Shaw, Mel
Websites:
No
Origin:
Banff - Calgary, Alberta
Biography:
Canadian Record industry pioneer Melvyn James Foster Shaw passed away Wednesday, January 19, 2022, in Regina Saskatchewan at age 82. The cause of death is listed as dementia.
Born in Banff Alberta, Mel was an early sparkplug on the Calgary domestic music scene, staging local dance hops, promoting local talent and even staging his own Guy & Dolls television show on CHCT-TV. When the city did not operate its own recording studio in the late 1950’s Shaw convinced an engineer at CFAC Radio station to help him record his debut 45, Mean Lover/The Swinging Sound, considered the first-ever pop single to be recorded in Calgary.
In 1965, Shaw discovered a local six-piece band, The Rebounds, agreed to manage and record them, changed their name to the Stampeders, and when their first single House of Shake didn’t receive any traction, he bundled Rich Dodson, Ronnie King, Kim Berly, Van Louis, Brendan Lyttle and Race Holliday along with Shaw’s wife Fran and two children into a dilapidated Cadillac limo with a U-Haul trailer and headed east to Toronto.
At a time when CRTC regulations promoting domestic talent on radio did not exist and independent labels had not yet established themselves to utilize their new radio exposure opportunities, Shaw established Music World Creations (MWC, now owned by Unidisc), and after a few false starts and the departure of Lyttle, Holliday and Louis, the remaining three members–guitarist /vocalist Rich Dodson, bassist/vocalist Ronnie King and drummer Kim Berly– hit pay dirt in 1971 when Carry Me became their first radio hit single. This was followed by Sweet City Woman and the release of their debut album Against the Grain.
Sweet City Woman proved to be a global hit, topping the Canadian charts, reaching #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. and setting up a European tour and a one-hour Canadian TV special entitled A Visit To Planet Earth, produced by Shaw. Achievements which in 192 earned the band three Junos for Best Group, Best Composition (Sweet City Woman) and Best Producer (Mel Shaw).
Future albums displayed the trio’s individuality, with Dodson’s pop tracks (Devil You) synergizing with King’s more rock side (Wild Eyes) and Berly’s soulful ballads (such as Oh My Lady).
On the industry side, Shaw served as the first president of CARAS, (1975-1978), president of the Canadian Independent Record Producers, and an executive producer for FACTOR–efforts which resulted in his being honoured with the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Juno Award in 1991, and the SOCAN CanCon Guardian Award in 2021.
In 1988, Shaw spearheaded a Canadian Music Publishers campaign to raise the songwriter’s royalty rate in Canada with a slogan of « Two Cents Too Long. » He talked to the Canadian Legislative Assembly with Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman and many other songwriters who successfully raised the royalty rate, which at the time, was one of the lowest in the world.
Shaw moved his family to Nashville in 1992 and he spent 25 years on Music Row before returning to Canada where he and Fran edited and published Under the Living Skies, a collection of 53 short stories by Saskatchewan author Bert McNair.
In 2006, Shaw produced the track Save Your Dreams by Canadian country singer, Justine Stewart, who performed the song at the televised, 2006 World AIDS Day Concert in Beijing. The Central China Television (CCTV) primetime special aired throughout Asia and Europe to an audience of over 500 million.
Shaw is survived by his wife Fran, children David (Marie) and Susan, sister Maureen (Max) and his legacy continues with Dodson, King and Berly who have plans to celebrate their 50th anniversary with a 37-city concert tour that has been re-scheduled twice and is now set to open March 24 in Guelph, ON.
By Keith Sharp – Music Express
Canadian Record industry pioneer Melvyn James Foster Shaw, who passed away Wednesday, January 19th, 2022 in Regina Saskatchewan at the age of 82 years old was directly involved in the establishment of Alberta Music Express back in October 1976.
Trying to avoid being assigned to covering the daytime rodeo events for The Calgary Herald, this writer volunteered to run a major feature on the band, set to run during the newspaper’s weekend entertainment supple
Shaw’s band, The Stampeders had become a major Canadian success story with the release of hit singles; “Carry Me” and “Sweet City Woman” when they were booked to return home to Calgary to perform at the annual Calgary Stampede Rodeo evening entertainment schedule during the first week of July that year.
Unfortunately, the band performed their concert on the previous Thursday and Herald music Brian Brennan shredded the band so badly that the Herald felt obliged to pull my feature from the weekend issue – and then asked me to contact Shaw and explain to him why the feature was pulled!
Mel was extremely understanding and was supportive when I told him I planned to release my feature to the Canadian Press national news service. CP reported back after three weeks that some 17 major newspapers had picked up my piece, the one major absentee being the Herald. Determined to publish that story in Calgary I launched Alberta Music Express that October with the sole objective of publishing my Stampeders’ piece. Forty-Five years later, Music Express (ME) is still functioning and still covering The Stampeders.
Born in Banff Alberta, Mel was an early sparkplug on the Calgary domestic music scene, staging local dance hops, promoting local talent and even staging his own “Guy And Girls” television show on CHCT-TV. When the city did not operate its own recording studio in the late 1950’s Shaw convinced an engineer at CFAC Radio station to help him record his début 45 “Mean Lover/The Swinging Sound”, considered the first-ever pop single to be recorded in Calgary.
In 1965, Shaw discovered a local six-piece band, The Rebounds, agreed to manage and record them, changed their name to the Stampeders, and when their first single “House Of Shake” didn’t receive any traction he bundled Rich Dodson, Ronnie King, Kim Berly, Van Louis, Brendan Lyttle and Race Holliday along with Shaw’s wife Fran and two children into a dilapidated Cadillac hauling a U-Haul eastwards to Toronto.
At a time when CRTC regulations promoting domestic talent on the radio did not exist and independent labels had not yet established themselves to utilize their new radio exposure opportunities, Shaw established Music World Creations (MWC), and after a few false starts and the departure of Lyttle, Holliday and Louis, the remaining three members; guitarist/vocalist Rich Dodson, bassist/vocalist Ronnie King and drummer Kim Berly, hit pay dirt in 1971 when “Carry Me” became their first radio hit single. This was followed by “Sweet City Woman” and the release of their debut album `Against The Grain’.
Sweet City Woman proved to be a global hit, topping the Canadian charts, reaching #8 on the US Billboard charts and setting up a European tour and a one-hour Canadian TV special “A Visit To Planet Earth” produced by Shaw. Achievements which in 1971 earned the band four Juno Awards for Best Vocal Instrumental Group, Best Single “Sweet City Woman”, Best Composer Rich Dodson, and Best Producer Mel Shaw.
Future albums displayed the trio’s individuality with Dodson’s pop tracks “Devil You”, synergizing with King’s more rock side “Wild Eyes”, and Berly’s soulful ballads “Oh My Lady”, as he encouraged them to write and record their own material.
Sweet City Woman proved to be a global hit, topping the Canadian charts, reaching #8 on the US Billboard charts and setting up a European tour and a one-hour Canadian TV special “A Visit To Planet Earth” produced by Shaw. Achievements which in 1971 earned the band four Juno Awards for Best Vocal Instrumental Group, Best Single “Sweet City Woman”, Best Composer Rich Dodson, and Best Producer Mel Shaw.
Future albums displayed the trio’s individuality with Dodson’s pop tracks “Devil You”, synergizing with King’s more rock side “Wild Eyes”, and Berly’s soulful ballads “Oh My Lady”, as he encouraged them to write and record their own material.
Shaw moved his family to Nashville in 1992 and he spent 25 years on Nashville’s Music Row before returning to Canada when he joined forces with his wife Fran to publish Under The Living Skies a collection of 53 short stories by Saskatchewan author Bert McNair.
Shaw is survived by his wife Fran, children David (Marie) and Susan and sister Maureen (Max) and his legacy continues with Dodson, King and Berly who are still performing together and are about to celebrate their 50th-anniversary concert tour.
-Keith Sharp
Calgary Herald
The 'North Star' of the Stampeders, legendary manager Mel Shaw remembered for his passion, generosity and drive
In 1967, Calgary rock band the Stampeders made a pilgrimage to New York City.
Even in 1967 and even in New York, this entourage must have been a strange spectacle. At the time, there were six members in the band. They wore matching denim outfits that had been dyed canary yellow, black cowboy hats, black shirts and white dickies as they “strutted around New York” and attempted to set up meetings with industry types. At one point, this motley crew even made their way to Ed Sullivan’s office.
“We were asked on a couple of occasions if we were clergical students,” says Kim Berly, the Stampeders’ drummer.
A year earlier, the band had packed up their things in Calgary and made the long trip to Toronto. They rode through the prairies in a 1957 limousine they had dubbed “The Big Smoker” because it tended to fill up with toxic fumes due to a hole in the exhaust. It would be four long and lean years before the Stampeders would break big with their single Sweet City Woman, eventually turning them into one of Canada’s most successful musical acts. But even in those tough years, the band kept their eyes on the prize. Much of this was due to the unyielding enthusiasm of their ambitious manager, Mel Shaw. He kept the band moving forward even when things looked grim and had a vision from the beginning. It was his idea to dress the band up in dyed-denim outfits. His wife, Fran, did this handiwork, transforming the beige suits into various gaudy colours using dyes in a bathtub. In the act’s earliest days, it was also Shaw who somehow convinced them to change their name from the Rebounds to the Stampeders, even though the new moniker seemed unbearably square to a teenage Berly and the other members in 1965. It was Shaw’s idea not only to relocate the band to Toronto but to join them in the Big Smoker with his wife and two small children.
And it would have surely been Shaw, who had a history of convincing young Calgary bands to adopt visual gimmicks, to have the then-unknown Stampeders strut around New York in 1967 wearing dickies and attention-catching canary-yellow denim, Berly says.
“He always had another idea, whether it was going to work or not,” he says. “It didn’t matter because we were always trying something. That was his genius. He would always keep you positive. You never heard Mel say, ‘Well, I guess that’s not going to work’ or ‘I don’t know how long I can do this’ or anything like that. There were never any maybes. It was a sure thing. For those of us who wanted that, we were all in.”
Born in Banff in 1939, Shaw passed away on Jan. 19 in Regina at the age of 82 after suffering from dementia. He accomplished much during his 60-plus years in the industry as a Juno-winning producer, manager and songwriter. He became a mentor for countless young artists and was a tireless advocate for Canadian musicians. He was the founding president of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1987, he led a successful campaign to get royalty rates boosted for songwriters in Canada. He presented his case to Ottawa alongside Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman and others.
But he may be best remembered as a driving force behind the success of the Stampeders, a band that continues to tour the nostalgia circuit based on their spectacular international success in the 1970s. He was already a mover and shaker in Calgary’s fledgling music scene when he met the then six-piece act. In 1960, he had recorded the rock ‘n’ roll single Mean Lover, which may have been the first rock-pop single recorded in Calgary. He started the Calgary-based label, SOTAN Records, which released a 1963 single Shaw wrote for a band called The Echo-Tones, which featured a pre-Three Dog Night Floyd Sneed on drums. He became a fervent cheerleader and spokesman for the local scene in the 1960s as the Calgary correspondent for RPM, at the time Canada’s only music industry publication.
He also hosted a local cable show called Guys and Dolls, which is where he met the earliest incarnation of the Stampeders. A 1965 “Calgary Stampede Special” edition of RPM placed a pic of the youthful six-piece on its cover and credited “Personal Manager Mel Shaw” for much of the band’s success. He was with the Stampeders through early struggles in Toronto and their wild success in the 1970s after they had slimmed down to a trio featuring Berly, Rich Dodson and Ronnie King. It was a heady time for the act, which enjoyed gold albums, world tours and a sweep of the 1972 Juno Awards, including a trophy for Shaw for producing Sweet City Woman.
Internal strife and changing musical tastes led to the band fizzling out by 1979 and Shaw eventually left for Nashville, where he continued to manage acts and produce records.
But unlike many in the industry, Shaw never allowed his busy schedule to interfere with his duties as a doting father to son David and daughter Susan.
“My dad came from a broken home,” says David, now an L.A-based musician and radio host who performs under the name Shark. “His parents split up and he was brought up with his sister and brother by his mom. The thing is, he made damn sure that wasn’t going to happen to his family. When the Stampeders toured Europe, he brought us with them. Any other manager or businessman wouldn’t even bat an eye saying ‘I’ve got something to do, see you in two months.’ But he always brought us with him and really made that work.”
Shark, who is now program director of the all-Canadian Internet radio station Maple Music Cafe in Los Angeles, remembers going to shows with his father in Toronto, including The Who and an early Bruce Springsteen concert.
“Sometimes he would just drive and drop me off and I’d go see Devo by myself,” he says with a laugh. “But it was definitely a positive thing and there was always music and a great stereo at home.”
Shaw spent much of his later life developing a musical called Dream Singer, which he planned to mount on Broadway. But even as he suffered from dementia, he was still energetic and possessed a fierce can-do attitude.
“He was so full of ideas, all the time,” Shark says. “Sometimes my mom would just say ‘Dad wants to talk to you.’ And he would say ‘What about this? What do you think of this?’ A guy like him never retired. Even up to a conversation I had with him a month ago, where we talked about how much the industry had changed. He was still running over all these ideas.”
Berly lost contact with Shaw not long after the 1979 Stampeders split. But in 1991, Berly and Dodson were asked to participate in a “where-are-they-now” themed episode of the Dini Petty Show. Producers surprised them by having both Ronnie King and Shaw show up on the show. That reunion eventually led to the Stampeders getting back together as a touring act that continues to this day. But Berly said the band decided they didn’t need a manager as a nostalgia act, which he now admits did not sit well with Shaw. Still, he said they eventually made up and he remained friends with Shaw until his death last week.
“I call him the North Star for the three of us,” says Berly. “He was our guiding light. We were family. He was a big brother, he was a mentor, he was a manager and he was loved.”
-Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald
