‘Dal was a real professional, consummate performer’
Vancouver mourns loss of the city’s King of Swing, who died at 97 on New Year’s Eve
Dal Richards, Vancouver’s legendary band leader, died Thursday at the age of 97.
The longtime entertainer, once dubbed B.C.’s “Hepcat Laureate” by West Vancouver-Capilano MLA and Minister of State for Seniors Ralph Sultan, was to have performed his 80th consecutive New Year’s Eve event this year, but cancelled earlier in December because of health issues.
Richards died at 11:41 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. He would have turned 98 Jan. 5.
Richards had previously performed at the Pacific National Exhibition for 75 years with his 14-piece orchestra prior to retiring from the Fair in 2014.
“Dal Richards was an icon who helped shape the landscape of Canadian big band music,” PNE president and CEO Mike McDaniel said in a statement.
“His showmanship and talent will forever be his legacy.”
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson also shared his sadness after learning of Richards’ death.
“His music enlivened Vancouver’s cultural scene in ways that will always be remembered, and I am tremendously grateful for his friendship, his inspiring commitment to music education, and deep contributions to our city’s vibrancy,” Robertson said in a statement.
“Vancouver City Council and I would like to extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends.”
The city had previously awarded Richards the Freedom of the City honour.
Province arts columnist Stuart Derdeyn wrote an extensive profile of Richards just days before his death, after news broke he wouldn’t play his annual New Year’s Eve gig for the first time since 1936.
His wife Muriel Richards told Derdeyn Dal and his band had been booked to play the New Year’s Eve party at the Hotel Vancouver, where he’d played from 1940 to 1965. But she says he became ill in November and, not wanting to disappoint an audience with a substandard performance, decided to cancel.
During his nearly 80-year string of New Year’s Eve performances, Richards also played at the Bayshore Hotel and the River Rock Casino.
“Dal was always a real professional, consummate performer and he felt if he couldn’t be what he’d been for all the rest of it that he wasn’t going to put on a poor show,” Muriel Richards said Friday.
“New Year’s Eve was such a big thing to him and to not be able to do it really saddened him.”
Dallas Murray Richards was born in Vancouver General Hospital Jan. 5, 1918, and raised in Marpole.
He took up music as a way to console himself after losing an eye in a slingshot accident at the age of nine. The disability made him ineligible for service during the Second World War, which is how he managed to have so many consecutive New Year’s Eve shows.
When swing and big band went out of style and gigs dried up in the mid1960s, Richards went into the hotel management business. But he still kept a band going on the side and always had a booking to ring in the new year.
Demand picked up in the early 1980s and Richards cut records. Until he became ill, his band was still taking bookings for weddings, birthdays and conventions.
He received the Order of Canada in 1994 and is also on the B.C. Lions Wall of Fame in acknowledgment of his many years as musical director of halftime shows.
Richards said her husband’s last performance was a Christmas party at the Vancouver Club. Dal was in hospital, she said, but he put on his tuxedo and joined his band at the party to take the stage and sing As Time Goes By.
His family sang Auld Lang Syne to him Dec. 30 because they didn’t think he’d last another full day.
“Dal Richards was an icon who helped shape the landscape of Canadian big band music. His showmanship and talent will forever be his legacy.”
ť MIKE MCDANIEL PRESIDENT AND CEO, PACIFIC NATIONAL EXHIBITION