David Sebastian Bach

David Sebastian Bach was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, and by the age of four he was singing and telling stories on a local radio station. At five he made his first record, for the Melody Music Company of New York. He kept singing in bands through high school and after, and worked as a disc jockey at radio and television stations across Canada. In the mid-1960s he left for London to study acting and singing.

London stayed his base for more than a decade, and the work took him across Europe and on to Asia, Africa and the Middle East as a singer, songwriter, producer, playwright and director. He recorded in five languages and, by his account, had hits in France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Denmark and England. In Germany he recorded schlager for Colorit, an EMI Electrola imprint. 'Der Regen fiel auf Santorin' backed with 'Lass alles steh'n und liegen' came out in 1973, and a second Colorit single followed in 1974. In Britain he cut the Righteous Brothers' 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling' for Bulldog Records, with 'Give Me Back That Old Familiar Feeling' on the other side. Parlophone issued the same pairing in South Africa in 1974, leading with 'Give Me Back That Familiar Feeling'. He also counts an album, 200 Years On..., among his recordings from those years.

In 1976 he appeared on the BBC's Pebble Mill Showcase, and that summer he was cast in Space: 1999, the Gerry Anderson science fiction series starring Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. In 'The AB Chrysalis', directed by Val Guest, he played the Guardian's Brother. On stage he appeared in the rock musical Rock Nativity and later voiced the man-eating plant Audrey II in a touring company of Little Shop of Horrors.

Bach came back to Canada in the late 1970s and mounted seven cross-country tours between 1978 and 1982, singing jazz, pop, country and rock. Then he settled in Hamilton to, in his words, give something back. He launched the Blue Ox Variety Theatrical Agency, which booked performers from the United States to the Middle East for anything from trade shows and weddings to films and commercials, and its earnings helped carry his next venture, the Bach Academy for the Performing Arts. In 1983 the academy bought a house on Main Street East, built in 1939 by a doctor for his wife, and converted it into classrooms fitted for each subject, a dance studio with a bust of Johann Sebastian Bach by the fireplace, and a recording studio where students could cut demo tapes. Ten teachers, each holding at least a bachelor's degree, taught singing, acting, public speaking, dance from jazz and tap to belly dancing, and nearly every instrument except the harp. The school was approved by the Ontario government, so tuition was tax deductible, and it never sold or rented instruments to students, a practice Bach felt would compromise its position. Blue Ox Records ran from the same premises.

Bach was a founding member of the Leman Brothers Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, a Hamilton-Wentworth volunteer group named for Craig and Michael Leman, brothers who died of Duchenne muscular dystrophy within six months of each other in 1982 and 1983. He served as its vice-president in 1983 and 1984 and as president in 1985. For the foundation he wrote 'What Can We Do?', and fellow Hamilton native Ian Thomas arranged and produced it in his own studio. Blue Ox issued it as a 7" single with the vocal on one side and the instrumental on the other, pressed by Quality Records, and every dollar of net proceeds went to the foundation, which passed its funds each year to the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada for research and patient services. The sleeve thanks Thomas for his patience and his studio, and Larry Vladetic for his musicality and moral support. Bach also self-produced a single on his Blue Oxford label, 'Let Me Love You', a Martin and Coulter song, backed with 'Lovin' You', which he co-wrote with Baxter and Graybach. M. Kersey arranged both sides.

Bach then moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where he raised his family and started Murder Ink Productions, an award-winning murder mystery dinner theatre company, along with the Blue Ox Talent Agency, a licensed and bonded agency and management firm. Blue Ox Records moved with him. He spent more than twenty years as a member of the Screen Actors Guild, working in feature films, commercials and a long run of theatre productions.

In the early 2000s he moved to Las Vegas. There he wrote and directed two stage productions, Sin City Confidential and Pageants Can Be Murder, the latter staged at the Alexis Park Resort. He fronts Ear Candy, a seven-piece jazz ensemble led musically by Joe Darro, longtime accompanist to Sammy Davis Jr. and Debbie Reynolds, and turns up at local jazz rooms as a solo act or with a duo, trio or quartet. Through Blue Ox Records he produced Lucky Still for the singer, songwriter and author Barbara Reed, recorded with players drawn from the Los Angeles and Las Vegas scenes.

Bach plays several instruments, has sung for heads of state including Queen Elizabeth II, and says he is a fifth-generation grandson of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Globe and Mail once called him the last of the Renaissance men.

-Robert Williston

Contact: 702.972.7990   accentonyou2@gmail.com