Early Mantras

My musical experiments began in the crib, I am told. My cousin Donna Kaye tells me that she remembers me as a baby greeting her arrival by rocking back and forth, holding the crib bars, belting out "A, You're Adorable, B, You're So Beautiful", one of the pop standards of the day. Indeed the radio played a huge part in my inner life, and many a song became an early mantra, even with the words unclear or confused, for hearing lyrics exactly was never a strong point with me. The sound and feel of the song was everything. I always remember singing in the home and inducing a minor trance by "banging on the couch" an activity consisting of sitting for long periods of time bouncing in a seated position against the back of the couch and to the company of this rocking motion crooning all the latest hits, lullabies and nursery rhymes as well as chanting such stuff as

"I (pause) see (pause) the Christmas decorations"

 which were partially visible in their storage box on the top closet shelf, in view of the couch.

My father, who was born Aladar Gabriel Katrensky in May of 1914 and raised in a Hungarian settlement in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, played Colonel Boogie, The Thin Red Line, Under the Double Eagle and Turkey in the Straw on the violin, interwoven with gypsy-flavored rhapsodies and had a wonderful way with the instrument. He played so well that I am sure he must have had professional aspirations earlier on in his life.  This may have been the reason he later was so vocal to me, concerning the perils of a musical career.

"You're just wasting your time, boy",  he'd rant, while in the next breath he'd lecture me on the necessity of earning money. This was a subject that touched more than a few sore spots in him, as it does in me these days. Yet my father was still proud of my singing abilities and would show them off by having me perform for friends and relatives. I would need little prompting, I recall.

My mother, born Margaret Helen Fairhall in July of 1922 of Anglo, Scots and  Irish stock,  was raised on a farm in southern Manitoba. She played the piano, sang and influenced me by her praise and encouragement. I remember struggling to copy her ability to harmonize effortlessly but I rarely saw her play the piano because we could never afford one. She too would break out into song spontaneously around the house and there was always the sense of great fun and release in this.

 As a preteen I got my first gig in the Navy League Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps by lying about my ability to read music.  It turned out I didn't need to and was immediately made lead drummer by demonstrating the skills I had practiced so assiduously day and night with table knives on chairs to the accompaniment of my favorite radio hits. I graduated to the baritone horn in the Sea Cadet band where I did finally learn to read music and play some of the great band standards with a band leader who loved the music of the big band era and brought some of those influences into my young life.  His name was Lieutenant Ed Rigg and to his early encouragement I owe a great deal.  His nickname for me was "Katrink" and when he suggested I take up the baritone horn I was quite disappointed because I wanted continue to play drums.   Drummers they had aplenty but baritone horn players were few, probably because of the bulk and the unfashionable appearance of the instrument.

Many were the long wintery nights walking home with that bulky case under my arm (the handle was broken) that I would curse my fate at being stuck with that weight, while drummers carried only their sticks home for practise, the piccolo player a tiny case, the coronet and trumpet players their small cases and, as for the tuba player, he had his own instrument at home and was not burdened at all, except on parade.  It was a good schooling though, for the later years, when the bulk of my guitar case would be a replacement for that familiar weight and I would lug it half way around the world.  Later on, I would be very thankful for this schooling in sight reading, classic band music, arrangement of early pop standards and the function of counter melody, the baritone horn's main musical territory.

With the advent of the Beatles, I formed a rock band with several school friends, playing drums and singing in the community clubs in the '60's heyday of The Guess Who, Neil Young and the Squires, Lenny Breau, Burton Cummings and the Deverons and others who were all playing in the city community club circuit. This first band was called the "Casual-T's", play on the word "casualty", a name which we all thought very clever and which also hinted at the first letter of the first names of three of the original members, Ted Katrensky, Tom Sallows, Tommy Syrota.  The other Members were Geoff and Merv Chambers, my best pals who also happened to be twins AND English (a big plus in those Beatle Days!), Michael Cherwick and finally Greg Leskiw, who had recently moved into town, astonishing us with his guitar facility.

During this time my dad and I got into a fight and I wound up leaving the house at two o'clock in the morning, in mid-winter. When I first wrote this I remembered waiting for a cab on the front steps with my set of drums. My sister Marilyn my best childhood playmate and soul mate remembers it differently. She says I walked away down the street and she chased after me (so it could not have then been so late at night) asking me to take her with me. Apparently I said no. Her memory is correct as my drums would have been in my friend's basement where we rehearsed.

I moved into that basement of my band-mate Tom Sallows' house and remained there for the next few months, much to the consternation of the parents who didn't know quite what to do with me.  The band broke up and I went for an audition with Tom, who was trying out for a spot as singer with another newly formed group.  I don't know if Tom ever quite forgave me for this, but I auditioned too and got the gig instead of him.  He was a good friend though and acted very philosophical about it, saying that he couldn't really sing anyway (he was a better piano player than singer in those days).

This new band was called The Exiled, and featured Doug Love, Bonnie Hemming, Alan Platsko and Dwayne St. Marie  in the original group  and later Ron Adams,  Danny Leonhardt, Vance Masters and others in later versions. One of our first gigs was playing in a music store window on Portage Avenue, where we were "discovered" by a couple of traveling salesmen from Calgary who talked all the parents into letting their offspring go to Calgary where they would be promoted into the big time. So we packed all the equipment into a U-Haul trailer and drove off along the wintery Trans-Canada Highway to Calgary.

Along one deserted stretch of snow-swept highway I decided to take a turn driving the car, although I had never driven before.  I had only driven a few miles when a couple of horses crossed the road ahead of us.  I was still quite nervous behind the wheel and so instead of slowing down I made the mistake of honking the horn at them. The second  horse turned in the highway and the car clipped his back leg.  Shaken, I came to a stop and we walked back to where the horse was now lying in a ditch. A farmer was summoned from a nearby farmhouse and to my great dismay, informed us that he would have to shoot the horse.  For the next few years I would be very nervous around cars.

We stayed in Calgary about a month, during which time the highlight of our gigs was a spot on a local television station. I recall that one of the songs we played was the newly released "Paint It Black" by the stones.  We had received the '45, before it hit the retail stores, from one of our manager's brother, who was a salesman for London Records and felt very "cutting-edge" because of it.  We were all dressed in matching costumes on a strobe-lit stage and later we watched our TV debut with amazement, but nothing ever came of it.  Finally, the managers ran out of patience and goodwill and we were all shipped back to Winnipeg via train, no richer except in the area of experience. Having now however actually, "been on the road" we became a minor local celebrity band and the gigs kept coming.

One fine afternoon, I was just leaving the Paddlewheel Restaurant in Hudson's Bay department store, a hangout for many young teens in the city, when a young, blond-haired man stopped to ask me if I was the singer for the Exiled.  I replied that I was and he introduced himself as Paul Stewart, a local musician who was starting a new band.  The Exiled were having their problems and though they had briefly reformed as the Clayton Squares, were on the verge of breaking up, so I agreed to come to a rehearsal. 

There I met Tony Yakimovich (Marriott), and the three of us later recruited Al Rosenberg, Jim Donette and when Jim left, Gordon (Robert) MacPherson. We formed the original group and as in other groups, the lineup changed as we moved on.  We called our group Friday the 13th, taking the cue from Paul's old Ford van, a model F-13.  We were sponsored by Tee-Kay Teen Wear, a local clothing company who periodically hired bands for it's advertising campaigns in local malls and through this connection met Lucille Emond, a teen model who was also a singer and local celebrity, having been featured on Music Hop, a national CBC production.  We were asked to back her when she sang at Tee-Kay functions and she and I wound up doing duets such as Groovy Kind of Love and Charlie Chaplin's Love, This Is My Song which were the hits of the day. These musical collaborations led to a friendship and then a romance, my first serious one.

By this time I had my own place, the upper floor of an old rooming house on Balmoral Street in downtown Winnipeg.  I was enjoying my life as a singer and local celebrity until I woke up one morning doubled over in pain. By evening I couldn't walk and my friend Paul Stewart came with his mother to take me to the Winnipeg General Hospital where I was diagnosed with appendicitis. As I lay in bed waiting for the operation, my father showed up at the hospital looking for me, drunk as usual. He tried to drag me out of bed by the collar, yelling at me and accusing me of doing dope.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  I barely ever even smoked a cigarette in those days.  My protests were useless and finally the staff had to throw him out. That may have been the last contact I had with my father for the next ten years.