Ouie Di Douie b/w Remember Those Days

Over the winter of 1964 and 1965, CHUM ran a nightly feature called the Battle, setting new records against each other and letting listeners pick the winner. One night the challenger was 'Ouie Di Douie', a rough, goofy beat-group stomper by a Toronto band called the Marrs Five, pressed on the tiny local Amato label. It won. The next night it lost, and the record dropped off Toronto radio.

It found a second home on the Prairies. Johnny Onn at CJME in Regina put the single on the air and found his listeners liked it, and RPM carried the story in its February 8, 1965 issue. Within about three weeks Onn's support had turned into real distribution. Laurel Records of Winnipeg took the record for Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and Canadian Music Sales of Toronto handled the rest of the country.

Roy Sluiter wrote the A-side. The flip, 'Remember Those Days', came from Angy Campagnolo. Neither the label nor RPM named the players, and the five members of the Marrs Five have not been identified.

Sluiter kept writing. Fifteen years later he was in Mississauga, recording local players for the Newport and Ratz labels. In 1979 his group Train Gang answered the Mississauga train derailment with 'Mississauga Mishap', and in 1980 he produced and engineered the compilation Mississauga "Live", whose sleeve credits the recording to the Newport Hotel.

-Robert Williston