Have Guitar, Will Travel
My life has been blessed with doors that open at appropriate moments. Just when I am wondering where to go next, a new direction is shown to me, either by a chance meeting or a serendipitous opportunity. After intense study with Lagoya, I knew the time was right for my first recording. While in Paris I had received correspondence from Eleanor Sniderman, who was awaiting my return to Canada, as she had accepted the position of artist and repertoire consultant for Boot Records, a small label owned by Stompin’ Tom Connors. Tom was the country singer/songwriter from Prince Edward Island who, after enjoying success in the music business, had decided to create his own independent label. With no knowledge about record companies, I was easily persuaded that signing with Boot would be a wise step toward a professional career. Tom was no aficionado of the classics, but possessed a strong sense of national pride. After learning that no Canadian classical label existed, he made the meritorious gesture of recording some homegrown talent. With his Boot Master Concert Series, Tom helped launch not only my recording career but also that of the Canadian Brass.
In 1974, Eleanor was still married to Sam Sniderman. This was a decade before the acrimonious divorce during which Eleanor came out of the closet. How fortunate to have these two well-connected people helping me launch a musical career. Eleanor introduced me to the man who ran Boot Records for Tom Connors, Jury Krytiuk, a cheery three-hundred-pound Ukrainian Canadian. The label took its name from the stomping boot Tom used to thump up and down on a wooden board to his down-home Maritime music. It was difficult to get excited about the name of my new record company and the ungainly stomping boot logo on the album jacket, but I hoped this detail would be overlooked by my classical followers, who would never comprehend what a stomping boot had to do with classical guitar.
Jury Krytiuk drew up a five-record, five-year contract whereby I would receive an 8 percent royalty on all sales once expenses had been paid. Neither my parents nor I understood the complexities of record contracts, but a judicious inner voice cautioned me to change the five-year term to two. Eleanor volunteered to produce my debut recording and, with her mind set on simplicity, decided to name it The Guitar. She secured a top engineer, David Greene, who booked the best studio in downtown Toronto, Manta Sound. Never having set foot in a recording studio, I was completely ignorant about sound variables and microphones, so I left every decision to David. My task was to play through each piece three or four times until Eleanor assured me that we had a “perfect take.” Selecting from works I had carefully polished under Lagoya’s tutelage, I chose a prelude, a presto, and two gavottes by Bach, Albéniz’s “Zambra Granadina” and “Rumores de la Caleta,” Tomasi’s “Le Muletier des Andes,” two sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, João Guimarães’s “Sounds of Bells,” and Debussy’s “La fille aux cheveux de lin.” She praised my interpretations and enthused about the fine “product” we would soon have. Repeatedly predicting I would become a major star on the classical-music scene, she assured me that I would be selling out concerts from coast to coast and riding around in limousines. Never having been in a limousine, nor having harboured the slightest desire to ride around in one, I thought all this sounded ridiculously excessive; years afterwards, every time I stepped into one of those huge black or white monsters after a sold-out show, I could not help remembering Eleanor’s wild prophecies.
Together the three of us edited the record; David Greene introduced me to the magic of the studio, demonstrating how he could splice a good part of one take onto a better part of the next take, thereby cutting out the imperfect or less musical sections. He could even vary the overall tone by adding different degrees of treble, bass, and reverb. Before this initiation, I had never understood how Julian Bream’s guitar sustained notes so much longer than mine ever could. Ah, the wonder of reverb!
Each day I shared the pleasures of recording with my parents. We could not imagine the tremendous effect an album would have on my fledgling career and chuckled at my producer’s wild imaginings. Eleanor’s persistence in trying to obtain a perfect test pressing, one of the final steps in the manufacturing of a vinyl record, caused her to reject ten before one met with her approval. How could I not be impressed by the attention she was lavishing on this project of ours?
We hired David Falconer, who had casually photographed my father exhibiting his oil paintings in the park. In retrospect, I am amazed how my debut record portrait was contrived so haphazardly. He photographed me in Toronto’s Edwards Gardens wearing my mother’s homemade skirt of purple panne velvet and a cotton blouse purchased from a street vendor in Amsterdam. In contrast to the perfectionism of the recorded sound, we did seem rather casual with the album’s packaging. The liner notes for the back of the jacket were written by my mother and me, in collaboration with Joseph Pastore, a bright young man who had approached me to play in New York. Pastore decided to fly to Toronto to meet me, arriving in a flashy Great Gatsby–style white suit. A guitar fanatic with a vast knowledge of the music world, he talked non-stop. Never before had I met anyone so driven and energetic.
Both Pastore and Eleanor Sniderman wanted to manage me, but being a novice in the music scene, I was wary of commitment. I worried that Eleanor’s forty-page contract would have tied me up for life, that every decision in my musical career would have needed to be approved or vetoed by her. I didn’t even think of consulting a legal expert. Pastore was insistent that without the right New York connections and plenty of money behind me, there could never be any hope of my succeeding as a concert artist. He explained the depravities of the music business: mafia involvement, payola, crooked record-company deals, dishonest agents, “free goods,” kickbacks, pirated records, and the fierce competition. I simply wanted to enjoy playing my guitar for appreciative audiences. Was this another pipedream? After Pastore’s ominous warnings and Eleanor’s contract, I began to have second thoughts about “the music business” and sat glumly at the dinner table, asking my parents if I was making a mistake to pursue such a career.
Most of my recitals I booked on my own or with the help of my mother, who used her maiden name when writing letters to the concert promoters, gathered from a list obtained from the Canada Council or the guitar society network. Printing up a little brochure, I used a quote from Christopher Parkening, who had inscribed the back of one of his albums for me: “One of the most excellent guitarists I have heard.” I added a quote from Alirio Díaz, who had written, “I predict that she will become one of the most distinguished artists of the classical guitar.” One day, I called the library in Mississauga, a suburb west of Toronto, which ran a Sunday afternoon concert series.
“Hello, I am a classical guitarist and I’m interested in playing for you,” I said, talking with as much confidence as I could muster.
“What is your fee?” the library director inquired.
“Normally, my fee is four hundred dollars,” I bluffed, “but as your library is only a short distance from my house, I’ll take three hundred.”
“Oh, that is out of the question, my dear,” he replied, “we cannot afford that much.”
“Well, as it’s a local engagement, what would you say to two hundred?” I countered bravely.
“No, I’m sorry, miss, we can’t pay so much,” he insisted.
“Oh well, I understand that the union minimum is one hundred and twenty five, so let’s settle for that,” I pleaded.
“No, I’m afraid that’s still too high,” he continued. “Look, one hundred is my very last offer and well below my normal fee, but as a special favour to the library, I’ll accept that,” I stated with finality. There was an unbearable silence, then an embarrassed cough on the other end of the phone.
“I’m afraid, Miss Boyd, that fifty dollars is the very most this library could afford for an unknown musician,” he said apologetically.
“I’m sorry, sir, but that is simply too low; I couldn’t do an entire concert for that small fee.”
I thanked him and hung up disappointed, as I realized how much I needed to start performing. On that Sunday, however, I would only be sitting at home playing for myself; perhaps fifty dollars should not be sneezed at so quickly. Some people had to work several hours to earn that, and it was more than the eleven dollars I had been receiving for playing at the Unitarian churches. I hastily called back to tell the librarian he had a deal. I would play for fifty dollars, and if I sold out the place, I hoped he would invite me to return next year. Two months later, the Mississauga library was jammed and the librarian was completely amazed. Slipping fifty dollars into my pocket, he vigorously shook my hand, asking if I would like to play there again. The next season, he booked me for three hundred and fifty dollars, but by then my name was becoming known, and someone more skilled than I negotiated the fee.
I began to play small recitals for the network of guitar societies scattered around North America, which were run on a shoestring by devoted enthusiasts. A hundred people attended my Haddonfield, New Jersey, performance, and I received accolades from a college crowd in Cleveland. The Vancouver, Halifax, Washington, Portland, and Seattle guitar societies invited me to give recitals; I accepted any offer that came my way, while eagerly awaiting the release of The Guitar.
Now it was time to find an agent to handle concert bookings, as we could do only so much, and it did not look very professional for my mother and I to be negotiating the fees. Ed Oscapella, a fellow music student who had decided to become a concert agent, began to book small concerts in churches and high schools. Sometimes the fees were guesswork, sometimes the scheduling was bad; he, like I, was at the very beginning of his career, feeling his way into the music business.
A northern Ontario library tour sent my mother and me driving to small but welcoming audiences in places we could barely find on the map. In these remote locations, we bedded down in inexpensive motels, concocted sandwiches in the car, and shared frequent giggles about some of the characters we encountered. Staying in people’s homes for concerts in Nanaimo (British Columbia), Corvallis (Oregon), and Dallas (Texas) gave me glimpses into a variety of different lifestyles. On the tour I rattled off amusing anecdotes over my hosts’ home-cooked dinners, autographed their children’s guitars, and played the obligatory piece to impress the neighbours. In Dryden, Ontario, I was assigned a musty sleeping bag in a kids’ room crammed with toys and friendly cats; Milwaukee billeted me at the beautiful country estate belonging to the Brumder family; in Washington, D.C., I was presented by their classical guitar society and I met composer Sophocles Papas; in Victoria my hosts offered their living-room couch, but I was kept awake by their crying baby; in Regina I was the guest of two priests who cooked me pancakes for breakfast. In some towns my concerts were combined with master classes, where I dispensed technical and musical advice to groups of eager young players. Experiencing North America from a new perspective, I took great enjoyment in the opportunity for travel; living out of a suitcase became second nature.
There were always latent pre-concert nerves to contend with, but onstage, absorbed in the musical interpretations, a new confidence and stage presence began to blossom inside me. The once shy adolescent was becoming accustomed to meeting new people at every turn, and I easily interacted with the strangers seated beside me on planes or buses — friendly exchanges took place with lumberjacks, farmers, housewives, and travelling salesmen as our lives overlapped for fleeting moments of time. All the interesting travel and appreciation of my talent convinced me that I had found the perfect career.
While on a plane from Seattle to Vancouver, I struck up a conversation with a man in his mid-thirties who had been part of the music business in New York, but had recently exchanged the hectic pace of the Big Apple for a quieter, more reflective life in San Francisco. As we sat together sipping our Northwest Orient coffee, Cal explained that he was a songwriter and “ideas person” who had worked with Burt Bacharach and Andy Williams. He seemed intrigued by my tales of guitar societies and the Boot Record deal. “Please call me collect anytime you like,” he insisted, as he helped carry my guitar case off the plane and scribbled his phone number on the back of my boarding card. His distinctive style of writing, natural sense of humour, and the lively twinkle in his eyes kindled my interest. Not having shared any romantic relationship for more than a year, I decided that Cal was at least worth a phone call. Our first half-hour conversation evolved into daily calls from San Francisco, during which Cal pleaded that I come and visit him “on the coast.”
He was a prolific writer, and a deluge of letters and poetry penned in his strong calligraphy started to flow into my life. After a month of this fervour, I capitulated to his demands, agreeing to join him in San Francisco for a few days. Obviously I was destined to meet up with this crazy character who had fallen head over heels in love. My mother insisted I must be quite mad!
A return Air Canada ticket arrived by courier, and Cal was on the phone, ecstatic that I had finally consented to spend time in his company. He collected me and my guitar at the airport, and we drove south toward Big Sur. A tape of Neil Diamond’s music for Jonathan Livingston Seagull provided the soundtrack as he swept me along the Pacific Coast Highway. The vistas were overwhelming: white surf pounded the jagged, rocky coast and miles of unspoiled beaches played host to seagulls soaring through the air. Cal was thrilled that he could introduce his Canadian import to his beloved northern California.
Determined to do the right thing, he had rented two separate rooms at the Big Sur Inn, where we were given redwood logs to burn in the fireplaces each evening. For me everything was novel, exciting, and charged with romance; I do not think that my room was ever used except to store the guitar! Thus began one of my most turbulent love affairs, which endured for three years and involved more breakups, makeups, fights, tears, and promises than I care to remember.
Cal was separated from his wife and awaiting a divorce. He rented a delightful little house in Stinson Beach where, in between my growing number of concert commitments, I stayed with him and his Husky, who raced us up and down the beach each morning. He taught me about his Jewish upbringing and religion, and gave me insights into the popular side of the music business. Together we attended classical concerts, sipped hot cider in Carmel, and shopped for fresh crab at Fisherman’s Wharf. The telephone seemed to run Cal’s life, as he was producing music and drama packages for television. Most of the time, Cal treated me like a princess, but suddenly he would become violently jealous of my dedication to the guitar, furiously accusing me of loving my music more than him. These erratic, unpredictable mood swings began to concern me. Between trips with me to New York, Lake Tahoe, and Bermuda, he acquired a house hidden in Mill Valley, where the air smelled of redwoods, eucalyptus, and pine. A mother deer with her fawn visited our overgrown garden each morning to nip tender shoots from the rambling, flowering bushes. I was sure I had landed in paradise; however, my musical aspirations were drawing me on. “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep,” I repeated to myself from a half-remembered Robert Frost poem. Although I loved the rustic house, I never really “moved in,” despite Cal’s demands that I make a more serious commitment. The symbols of home, my bears Mosey and Tonka, remained in Canada.
My inchoate concert career was beginning to take shape. The Guitar had been released to critical acclaim, my photo graced the cover of Sound magazine, and overnight my music was played on radio stations, from CBC’s classical programs to CHUM-FM, a pop station at the opposite end of the listening spectrum. Eleanor proudly escorted me to radio interviews and arranged for a feature story in Time magazine. Despite my rejection of his management, Joseph Pastore presented me at Carnegie Hall in March 1975. For this career milestone, Eleanor and Sam Sniderman both flew down to New York with William Littler, the music critic from the Toronto Star. Apprehensive about all the attention this one concert was attracting, I visited a hypnotherapist to see if he could help calm my anticipated stage fright. His relaxing suggestions must have worked, as I played well and received a good review in the New York Times that praised my “flair for brilliance.”
An exultant Sam and Eleanor wined and dined me in an Italian restaurant after the concert. What a great feeling of relief that it was all over! A Toronto debut at the St. Lawrence Centre was followed by recitals in Atlanta, Louisville, Nashville, and Memphis, and a five-city tour of Newfoundland, where my guitar case was forced to share the taxi trunk with a crate of ripe-smelling cod. It exuded a fishy odour for weeks! Suddenly my name seemed to be attracting everyone’s attention, from our local Etobicoke weekly newspaper to international music publications. My mother meticulously cut out every article and pasted them in the first of many large scrapbooks.