In June, Canadian music legend Randy Bachman's popular CBC radio series Vinyl Tap featured an exclusive two-hour Winnipeg '60s music extravaganza. Response from listeners was overwhelming, and it became one of the most popular episodes of the season.
And what were fans asking the big guy? They wanted to know how they could get their hands on those classic Winnipeg recordings.
Many of the scratchy old 45s that Bachman played on his show had been released on the local Franklin Records label. Today, an independent American record label, Super Oldies, is launching The Best of Franklin Records, a double-CD set comprising 56 tracks culled from original master tapes and digitally restored vinyl. The label's owner, Shawn Nagy of Duluth, Minn., spent two years compiling the set.
"I believe Franklin Records has the greatest recorded output of the city's many great bands," asserts Nagy, who originally hails from Saskatchewan and who has long harboured an affinity for the Winnipeg music scene.
"The music on these CDs is a time capsule from a period when there were supposedly over 200 bands in the area."
Nagy's previous Winnipeg release, a compilation of North End-based Eagle Records' output, was a resounding success, prompting him to go after the Franklin line.
"Most of the Eagle Records buyers asked if there would be a Franklin Records CD, so I looked into it. I knew it wouldn't be easy. The groups were so very obscure. I eventually tracked all of them down and got first-hand information, memorabilia and photos from band members. Most of them had to inquire with family members or dig through their attics."
For Nagy, compiling the CD was a labour of love.
"My main goal is to preserve Canadian music," he says. "Hopefully, radio stations will play some of this material again. I've found Winnipeg musicians and collectors most obliging with their own collections and I think it's about as complete a package as possible."
Among the long-lost local tracks are recordings by some of the city's best-known '60s bands, including Sugar 'N Spice, the Mongrels, the Fifth, Blakewood Castle, the Gettysbyrg Address, Electric Jug & Blues Band, the Good Fortune, Expedition To Earth, and Chopping Block. Many of these records are much-coveted and have been traded by collectors for triple-digit sums over the years.
During its five-year run, Franklin Records released 38 singles and one compilation album before folding in 1972. Along the way, the label helped kick-start the careers of several musicians who would go on to bigger and better things.
The brainchild of Winnipeg accountant Frank Weiner, whose Hungry I Agency was the premier entertainment booker in the province, Franklin released its first single in June 1967, Love Is a Beautiful Thing backed by Keep Your Hands Off My Baby by the Gettysbyrg Address.
"The records were simply used to promote the bands and get radio airplay," recalls Weiner. Produced by Randy Bachman and CKRC engineer Harry Taylor, the single featured singers Mike Hanford on the A side with Orest Andrews on the flip side. The Gettysbyrg Address included later Guess Who members Kurt Winter and Bill Wallace.
Although still in the Guess Who, Bachman was looking to establish a separate career in music production and an outlet for his own songwriting. He and Mongrels' manager Lorne Saifer formed Sabalora Productions in early 1968 to handle both duties. Saifer also enlisted his partner to come up with songs for the Mongrels. The River Heights band's recording debut on Franklin was Bachman's Sitting in the Station (originally written in the U.K. during the Guess Who's ill-fated 1967 tour) and My Woman, both featuring Joey Gregorash on vocals. Bachman also wrote both sides of their followup single, Funny Day and Good Good Man. Gregorash was later replaced by Alan Schick for the band's final Franklin single, the Beatles-ish Do You Know Your Mother.
Sabalora was responsible for recordings by a number of Franklin artists, including Love Cyrcle, a Fort Garry quintet that featured female keyboard player Jackie Richards and guitarist Rob Langdon, later of Musical Odyssey and Merry-Go-Round fame.
Weiner's greatest success, however, came with Sugar 'N Spice, whose timely 1969 antiwar song Cruel War became a national hit. In early 1968, the five-man, three-woman outfit appeared on the local scene, releasing its debut Franklin 45 before ever playing a gig. Not To Return, penned for the group by Bachman and recorded in a vacant office in the downtown Hart Building, was a Top 10 hit before the Crescentwood group took the stage at University of Manitoba Students' Union that February to a sellout crowd. Sugar 'N Spice released nine Franklin singles (including a French-language version of Cruel War), their last two as simply Spice, before disbanding in 1972.
Former Winnipeg Beach favourites the Fifth had recorded several singles for London Records before signing with Franklin in 1970. Their debut Franklin release was a spellbinding, hard-driving version of Tobacco Road, with it's opening guitar riff by the late Ralph Watts copped from Exodus -- theme song for the movie of the same name -- and featuring singer George Belanger, who would go on to front Harlequin.
The oddly named Jamieson Roberts Device consisted of former members of Fort Rouge group the Shags, including future Guess Who guitarist Greg Leskiw plus two Hamilton, Ont. musicians. None of the musicians was named Jamieson or Roberts. Their recording of the Mitch Ryder hit Devil With the Blue Dress managed to crack RPM's Hot 100 list in 1968.
Popular with the university crowd, Electric Jug & Blues Band holds the distinction of opening for the Monkees in 1967 and representing Manitoba's music scene at Montreal's Expo 67. The CD compilation includes Family Breaksdown -- the B-side of the group's lone Franklin single -- which boasts the distinctive wailing harmonica of Don (Stork) MacGillivray and ex-Guess Who guitarist Bruce Decker.
Besides local talent, Franklin Records also signed several bands from beyond the Perimeter, including Backstreet Journal, Melvin D. Burlap and Overland Stage, all from the Fargo/Grand Forks area, and Minneapolis's the Triad. Toronto octet Dublin Corporation, originally from Ireland, debuted on the label, enjoying a national hit with Melting Pot. Hailing from Bismarck, N.D., the Tradewinds 5 Inc. were a popular act in Winnipeg clubs and community centres. Their guitarist, Dick Torrance, went on to join a later version of the Gettysbyrg Address with Leskiw and Wallace. All are represented on the compilation.
But one band remains a mystery for Nagy. Formed by American singer Lonnie Pannell and former Deverons guitarist Derek Blake, Blakewood Castle issued a debut single, Lynnie Lynnie, that was a minor hit across Canada in 1970. Nagy failed to make contact with any of the members of the band, whose final singles, Farmer's Daughter and Scarecrow, featured future Harlequin member Ralph James and Streetheart guitarist John Hannah. These last recordings were produced by ex-Guess Who singer Chad Allan.
Scarecrow marked the final Franklin Records release in 1972.
"I didn't do what I should have done with the Franklin label," muses Weiner, who now lives in Vancouver. "But it's all hindsight now. I got a lot of enjoyment and mileage out of Franklin Records."
Nagy also plans a Canada Rock Archives compilation that will include tracks by The Fifth, The Shondels, and another popular '60s Winnipeg group, Justin Tyme.
Released in a limited edition of 500 copies and packaged with an elaborate 24-page booklet chock full of rare photos and memorabilia, The Best of Franklin Records will be available exclusively at McNally Robinson Booksellers Polo Park and Grant Park, Into The Music on McDermot Avenue, Argy's Collectables on St. Mary's Road, as well as online from SuperOldies.com.