Captain Vengeance

Craig Salkeld is a Saskatoon singer, keyboard player and songwriter who has spent more than forty years working every side of Saskatchewan music, from radio singles to orchestra pits.

He put out a self-released single, ‘Celebrate’ backed with ‘Time to Say Goodbye’, cut at Studio West in Saskatoon. The labels carry his name and nothing else: no date, no catalogue number, no credits. He also turned up on the Saskatoon radio compilations, singing his own ‘Ask Me Again’ on the 1988 edition and ‘Another Day, Another Dollar’ on C95 Cityworks ’89 / Z99 Streetrock ’89. On that track he sang, wrote and produced, with Brent Burlingham on drums and sequencing and Sheldon Corbett on saxophone. He also played keyboards for Howie Mandel.

In 1994 FACTOR approved him for its independent recording loan program, and the next year he released his album, Captain Vengeance (CSCD01), with help from FACTOR and the Saskatchewan Arts Board. All eleven songs were his. He co-produced it with Les Cantin, who recorded and mixed it at The Creative House in Saskatoon. Joel Grundahl and Jack Semple shared the guitars and split the solos between them, Miles Hill played bass, Phil Robertson played drums, and Sheldon Corbett came back for a saxophone part on ‘Where Are You Running’. Payton Byrns painted the cover, and the title itself came from a friend, Glen Kerby.

The stage took up much of the years that followed. Salkeld worked for decades with SaskExpress, the Regina musical theatre company run by Danny Balkwill, whom he had thanked in the Captain Vengeance booklet. He was musical director for several productions at Regina’s Globe Theatre, among them Mamma Mia! and The Last Resort, which opened the 2013–14 season with him at the keyboard onstage. He also directed music at Theatre Under the Stars in Vancouver, and backed Rory Allen, Brad Johner and Petula Clark along the way.

His songs travelled without him too. He wrote music for films shown on the Disney Channel, The Learning Channel, Discovery and Showtime, and in 2009 Vancouver jazz singer Steve Maddock built his album Memory Cafe around standards and Salkeld originals, with Miles Black, Bill Coon, Jodi Proznick and Craig Scott in the band.

The partnership with Jack Semple outlasted all of it. In 2022 the two were still recording together, Salkeld on piano and Semple on guitar, on flutist Marie-Véronique Bourque’s ‘Bossa for a Rough Time’.

-Robert Williston