Marble Hall

Marble Hall was the name on a Montreal single that Brian Redmond and producer Hank Squires made in the winter of 1970, one of the first 45s on the new Aquarius label. Redmond counted it as the third record by The Sound Box, now under another name, made with Bill Lowell and a cast of Montreal musicians.

The A-side was already three years old. It belonged to Louis McKelvey, an Irish guitarist from Killorglin, County Kerry, who had met Squires in Johannesburg. Squires, born Henry Stephen Smitsdorff, led The A-Cads and brought McKelvey into the band on lead guitar in late 1965. McKelvey sailed for Montreal in 1966 with ten dollars, while Squires tried London, could not get a work permit, and landed in Montreal that December. McKelvey formed Influence, who cut ‘Marble Hall’ as a demo in 1967. After that band came a return to England, the scrapped Polydor album by Milkwood, and a hard rock band called Damage that drew biker crowds, and in 1970 a reunion with Squires, as songwriter and session guitarist on the Marble Hall A-side.

McKelvey’s co-writer, credited on the label as R. Gomez, was an Englishman who had worked as a DJ and as road manager for the singer Millie. Redmond sang and played drums, and remembered recording in the Côte-des-Neiges area, with Michel Dugas, his Sound Box guitarist, and Phil Vyvial on guitar. The flip was ‘Get Your Thing Together’, by songwriter Martin Martin.

Aquarius, co-founded by Redmond’s old booker Donald Tarlton, issued the single as AQ-5003 with distribution through London, and radio went for the flip. In April 1970 Cash Box carried a report from Pierre Belamere of London’s Montreal branch that ‘Get Your Thing Together’ was the top Canadian single in Quebec. RPM reported on May 2, 1970 that ‘Get Your Thing Together’ was No. 5 at CFOX Montreal and showing strong action through Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, though the magazine called the group Marble Arch. The same issue had ‘Marble Hall’ on its Top 50 Canadian chart.

No second single followed. Redmond kept working with Squires and Martin, and in 1972 recorded ‘Chimbombay’ under the name Mashiya.

-Robert Williston