HARD WORK & PROMOTION


George was never the most serious musician you would ever hope to find but he sure could sing. Whenever he was able to attend our dance, the evening would be filled with great vocals. When he couldn't, we simply switched to instrumentals which suited the kids just fine as none of us felt capable of handling the singing at that time.

We were playing very often and becoming known as a band of very dedicated and hard working musicians. We practiced whenever possible in whichever living room was available and sacrificed everything we had to improve our sound, our stage appearance, and our choreographed steps to many of the songs we played.

We had finally reached the point of giving "The Lakers" some serious competition when it came to local and "out of town" bookings. Not being satisfied simply hearing our dances advertised on the radio or with putting up posters, we often rented a public address system from a local electronics shop. A large speaker was mounted on the roof of one of our cars and with microphone in hand, we would drive around town doing our own advertising. This time spent proved to be of great value and everyone began to know who we were. If not, they asked rather quickly.

As a variety act to our show, we added three local girls who sang together and called them "The Temptations" to go along with the band's original name. They provided songs by "The Supremes" and many other female groups that had become famous in the music business. Denise, Della and Trudy did a fine job for us.

Eventually, all of us contributed to the vocals as George wasn't always available for all of our dances and the kids were now expecting us to sing rather than simply play. "The Beatles" and the "British Invasion" as it was called, had just begun.

The Paramount theatre, the Wright Theatre and  the Rabbit Lake Drive-In were hiring us to play before the start of the featured film and school dances were a regular event. Out of town bookings included Dryden, Sioux Narrows, Sioux Lookout, Red Lake, and Minaki, Ontario and we were quickly becoming a household name.


...A NEW ERA