Ron Sakamoto has proven the doubters wrong with long career
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on September 6, 2024.
Herald photo by Al Beeber
Long-time music promoter Ron Sakamoto poses with his company Sakamoto Agency's 2023 booking agent of the year award handed out by the Canadian Country Music Association. The agency has won the award four straight times and is in the running for a fifth when the CCMAs are handed out Sept. 14 in Edmonton.LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Ron Sakamoto says nobody believed him when he insisted he could run a successful music promotion business from Lethbridge.
He still feels some in the world consider him – to use his words – a “country bumpkin.”
But numerous accolades later and with his company Sakamoto Agency again in the running for a Canadian Country Music Award for talent buyer/promoter of the year when the CCMAs are staged in Edmonton next week, he is proving all the doubters wrong.
Sakamoto Agency has won that award four straight years and could have a fifth to put on the promoter’s mantle soon.
These awards are just a drop in a deep rain barrel of accolades that Sakamoto has earned in his storied career.
Among his remarkable achievements was winning the CCMA promoter of the year award for 17 consecutive years starting in 1993 and culminating in 2010 when he was asked if he would step down from being nominated in return for the CCMA naming that award after him.
In 2014, he was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and in 2019 he won the Brian Chater Pioneer Award for his immeasurable contributions to management in Canada. That same year he received the Alberta Award of Excellence in recognition of service of the greatest distinction and singular excellence on behalf of the residents of Alberta which was presented by the province’s Lieutenant Governor.
In 2022, Sakamoto was inducted into the Alberta Country Music Hall of Fame and in 2023 was perhaps given the biggest honour of his life when he accepted the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award at the Juno Awards.
He has also been honoured internationally, twice – in 2001 and 2006 – being named International Promoter of the year by the Country Music Association in Nashville. The International Entertainment Buyers Association also honoured him twice with its Buyer of the Year award, first in 2013 and again in 2018. Back in 2007, he won the Hank Smith Award of Excellence.
In 2003 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Lethbridge and he’s humbled to acknowledge that he was given every Queen Elizabeth II medal.
He was also recently honoured by the City of Lethbridge with a special wall dedicated to him at the Enmax Centre paying tribute to his many accomplishments
All while running a company in Lethbridge where Sakamoto decided long ago he would stay because he believed in this city.
After returning from school in Vancouver, Sakamoto decided that he was going to do business his own way and that way meant staying in southern Alberta even though others doubted he would stand a chance at succeeding.
But as time and hard work has shown, Sakamoto proved all the doubters wrong.
That business not only includes Gold and Gold Productions and Sakamoto Agency but also Sakamoto Management and Sakamoto Records.
He also owns Paradise Canyon Golf Resort which has been named southern Alberta’s top golf course for 25 years and which has helped to raise millions of dollars for different charities.
And he’s supported financially various endeavours in the city himself. In 2010, Ron and wife Joyce donated $200,000 to the University of Lethbridge to start the Joyce and Ron Sakamoto Scholarship for the Digital Arts and Music program, money which was matched by the province. In 2013, he and Joyce donated 28 guitars to Galbraith Elementary School to help start a music program there.
Sakamoto was 18 when he started in the music promotion business. His first venture in the early 1960s was in his hometown of Medicine Hat when he started Honeycomb-A-Go-Go, a venue that was open on Fridays and Saturdays. He expanded to Lethbridge with the Ron Sakamoto Varsity Club, the idea being he could give bands a second weekend gig – at a cut rate. This gave them two shows and Ron more income.
As his business grew, the need for bigger venues did as well and in time Ron created Gold and Gold, promoting shows in arenas and such places as the old Exhibition grandstand where some of the wood from the bleachers has been repurposed in the new Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre.
Over the decades, KISS, Bryan Adams, Johnny Reid, Shania Twain, Keith Urban, The Guess Who, Old Dominion, The Bee Gees, Heart, The Doobie Brothers, Lighthouse, the Washboard Union – who he manages – and so many other iconic music acts have played Sakamoto shows on stages here.
Now 81, Sakamoto still handles the big tours for Gold and Gold Productions but leaves much of the work in the capable hands of the team he surrounds himself with, including Paul Biro, who is president and operating partner of Sakamoto Agency.
And while Lethbridge is his home base, Sakamoto ventures have offices in Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Saskatoon and Nashville.
“You’re only as good as the people you work with and I feel my people in Canada and our people in Nashville are the best,” says Sakamoto.
To this day, Sakamoto follows the wisdom handed to him by his father who was an astute businessman himself.
“My dad always said it’s not where you’re from that counts, it’s not what you do,” said the Coaldale-born Sakamoto in an interview this week.
And what’s he done is bring smiles to faces of countless music fans over the decades with the diverse range of music he’s brought to stages. And during the COVID pandemic, he kept food on the tables of his employees by keeping them all on the payroll despite the live music business slamming to a halt as the virus wreaked havoc around the world. Between 80 and 100 rely on Sakamoto’s companies for their living.
While the music industry has changed over the years, there’s been one constant – the support of Joyce who Sakamoto says has been his rock for 41 years.
With all the time he spent on the road touring, he says Joyce held down the fort at home.
“I couldn’t have done it without her,” he notes, joking that Joyce says while they’ve been married 41 years, he’s only been home for 20 of them.
And despite being in his 80s, he’s not stopping yet. Sakamoto says a running joke in the entertainment business among promoters is that he’ll retire a year after he dies.
And the reason is he’s got shows booked a year in advance, Sakamoto says.
“I’m proud to say we have built one of the largest independent music companies in Canada from Lethbridge. I am proud to tell people that.”
The CCMAs will be staged Sept. 14 at Rogers Place in Edmonton culminating Country Music Week 2024 in the province’s capital. The awards return to the city for the first time in 10 years.
35-34
Ron has certainly been a fixture and a great ambassador for lethbridge for decades and we’re lucky to have him. I first met Ron when I was a kid and friend of Shawn when he lived on Honeysuckle Rd on the Northside, I moved to the Southside and lost contact with Shawn but have seen Ron numerous times through the years and he always is a pleasure to talk to. Lethbridge is proud to have you Ron