I had no intention of becoming a slave to a payroll again, so I told the new band right from the start, “Boys, this is not a road band. We are not going on the road two hundred days a year to put gas in the bus.” This was a fine arrangement for these guys. They all had families and busy careers of their own in Toronto. Each musician is a bandleader, an educator or a recording artist in his own right. They have no more interest in being on the road year-round than I do—we’ve all paid those dues. The hit songs from the BS&T era sounded better than ever. Now, with the opportunity to introduce new music into the show and a band that brought new energy to the old songs, I was enjoying playing the classic hits again. I can’t imagine doing a show without “Spinning Wheel” or “God Bless the Child.” Those songs are the story of my life … my musical biography.
Jadro Subic suggested that A Musical Biography was a perfect title for a live-in-concert album. It was a way for me to put all my songs on record under my own name for the first time. So with Jadro’s help we took the big band into the old Opera House theatre in Toronto, where Jim West and I co-produced a live-in concert album.
I wrote several new tunes. Cassidy’s expanded charts sounded incredible and the band was burnin’. It was a great night with a wildly enthusiastic audience of hometown fans driving me and the band to an inspired performance. The concert was amazing and the recording was even better. This is quite simply a great live recording. The show was brilliantly captured by recording engineer Ian Terry. There’s no overdubbing, no studio fixes. What you hear is exactly what happened that night—a kick-ass big-band concert with a fabulous audience. It was released on Justin Time Records in 2006, entitled David Clayton-Thomas in Concert: A Musical Biography.
Next we performed at the prestigious Montreal Jazz Festival, where the show was filmed and recorded in 5.1 surround sound for a Bravo TV special and a DVD entitled You’re the One, which was released a few months later. These were the kind of creative endeavours I’d had in mind when I left BS&T. At my age your legacy becomes very important, and I needed to do something more permanent than playing Indian-reservation casinos night after night. In two years we had put out more new music than BS&T had managed in the last twenty-five. Thanks to Justin Time I had the new show on CD and on DVD and we had the promotional tools to secure some really fine bookings for 2007. Now I needed an agent.
I set up a meeting with a local Toronto agency that was interested in booking the new show. We were all gathered around a conference table at their offices, the agents with their yellow legal pads, all armed with gigs to entice me to their agency. The president of the company began the meeting by telling me, “Look, David, the reality of the situation is this: BS&T is still out there. They’re undercutting any offers we get. What we need to know is how much latitude are you giving us to lower your price enough to be competitive with them.” He lost me right then and there, but I decided to give them my pitch anyway. I smiled and spoke to the room full of eager young agents. “Gentlemen,” I said, “if I come with your agency, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re not going to compete with BS&T. That’ll turn into a mud-wrestling match. They’ll undercut us, then we’ll undercut them, and in a year both acts will be trashed. We’ll both be working for peanuts. We’re going to take the high road. We’ll raise our price well above theirs and keep our standards high. If necessary we’ll turn down every gig for the next year but trust me, eventually we’ll get the shows we want on our own terms.”
Turn down gigs? Did he say “Turn down gigs?” The faces fell around the room and the agents began packing up their yellow legal pads. I could tell they were disappointed, and so was I. This meeting was going nowhere. I was about to leave when down at the end of the table I noticed one fresh-faced young agent. He looked about eighteen, and he was grinning from ear to ear. After the meeting he followed me outside and introduced himself. He told me his name was Nick Meinema and he said he’d like to represent me. I asked him if he understood that my days of touring year-round were over. I didn’t need the money and I could afford to be selective about my dates. One high-profile prestige concert was worth more to me than a hundred third-rate casino dates. He smiled even wider and said, “Oh yeah, boss, I understand all right, that’s why I’d like to represent you.” Right then and there I told him, “Okay, Nick, you’re my guy.”
One lesson I learned from Larry Dorr: “It’s not the agency, it’s the guy.” Find an agent you can work with and he’ll make the agency work for you. An artist’s agent is probably the closest and most important person in his professional life. Most artists have managers who deal with the agents, but after surviving the Larry Dorr tour schedule I didn’t need another manager. It’s just one more guy who makes his living by putting my ass back on the road. Booking agencies generally aren’t too concerned with the quality of gigs. It’s the profit column at the end of the year that counts. They get their commission whether the act plays two hundred sleazy dates a year for chump-change or one class date for serious money. It’s not their responsibility to guide the artist’s career or shape his image. That’s the manager’s job. Their job is to book dates. An agent’s success is measured by how many offers he submits. It’s the manager’s responsibility to determine which ones are good for his artist’s career. Now that I’m managing myself, those decisions are mine and I needed an agent who shared my point of view.
A few weeks later Nick Meinema tendered his resignation at the local agency and he and I went together to the Agency Group, a major international booking agency with offices in London, Toronto, New York and LA. Nick was true to his word. If a promoter told him he could get BS&T at a lower price, Nick would immediately end the negotiation and give him Larry Dorr’s phone number. Holding out against pressure to generate dates, he turned down dozens of offers in the next year and slowly things started turning our way. Finally the offers started to trickle in with the kind of money and the quality of venues we demanded. I had at long last turned another corner in my career: I could get the kind of bookings I wanted without having to use the BS&T name. In fact, the constant demands of their payroll meant that Larry Dorr had to take gigs that we wouldn’t even consider. This had driven their price down and the quality of their venues down even further. It was hard to watch them trash this once-proud name. The name that had headlined at Lincoln Center was now playing county fairs and cruise ships. But at least I was out of it and Nick and I were ready to start taking on a few carefully selected high-profile dates.
The Canadian band travelled to Russia, where the fan loyalty from the BS&T years was still very much alive. We sold out two wonderful concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The Saint Petersburg concert was to 1,800 people in a grand old symphony hall, and in Moscow we played in a large jam-packed rock club to 1,000 screaming young people. Both concerts were outstanding, and the band received standing ovations, encores and great reviews.
There was also an unforgettable trip to Norway to play the Haugesund International Jazz Festival. Haugesund is a small fishing village on the fjords of Norway an hour’s flight from Oslo. Every year the little town welcomes thousands of music lovers to its jazz festival. The streets are packed with fans from all over Europe. It’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day party for one week, featuring the biggest names in jazz. Jam sessions are everywhere and go round the clock. The Canadian boys had a great time. The band was loose and happy and they played their asses off. We received the only six-star review in the twenty-year history of the festival, from the National Press of Norway.
We played only twelve concerts in 2007, but each one of them was a gem—beautiful first-class theatres and festivals. No cheesy oldies shows, no third-rate casinos. BS&T was grabbing all those dates. Better them than me. I was enjoying performing again, travelling and making music with this band of old friends, at a sensible pace. No more 3:00 a.m. wake-up calls, no gruelling bus trips and, most important, I had plenty of time to write new songs and a great group of musicians to perform them. Everything was working out e
ven better than I had planned. I had a beautiful condo on the waterfront, Ashleigh had moved to Toronto and was enrolled in a fine college, financially I was set for life and I was happier than I’d been in years.
The High Road
I didn’t get wise by bein’ smart and I know
Many times I got it wrong and wishin’, baby, don’t make it so
But when it’s time to stand up, win or lose, you take the high road every time
And when the path is dark ahead and the future’s hard to see
Remember what the wise man said, the simple choice is the right one
And when your love has hurt you, chalk it up and take the high road, you’ll be fine
And when you’re countin’ up the plus and minuses of life
You’ll know you always took the high road
Even when you walked it alone
And when the book is written and the story has been told
You’ll know you always took the high road
And the high road’s gonna carry you
And when the stage is empty, what a show, you took the high road every time
And now the path is straight ahead and the future’s clear to see
Remember what the wise man said
The simple choice is the right one … for me
Lyrics by David Clayton-Thomas. Copyright © Clayton-Thomas Music Publishing Inc., 2007.
28
FRED’S MEMORIAL
My father died in 2007. He had suffered several major strokes and for the last few years of his life he couldn’t communicate at all. I never did get to ask him the question that had plagued me all my life: “What did I do to make you hate me so much?” I wanted to scream at him, “This is not how a normal family behaves! Don’t you get it?” But it was too late. He was locked somewhere inside his crippled mind and those questions would remain unanswered. Here I was a grown man and I was still asking myself what I had done to deserve those beatings, still blaming myself. I guess the answer isn’t all that complicated. The truth is Fred was a bully, a controlling tyrant, just like his father before him, and nothing I could’ve done would have changed that.
Within a year of my mother’s death in 1990, Fred had remarried. His new wife was a matronly woman named Dorothy he’d met at a cancer survivors’ support group. She had recently lost her husband and I’m sure they were a great comfort to each other. Fred really fell apart after Freda’s death. I realized then that my father was all bluster and bad temper, but it was my mother who was the real strength in the family. Fred was helpless without her. He was incapable of living alone after fifty-one years of marriage, and Dorothy came along just in time. My father wouldn’t have lasted a year on his own. He told me at the time, “She’ll never replace your mother, David, but I need someone to take care of me.” Dorothy seemed perfect. She was caring and Christian, and I believed she really loved him. It couldn’t have been easy caring for him in those helpless final years. Dorothy was devout, what my father used to call “a Bible thumper.” He was an avowed atheist and had nothing but contempt for organized religion his entire life. He liked to say, “When you’re dead you’re dead … Period!” I guess that about sums up his religious philosophy. Dorothy attended church several times a week and her life revolved around her congregation, but I doubt if she ever managed to drag Fred Thomsett into a church.
Shortly after they were married I drove up from New York and visited them at my dad’s house in Schomberg. Dorothy had removed every trace of Freda from the house. She had boxed up everything and asked me to take it away. That was hard for me. This had always been my mother’s house, and it was difficult to see her whole life packed into boxes and removed from the home she had loved. I thought at the time that this was rather mean-spirited. After all, Freda was no threat to Dorothy—it wouldn’t hurt to keep a picture of this beautiful woman who had lived in this house and shared my father’s life for fifty-one years. I was surprised that Fred allowed my mother’s memory to be erased so easily, but I figured they had a right to get on with their lives, and if Fred could live with this then so could I. So I loaded up the car and took everything of Freda’s back to New York. Over the next few years I only visited Schomberg a few times. I lived in the States, and between my hectic tour schedule and the time I spent with Ashleigh, I got up to Canada only a couple of times a year and then it was mostly to see Bill and Doc. My relationship with Dorothy was always polite and cordial but my visits were brief. I never did have much to talk about with my father and even less with Dorothy, and now, with my mother gone, I wasn’t comfortable at the house in Schomberg.
Fred’s memorial was interesting. It was at Dorothy’s church and was attended by most of her congregation. I thought about not going. Ashleigh was in San Francisco at the time and I would know almost no one at the service. Besides, there was something hypocritical about this lifelong atheist being laid to rest in a church. I finally decided to attend. For my own peace of mind I had to do the right thing. This was my last chance to make peace with the father I had hated for so many years, one last chance to put those poisonous feelings behind me once and for all. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
Only a handful of Fred’s relatives were present. Most of the people at the service were Dorothy’s friends. The first thing I noticed was a photo display depicting Fred’s life. Snapshots of Fred in uniform as a young war hero, dozens of photos of Fred and Dorothy, his prized hunting dogs, even shots of their mobile home. But I couldn’t find a picture of my mother anywhere. Fifty-one years of his life erased like they never happened. I finally located a small snapshot of Freda in the bottom corner of the display. It had been taken in the hospital shortly before she died. It wasn’t a flattering picture. She looked terrible, in a housecoat, no makeup, her hair patchy from the chemotherapy, obviously suffering from the ravages of cancer. Of all the photographs taken of this beautiful woman during her life, why use this one? My mother would have been mortified. Freda was always meticulous about her appearance. She never went out in public without looking her best. It was vicious and petty and it hurt. Oh, but the best was yet to come.
The Anglican minister, in his white robes, announced that he would now read the eulogy but that the writer wished to remain anonymous. An anonymous eulogy? I’d never heard of such a thing. The whole point of a eulogy is to pay your respects to the departed. Why would anyone want to do that anonymously? Uh-oh, I thought, this can’t be good. I began to sense a trap. The minister began reading in a sombre monotone: “Fred Thomsett wasn’t famous, but God doesn’t judge a man by his fame here on earth.” He went on. “It’s not fame that will allow a man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” He looked out over the congregation and continued. “There is a special place in heaven for men like Fred. He wasn’t famous, he was just a simple working man.” His voice rose in pitch and picked up tempo. “Fame will not make you a good man. Fame is fleeting.” He looked right at me. “God is not impressed by fame,” he thundered. I jumped. Apparently God was not pleased with me. I could feel all eyes on my back. This was a small rural community and I was probably one of the few “famous” people who had ever visited there. But this was supposed to be Fred Thomsett’s memorial. It wasn’t about me. Something was very wrong here. I sat through most of the tedious eulogy. My cheeks were burning and I was furious. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. After the umpteenth reference to fame I stalked out of the funeral chapel, embarrassed and angry.
I was suspicious of the motives behind this uncalled-for attack and immediately called an estate attorney. A brief investigation and the facts were revealed. Fred wasn’t a wealthy man, but he had accumulated several tracts of land, hunting camps in northern Ontario—over eight hundred acres. Then there was the house Fred had built for Freda in Schomberg. It stood on ten acres of land thirty miles from Toronto. They had bought the land cheap in the sixties when it was “country,” but the city of Toronto had exploded outward and it was fairly valuable real estate by the time he died.
In his final years Fred was totally immobilized, unable to leave his chair, unable to speak. A health-care provider came by twice a week to bathe and change him. When I visited him on birthdays and holidays, Dorothy always hovered close by. I never did get to speak to him directly. Any conversation was always with Dorothy as an intermediary. His speech was incoherent and disjointed and Dorothy claimed to be the only one who could understand him. The visits were brief and uncomfortable. It was hard to see my big strapping father reduced to this mumbling, helpless shell of a man. He was totally dependent on Dorothy, and at some time in his final years he had changed his will and given her complete power of attorney. A token amount was left to Fred’s side of the family but the bulk of his estate went to Dorothy, and most of it had already been disposed of. Now I understood the attack at the funeral.
Blood, Sweat and Tears Page 24