and his sister Shirley 1976.