Stampeders celebrating 50 years of music

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on April 19, 2023.

Submitted photo The original Stampeders - lead guitarist and vocalist Rich Dodson, drummer Kim Berly and bassist Ronnie King - are celebrating their 50th year in the music business with a tour of select theatres on the Prairies.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Their name is synonymous with Calgary but the band didn’t make a name for itself until Toronto beckoned.

Rich Dodson remembers band members and crew packing into an old Cadillac limousine with U-Haul trailer in tow and heading across the Prairies to attempt a musical career in Ontario.

The original Stampeders – lead guitarist and vocalist Dodson, bassist Ronnie King and drummer Kim Berly – are celebrating their 50th year in the music business with a tour of select theatres on the Prairies.

They will play the Yates on May 2 and 3 and hit the Esplanade in Medicine Hat on May 4.

Tickets are available at the Ticket Centre, 403-329-7328.

In the early 1960s, nothing was happening musically in Calgary, recalled Dodson in a recent phone interview so the band decided to head east, leaving Alberta in 1966.

“We were young, just out of high school and it was a great adventure,” recalled Dodson, whose band will be playing the hits that made them staples of Canadian radio in the 1970s.

Before they temporarily split in 1976, the Stampeders were massive. They were known for such hits as “Sweet City Woman,” “Wild Eyes,’ “Devil You” and so many others that are immediately recognizable and still beloved.

“It’s always fun to get out and reconnect with the fans. It’s pretty buzzy doing this. We enjoy it,” said Dodson.

“It feels like maybe 25 or something,” Dodson said of the band’s career.

“Time just flies.”

The original members reunited at the Calgary Stampede in 1992.

Audiences are having a great time at shows – “it really brings back memories. They really connect with us and us, too,” said Dodson with band members feeling they’re 25 again.

“It takes you right back. It’s definitely a journey into what were really great to happy times,” he said.

“Stampeders is sort of a Toronto band, we’ve sort of been in that middle of no-man’s land. We spent some time in Calgary as The Rebounds and then transitioned to Stampeders. As Stampeders, we didn’t stay in Calgary that much. We headed east and so it’s a mix. Not that we don’t relate to the old hometown but we spent a lot of time down east,” Dodson said.

The Stampeders, a name they adopted in 1965, had six members but after relocating to Toronto a year later, three left.

The band was playing venues in Calgary such as the Blind Onion and non-alcohol coffeehouses, said Dodson.

They would venture to B.C. and play communities like Nelson occasionally, he recalled.

“We headed down to Henderson Lake in Lethbridge so that was one of our gigs. That was one of our fun venues, I remember that place. We sort of played our way, we did a Partridge Family – we had this old Cadillac limo and a U-Haul trailer and the six of us and the manager and his wife and two kids all piled in this old limousine that we bought so we Partridge Family’ed, played our way across Canada. We went to Lethbridge, Regina, Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, we played right across to Toronto,” said Dodson.

“There was so much happening. I was a big Lovin’ Spoonful fan. We all had our thing and it was just very exciting.”

The band’s old manager, Mel Shaw, saw the big picture, he recalled and with so little happening in the West it was either go East or farther West, he said.

A booking agent was interested in the band which was getting mentions in RPM magazine “so there seemed to be a gigging situation if we went down there for us doing clubs . . .we could go down there and attempt to play music and etch out a living.”

“In that time period it was pretty bleak for gigs,” in the West, he said. In Toronto, the Stampeders played places like the CNE and bigger clubs there as well as in Quebec.

“There was just such a vibrant scene… there was so much activity, so many bands, such a great creative vibe happening down here. It was so alive,” said Dodson.

Stampeders did the rounds and got to check out Ronnie Hawkins with his backup outfit, The Band, which went on to great things of its own.

“That time period was very exciting all around the world.”

The band scored its first big hit in 1971 with “Sweet City Woman”, a song that reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

When the Stampeders play the Yates, fans can expect to hear all the hits.

“We like to inter-act with the audience and have a good time. We’re at that stage where it’s all about going out and having a good time. It’s for the moment. Life, livin,’ playin.'”

Dodson said the tours now are family outings with members visiting relatives at various venues.

“It’s very positive.”

The Stampeders is one of the rarities in music with the original lineup still performing after decades.

“There’s not a bands like us out there. We are the original nucleus,” Dodson said.

“It’s very enjoyable, that’s why we do it.”

He said if MuchMusic and videos had existed in their heyday it would have been cool but they had a couple of TV specials on TV. Everything, though, revolved around radio.

“If you didn’t get on radio, it was pretty hard to get a fan base,” he recalled.

The music industry now with social media and platforms such as Spotify is much like the early 1960s, he said.

“If you’ve got something happening creatively you can build a little following. You don’t have to get signed to a record deal.”

When the band moved to Toronto, they tried to meet disc jockeys at the bigger radio stations to convince them to play Stampeders records on their shows.

“That’s how you made your connections here… it was more about trying to figure out how to get on a particular show.”

The band had its own record label and got Quality Records to distribute it which is how the Stampeders managed to get off the ground, he said.

“All these things didn’t exist out West but they did out East. We went to New York City, we had a deal with MGM Records in the States. EMI and all that. Those were all things we put together ourselves.”

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