Stampeders still have place on the playlist
Band that hit bigtime with Sweet City Woman has Victoria date
What: Stampeders Where: Victoria McPherson Playhouse When: April 4, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $62.50
The Stampeders’ international hit Sweet City Woman that topped record charts in 1971 is still played in DJ sets today — a songwriter’s dream.
“It just connected and the time was right, I guess. We were on the pulse and the rest is history,” said songwriter Rich Dodson of the Stampeders, who are returning to play in Victoria for the first time in five decades.
“It’s the kind of thing when we recorded it in the studio they thought this is going to be a pretty cool track and I thought: ‘Ya, sure,” and joked: ‘Ah, I got a million of them.’ ”
It was no joke. Dodson would go on to pen a few Canadian hits, but it was Sweet City Woman that saw the band win a Juno that same year for best group and landed them in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Formed in 1964 as a trio, the Calgary band “Partridge Familyed it” to Toronto. In 1967, they played Expo in Montreal. That was a game changer.
For Dodson, a Westerner from a small town, Montreal at the ripe age of 23 was intoxicating. It was all the inspiration he needed.
“Well, I’m on my way, to the city life; To a pretty face that shines her light on the city nights; And I gotta catch a noon train; Gotta be there on time; Oh, it feels so good to know she waits at the end of the line,” goes the intro to Sweet City Woman.
The chorus is one of the catchiest in Canadian pop-music history: “Swee-ee-eet, sweet city woman; I can see your face, I can hear your voice, I can almost touch you.”
“I think it’s a mixture of everything — the buzz of being in that place at that time” that inspired the song, Dodson said. “It’s probably got everything in it that was in my head at that time, period.
“I don’t know, these melodies pop up and licks and all that stuff just come to me, and, of course, I love pop music,” said Dodson, adding all members of the group penned hits.
“That’s the interesting thing about this group it’s all strong writers and singers. And that same nucleus is still together — that’s the freaky part.”
For his part, Dodson is a “melody guy” who writes the music in his head first, then tries to lay “something not too crazy” on top. “The lyrics are always the challenge for me, the melodies I seem to have a billion of them,” he said.
It can’t be said the 1976 classic Hit the Road Jack, featuring once renowned Wolfman Jack, is on the top of DJs’ songlists today, but for the 1970s generation — raised on tie-dyed T-shirts, elevator shoes and 15-cent coffee — many would likely be able to complete the lyric “don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.”
Rock star fame and big-city life brought “all kinds of temptation, but you had to keep your head in gear, stay focused, see the big picture and make it a team effort — we were a pretty straight-ahead bunch,” Dodson said.
Despite their cohesion and success, Dodson was first to leave the band in 1978.
“We were playing St. John’s, Newfoundland, and I knew I was in the same hotel room with the same room number the year before and I thought: ‘You know, maybe it’s time to take a break and try my record production stuff,’ ” Dodson said. “I always wanted my own recording studio.”
Dodson built Marigold Studios, his 24-track recording studio, and started Marigold Productions, an independent record label.
As part of his solo career, he wrote three top-10 Canadian hit songs and produced songs for the likes of Alanis Morissette.
Meanwhile, the other band members — Kim Berly (drums) and Ronnie King (bass) — launched their own solo careers.
But Dodson was fairly confident the band would one day reunite.
“I thought at some point we would just miss it and the live gig thing,” Dodson said. In 1992, they got back together.
That year, the band played their hometown crowd at the Calgary Stampede and launched what has become a spring and summer touring season comprising festivals to theatres.
“When we get on stage we’re 23,” said Dodson, now 70. He is inspired by singer-songwriter Paul McCartney, 75, calling the former Beatle’s ability to still perform hours-long live shows “mindbending.”
Dodson understands the need to perform when money and fame are no longer factors. “It’s just who we are, what we do,” he said.
“At some point, I won’t be able to do it anymore, so, while I have my health, I might as well while I can.”
After the show during autograph signings and CD sales, fans regale the band members with stories of how certain songs mark the highs and lows in their lives or were the inspiration for fans getting into music careers themselves.
When Dodson’s son Nick and daughter Holly were young they, too, were fans. Now the siblings are in their own successful trio, the Parallels.
The Stampeders play across Canada every year and have played central Vancouver Island. But, despite the fan base they have here, and invites and bookings, Victoria dates never worked out.
“I don’t think we’ve played Victoria since the ’70s,” Dodson said. “I love Victoria,” he added, having vacationed at the Empress Hotel just last year. “Victoria is a key date on this tour.”
The band also has shows at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre on April 16, Duncan’s Cowichan Performing Arts Centre on April 17, Campbell River’s Tidemark Theatre on April 18 and Courtenay’s Sid Williams Theatre on April 19.
The band will be introducing its new “solo years” package — a three-CD set of songs independently recorded by Berly, King and Dodson from 1982 to 1990. “There’s some cool stuff there,” Dodson said.