Rock Group Memories

I wrote the introduction to Jack Hebert's book. It's remarkable how close one remains to musician buddies over anyone else while the years pass. The moment we make contact he says, "Yer Face!" It's an inside joke taken from a day we mounted the stage at the Elks Hall for sound check and rehearsal. I told the guys a story about a woman who frequented bars in The Pas and made fun of familiar faces in the crowd. Musicians are more kin than kin themselves. This is the way we still acknowledge each other.

Introduction

A life and future began for me behind a blue drum kit set with two twenty inch cymbals made of the finest brass money could buy. One sizzled and the other rang with the warmest tone and flare one could ask for. Before me stood three guys handpicked from the cream of the crop. On my far right I'm blessed to be on stage with a young phenomenal guitar player who would come to play lead guitar through thick and thin. Directly in front of me on Bass stood a rather baby faced fellow with an excited voice and feel for what he was doing. On my left stood a strawberry blonde curly haired friend from catholic school to now I'd never known played a pretty good keyboard. Here we stood with our catalogue ordered instruments barefaced and ready. Someone said count four. I counted. A thundererous sound bounced off the back wall of the narrow hall and returned passing through our bodies as waves of glory. It made me smile with sheer delight. No one noticed the pleasure I felt. I focused my ears on the total sound. We moved together as one. I looked down. I found comfort in what I was doing. At no other time in my life had I felt quite this way. Yet this is just a warm up for what is to come later in the evening when the doors swing open and our peers come to dance. So long as we could duplicate this warm up with the main show everything would be right we thought.

This is something that has never changed in all these years since our musical lives began. Every number, every performance is a search for the perfect moment in our lives.

I'm proud to have shared this with Jack Hebert, the author of this book. If an industry involving music was to begin in our home town and one man could be found to have something to do with it, it would have to be my lifelong friend and fellow musician Jack Hebert. He carried equipment to halls and set it up when no one else did it or would. Jack came to my house to rouse me from a deep and content sleep. When I looked up it was twelve noon. He stood over my bed laughing. "Come on, let's go. Drop your cock and grab your socks. It's morning in the swamp! We gotta haul equipment," he says. I hurt and all I want to do is sleep. He won't have any of it. He's ready to start the next phase of his musical day and I'm forced to be part of it. His was an early lesson in taking responsibility for what we did. Jack has always been that guy.

The aforementioned is the introduction to 'My Seventh Heaven' a memoir of northern Manitoba's musicians. The introduction written by Norm Richards.

A photo of this group Symbols of Sound is found below.