Steppin' Out

Steppin' Out
Back then, I was doing what was loosely called, "Folk Music". The folkies didn't think I was a folk singer, but everyone else did because I played an acoustic guitar and had no backup band. I remember someone suggesting that I should go into Country Music, since they kind of had the same setup. I just shuddered at the thought, thinking how I'd escaped all that by leaving Saskatchewan.

I stuck with the folky, singer-songwriter thing, made my first album, "Steppin' Out", in Jerry Greenburg's 8-track studio in N.D.G., and played The Yellow Door, Rose's Cantina, CEGEP coffeehouses, etc., as well as making a couple of trips back out West where I played places like The Parktown in Saskatoon, and The Hovel, in Edmonton (yeah, I know it sounds bad, but Bruce Springsteen played there too, before he got really famous). I also did a fair bit of busking down in Old Montréal. Met some really interesting people that way...

I came close to getting a deal a few times during the 70's, had Ben Kaye as my publisher (I guess he'd have been my manager too if there had been enough of a career to manage), and wrote a ton of songs, several a day sometimes. Finally, a friend said, "You know, a lot of these songs would sound good with a rock band..."