Artist / Band

Craig Ruhnke

Origin Toronto, Ontario, 🇨🇦

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Biography

Craig Wells Ruhnke was born in Toronto on December 17, 1949, the eldest son of William and Doris Ruhnke. He studied piano as a boy and taught himself guitar, and by the summer of 1962, at twelve, he was already showing a neighbour at the family cottages how to play his first guitar. In high school he sang and played in the Downwinds, a group that became Strawberry Fair, and he was later associated with a Toronto band called the Groovin’ Company. Through the early 1970s he taught piano at the Neveu music centre while he worked at his songwriting.

His songs reached vinyl before his voice did. In the spring of 1973 the Pinky Dauvin Group released his ‘I’ll Always Love You’ on United Artists, published through Don Valley Music. The following year Ruhnke made his own debut on Reprise with ‘My World’, backed with his version of ‘I’ll Always Love You’.

He moved to United Artists in 1974, and ‘Summer Girl’ became the record people remembered him for. It entered the RPM 100 that August as stations from CKLW in Windsor to CKGM in Montreal and CKY in Winnipeg added it, and by the end of the month it had climbed to No. 2 on RPM’s adult Pop Music Playlist. Five years later RPM still described it as a top ten hit right across the country, and Ruhnke joked that he planned to make the most of the season: “Maybe I’m a one-season artist!” That same August RPM reported that he had produced the United Artists single ‘Me and the Devil’ and the album In the Zephyr Style for the Richmond Hill country group Canadian Zephyr, the start of a production partnership that lasted the rest of the decade.

United Artists kept the singles coming from 1974 to 1976: ‘Baby, We Can Make It’, ‘Sweet Feelin’’, ‘I Need My Woman’s Love’, ‘Surfin’, All Summer Long’, ‘You’re the One’, ‘We’re Two Lucky People’, ‘It’s Good to Know’, ‘Summer Love’ and ‘Why Don’t You Come Up and See Me Sometime’. His first album, Sweet Feelings, appeared in 1975. Ruhnke produced and arranged it himself and played rhythm guitars, keyboards and bass, with Jim Preston on lead guitar, Lorence Hud adding lead guitar to ‘We’re Two Lucky People’, Don Paveling and Archie Platt on bass, Sonnie Bernardi and Jim Gordon on drums, his brother Jon Ruhnke on flute and the Memphis Horns on horns. Ken Friesen engineered the sessions at Eastern Sound in Toronto and at The Memphis Studios in Nashville.

The second United Artists album, Hot Spell, took him to Nashville in 1976. Larry Butler produced it at Jack Clement Recording Studio and American Studio, Bill Justis wrote the string and horn charts, and the players included Bob Moore, Harold Bradley, Tommy Allsup, Jerry Carrigan, Bobby Wood, Billy Sanford, Fred Carter and Bobby Thompson on banjo. Ruhnke wrote every song but one, ‘Make Me Feel the Music’, a co-write. His own bandmates Al Leger and Ron Hiller sang the backing vocals. The same year he produced Canadian Zephyr’s second United Artists album, It Just So Happens.

By the end of the 1970s Ruhnke was a working professional in every corner of the Toronto business. He wrote for Chappell, whose Gerry Renewych he credited with landing his record deals and placing his songs; Chappell sent ‘Wear My Love’ to a recording group in Sweden. He produced Canadian Zephyr after they moved to RCA, wrote and sang jingles, and played clubs around Toronto with the Craig Ruhnke Band: Ron Hiller, Al Leger and Chris Worock. Polydor released the band’s ‘Wear My Love’ and then ‘It’s Time to Fall in Love’, produced by Harry Hinde, and the group taped appearances on Sounds Good and The Patsy Gallant Show early in 1979. He handled his own business affairs, saying he preferred to keep that side simple so he had time to write.

In 1979 he signed quietly with Irving/Almo, A&M’s publishing arm in Canada, where Brian Chater became his champion. A&M released ‘The First Time’ and ‘I Need You to Be There’, and Irving/Almo pressed The Craig Ruhnke Band, a twelve-song album made for radio programmers and never sold in stores.

The third A&M single changed his sound. A&M’s Michael Godin liked the new songs but told Ruhnke he was producing them the wrong way, and the two went into Manta Sound with drummer Barry Keane, bassist Tom Szczesniak and guitarist Bob Mann, Ruhnke on keyboards and vocals. ‘You’re a Heartbreaker’ came out of that date, and ‘Heartache’ followed from the same session. ‘You’re a Heartbreaker’ reached No. 10 on RPM’s Adult Oriented Playlist in September 1980. That summer Ruhnke re-signed with Irving/Almo on a three-singles-a-year arrangement and laid out his thinking for RPM. Singles kept the publishing money coming in, which kept the records economically viable; he earned about half his living from writing, and his band played fifty weeks a year in Ontario clubs. “I just don’t want to waste time writing esoteric album cuts,” he said. Chater’s first big placement was ‘Two Hearts’, which the Raes recorded as the title track and single of their 1980 A&M album.

Irving & Almo issued Reach Out in 1981 under the billing Craig Ruhnke His Piano and Orchestra, an album he produced himself. A&M released ‘I Can’t Live Without Your Love’ and ‘Reach Out’ as singles, both co-produced with Godin. In 1982 he sang ‘In the Movies’ as a duet with Cathy Kinsman on Songmaster, and Sefel Records released Just Like the Old Times. By then his studio circle was settled: Bob Mann on guitars, Tom Szczesniak on bass, Barry Keane on drums, Matt Zimbel on percussion, John Johnson on saxophone and Dave Tyson on synthesizers, with The Girls on background vocals and Ruhnke playing Fender Rhodes, grand piano, organ, clavinet, guitars and bass. Steve Vaughan engineered and remixed most of it at Master’s Workshop, with tracks from Manta Sound and Phase One. Sefel and then Avalon Records carried the singles, among them ‘Baby Blue’, ‘Just Like Falling in Love Again’, ‘You Are My Inspiration’ and ‘Oooh Baby’.

Japan took to him. Overseas Records, a Teichiku label, released True Love on October 21, 1983, a nine-song album of his newest material with an illustrated cover by Keisuke Katouno and the words and music credited to Ruhnke throughout. Japanese singles of ‘Keep the Flame’ and ‘Nancy Jane’ followed, and in 1985 Overseas compiled Urban Breeze in Love on CD.

A&M brought out Keep the Flame in Canada in 1984. Ruhnke produced and arranged most of it, and Godin produced ‘Baby Blue’, ‘You’re All That I Need’ and ‘You Are My Inspiration’ for Inspector Productions. Recording took place at Manta Sound in Toronto and Soundpath Studios in Oakville, with the regular crew joined by Al Leger on guitar and harmonica and singers Colina Phillips, Shawn Jackson and Sharon Lee Williams. Debbie Fleming sang lead on ‘Two Hearts’. Ruhnke programmed the Linn drum on ‘You’re So Beautiful’ and wrote the string arrangements on four songs. A&M pulled ‘You’re So Beautiful’ and ‘Give Me the Nightime’ as singles.

From 1985 his records came out on Pinnacle Records, the label and publishing company behind his music for the rest of the decade. The singles kept arriving: ‘Lovin’ Eyes’, ‘Love’s a Celebration’, ‘You Got to Believe’, ‘You Know I Want You (So Bad)’, ‘A Love Song’, ‘Dancin at Midnight’ in February 1988 and ‘South Sea Island’ in 1989. Pinnacle gathered the hits and the later songs on The Craig Ruhnke Collection Volume 1 in 1991, adding titles such as ‘Put It in a Love Song’, ‘A Lighthouse in the Storm’, ‘Hold Me Now’ and ‘Good, Good Times (All Summer Long)’.

He also worked on other people’s records, among them the album Golden Days, made in Oakville with Pabby and Maya Rao. Neighbours remembered his Hallowe’en humour and the jokes he made about his lawn, and couples danced to his songs at their weddings. In 2011 Riverman in South Korea and Vivid Sound in Japan reissued The Craig Ruhnke Band, Just Like the Old Times and Keep the Flame with extra tracks added, and his early 1980s records found a second audience among Asian collectors of light, melodic AOR.

Craig Ruhnke died on April 14, 2015, with his family beside him, after a year-long battle with cancer. He left his wife Nancy, his son Adam and his mother Doris. His family wrote that he always considered himself lucky to be able to play the music he loved.

-Robert Williston