Well I was born in Mattawa Ontario in 1942 and had a great upbringing in a small town. I had great loving
parents that always were supportive of me in everything I did. At the age of twelve we moved to North Bay and
there my life changed a lot. North Bay was like the big city to me. Wow twenty five thousand people:)
As a teenager I loved music but never thought much about it. I asked my Mom to get me an accordion at the age
of 13, and she got me a twelve bass accordion from Sears. I couldn't wait for that to come and in those days it
took a long time.
Finely it came and I learned about two songs on it and that was it for that. I played a little piano a few chords that
Mom showed me and I would fiddle with it once in a while but nothing serious. Then came Rock and Roll. Wow
Jerry Lee lewis was a huge influence on me at that time. I took on a different look at the piano.
I met Kenny Roy a friend who played guitar and he was putting a band together called The Be Bops and asked
me to join. I do remember saying well I don't know much and he said none of us know much. So here we are at
my house practising because I had the piano in my living room. My Mom love it and she use to make us drinks
and snacks.
Anyway we did our first gig at St John's Church in North Bay. What a night that was. Of course I played standing
up like Jerry Lee and it felt fantastic. I was in my glory. We had a good crowd of people and in that crowd was
Jimmy Sasyniuk. He later turned out to be out drummer and a great drummer and singer he was and is.
The Be Bops were short lived but we did some fantastic gigs. The one I remember the most is at Sturgeon Falls
high school. The battle of the bands. That was really exiting. A bunch of bands played and we won. WOW we
were signing autographs and right there and then I knew I was sold on being a musician for the rest of my life.
Oh yes it was an ego trip and of course the fact that girls were yelling at us and all sure helped. Well Kenny our
leader told us we could go to Rouyn for a gig at the arena there we all were in. That was cool. We stayed there
for a week and partied hardy.
When the Be Bops broke up my good friend Bill Ledster and I returned to North Bay. We both got a job washing
cars in a local car wash. Later that year I got a call from Don Carpentier from Rouyn. He said that Don Seward
had to go back to school and he needed a piano man for his new band The Flaming Stars. Well it took me about
2 seconds to says ok. Back to Rouyn again and played with them for a short time and changed our name to The
Jades and remained a four piece group for ten years. We worked all over the province of Quebec and into the
USA for a bit. We broke up in St Jean Quebec around 1970.
Rene Hamelin and Don kept going with The Jades in Quebec and Bill and I join Richard Terry and we formed
The Sound Syndicate which became Illustration after a short time. Richard Terry got us into the USA and things
really started to roll fast from there. We met a great producer Alan Lorber in New York and we went on to record
an album in NY at A&R Studios. We came very close to the big time with that band even got into Rolling Stone
Mag. Because of bad management we failed.
We ended up in Montreal with Illustration because of visa problems and we could not get any good gig because
we were a huge band and hard to book at that time. Finely the band was reduced to 6 members.
We became Man Made a merger of two bands in St Jean Comeau's Company and us. Recorded another album
with Andre Pery in Montreal but after a year it did nothing. It was my best compositions ever at that time. Once
Man Made broke up I went to Vegas with Richard Terry Ricky Lozier and Pierre Gautier. We met Rene Hamelin
there who got us down there to start a new band.
We had a very hard time in Vegas a tough market to break into and all of us went our separate ways.
I joined Al Seybay and Diamond Head and stayed with him for about a year. Learned a lot about Vegas with that
band.
Met Karen Cavanaugh in Reno while playing with Al and she offered me a partnership in a new band. I took it.
We played all over Nevada in most all the casinos.
After that band broke up I went on my own with my band Maxx. Great band and we worked in Nevada for years.
After 12 years in Vegas I returned to North Bay and that is about it. What a trip:) More info on My Past page. This
is a very short bio at that. I could write a book on all that I have done but that will have to wait ....................
