Cameron Molloy

Cameron Molloy is a native of Golden, B.C., and grew up in the Kootenays in the mid-1960s. Watching the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show settled it for him: music was what he wanted to do. He played in what he later called a couple of “sloppy bands”, moved toward acoustic music at college in 1968 and 1969, and wore out the Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, still two of his all-time favourite albums.

He and a friend then joined a band led by Nigel Pickering, a co-founder of Spanky & Our Gang, who gave him a lesson he never forgot: “between this fret here (the first fret) and the 12th fret, you got six strings, you got 72 positions.”

In August 1974 Stan Cayer announced that SGM Records of Vancouver had signed Cameron Molloy and Black Elk, a four-man country-rock group from Cranbrook. By September they were in SGM’s Vancouver studio cutting six sides with Cayer before deciding which would be the first single. SGM released three Molloy singles: ‘Bar-rooms Truck-Stops’ backed with ‘Lose the Blues’ in 1975, then ‘ICBC Blues’ and ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’ with ‘Game With the Blues’ in 1976. ‘ICBC Blues’, a swipe at the province’s public auto insurer, came with an edited version on the A-side for radio, and its runout grooves are etched 6 FEB 76.

In 1977 the public ballot at B.C.’s Danny Awards named Vancouver’s Cameron Molloy the most outstanding single performer. As Molloy tells it, a Vancouver promoter then passed his tape to CBC producer Craig Wood, which led to an appearance on CBC’s Country Roads and, in 1978, a Radio Canada International transcription album (RCI 486), produced by Wood and recorded by Gene Loverock. The players were some of the best on the West Coast, including Valdy and Dan Smith on guitars, Claire Lawrence on harmonica, Gary Comeau on fiddle, Stan Bell on steel and Valerie Lord on backing vocals. Molloy wrote everything except Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Poncho and Lefty’, and when he played his version for Van Zandt, the verdict was “You nailed it!” Molloy “just about floated out of the room.” That same year he shared a single on Village Records with Joanne Martineau, his side being ‘My Alberta Home’.

Wood stayed with him for the next record, the Silvertip LP Molloy (ST 1001), producing it at Pinewood Studios in Vancouver with Alan Perkins engineering. Wood also played guitar and mandolin. Valerie Lord now sang lead alongside Molloy, John Cronin played guitar, dobro and Jew’s harp, and Jack Hollenberg played pedal steel. ‘Honky Tonk Life’, ‘Ride That West Wind’ and ‘Ten More Miles’ came back from the RCI album in tighter versions. With the Molloy Gang he cut ‘Tennessee Belle’ and ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ for Rhinestone in 1980. Silvertip, working out of 9th Avenue S.E. in Calgary, followed with ‘Big Muddy Badlands’, written with Lord, and ‘Dusty Rose’, written with Hollenberg and David Conley, in 1982, and ‘Emilia-Anne’ with a new ‘Ride That West Wind’ in 1983.

In 1986 he joined Alberta singer Laura Vinson on ‘Long Distance Love Affair’, a song she wrote with Johnny Nash, for Edmonton’s Royalty Records, with R. Harlan Smith producing, and then put together the Silver Weasel Express. ‘Diamonds in the Dark’, on Vancouver’s Rana Records, entered the RPM country chart in December 1986 and reached No. 14 in March 1987. A year later RPM’s Big Country Awards nominated Cameron Molloy & Silver Weasel Express for Outstanding New Artist, alongside Blue Rodeo, Boone & the Girls, Floyd Tolman and Karen Linsley. Molloy produced the 1988 follow-up himself, ‘Only the Beer’ and ‘Pardon My Heart’, both written with Denis Gunn and recorded at Bullfrog Studios in Vancouver with “Bella Coola” Bart Gurr engineering. By then his manager, Terry Williams, was in Anchorage, Alaska. Rana also issued a Best of Molloy LP.

In 1994 RPM reported him living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His album Blue Midnight came out on Silvertip, produced by Chris Lenzinger and Vi GloQuinto, with Molloy writing alongside Sharon Anderson, Sterling Whipple, Ron Demmans and Denis Gunn. The first single, ‘Blue Heart at Midnight’, was recorded at the Tree, Sound Shop and Quadrophonic studios in Nashville and entered the RPM country chart at No. 93 on July 25, 1994.

Molloy settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and calls what he plays Americana, built from blues, folk and country roots. The Drivin’ Wheel came out in December 2014 with new versions of ‘Pardon My Heart’, ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’ and ‘Wild Rose of the Prairie’. Westwind Rider followed on June 22, 2018, twenty songs over 72 minutes running back through ‘Ride That Westwind’, ‘Tennessee Belle’, ‘Diamonds in the Dark’, ‘Blue Heart at Midnight’, ‘Pancho and Lefty’ and ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’. He is still out playing with Cameron Molloy & The Drivin’ Wheel, mixing his own songs with Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, the Byrds, Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead.

-Robert Williston