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Always a new day for Crack of Dawn

Veteran R&B combo includes two Barrie men
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Crack of Dawn includes two Barrie residents (Photo contributed)

One would suppose playing rock and roll in whatever form amounts to drinking from the fountain of youth. If so, the band known as Crack of Dawn has been drinking with both hands for more than 40 years.

They’ve kept the spirit of good-time R&B/Soul Music going since their days in Toronto in the mid-1970s, amid a pretty stale music scene in the “Big Smoke”, to which they brought “youthful sensibilities to the music we played and enjoyed.”

The words are those of Barrie resident Alvin Jones, woodwind player and business manager with the band. His neighbour, Trevor Daley, trombonist, band manager and “hand-holding representative”, says simply, “We were just playing with rhythm and feeling. The emphasis in our (live performances) was bottom-end, bass, non-existent in local music.”

The long-time members admit to introducing some of the sounds of the West Indies to mix with the R&B emanating through the Toronto scene.

Says Daley, “Most of us are of West Indian descent. We grew up on music without borders; we listened to everything that was good and rhythmic, so it was no stretch for us to incorporate R&B, funk, reggae and Canadiana into our music.

When Crack of Dawn was formed, says Jones, “Several members in the group were recent immigrants from the islands, so were more deeply exposed to those island influences, also including a heavy dose of North American music. The transition between a reggae vibe and R&B wasn’t that difficult, which we prove when we do the song Boobie Ruby live.”

Indeed, Boobie Ruby was released last year, and is delighting all who listen.

Daley and Jones consider themselves ‘pathfinders’ more than anything else.

“We certainly played at venues that weren’t previously open to other young black groups at the time,” says Jones. “I still remember playing at the Granite club in Toronto, a bastion of upper-middle-class values, (where) normally blacks go through the back door and cutlery check on the way out.

“I also remember playing for bikers (when), our bass player at the time came on stage in his ‘tighty whities’ which made the mob go wild, it was very exciting and they enjoyed our music and we enjoyed playing for them.”

Daley: “We were the first black group to be signed to a major label in Canada and we did not compromise our music. The record company came to us rather than us chasing them. We did successful tours across Canada in major concert venues and sold them out. No black groups were doing that then.”

In picking a song of which the band is proudest, Board Walking from Crack of Dawn’s first album with Columbia Records, tops Jones list.

Daley cites the Spotlight album “and the track I’m most impressed with is Crack Of Dawn, a very great, feel-good song”

Alvin’s brother came to Barrie in early 1990, and Alvin’s wife “being from Thunder Bay, just loved the small-town feel compared to Toronto. I didn’t have a chance of staying in Toronto. I’ve grown to love Barrie and wouldn’t live anywhere else”.

Daley concurs: “I moved here and loved the beach, I was never able to put my feet in Toronto beaches, so this was a big thing. It was summer, no one told me about the winter. But it is a great city to raise kids.”

Crack of Dawn says the Spotlight album is sparking a U.K. and European tour. “We will also do an across Canada tour and the U.S.

“We’re overjoyed by the response” to the album released in March, and is being distributed through Pheremone Records/Universal across Canada.

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Glenn Wilkins

About the Author: Glenn Wilkins

Glenn Wilkins, in a 30-year media career, has written for print and electronic media, as well as for TV and radio. Glenn has two books under his belt, profiling Canadian actors on Broadway and NHL coaches.
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