Since we were financing the sessions and the planned album
that was to come from them, we picked out eight of our favourite cover
tunes to round out a whole album. For her solo spots, Sue-On chose Kristofferson's
Help
Me Make It Through The Night, Lara's Theme (Somewhere My Love) from
the movie Dr. Zhivago, and the Lucille Starr hit, The French Song,
which she sang in French. On all of these songs she worked out her own
voice-over double-tracked harmonies.
I have been a fan of the Everly Brothers since we opened for them
in a concert back in 1965 (See The
Early Rockin' Years). Their thrilling harmonies have influenced just
about every rock and country group that relies on harmony, including the
Beatles.
Since many of our best duet numbers are Everly inspired, it seemed natural
that we try our hand at one of their biggest hits: Let It Be Me
- a song we have done countless times since in concerts, at weddings and
on television. The next duet was a driving version of the Merle Haggard
country hit: Mama Tried. While trying to adapt it to a danceable
duet version and fooling around with the Hag's original intro, I found
myself jokingly playing the riff from the Monkee's Last Train to Clarksville.
It stuck, and that's what we ended up using on the record. We also adapted
two more fairly recent hits to our duet style: Down In The Boondocks
and 24 Hours From Tulsa. The final song on the session was a favourite
back in our pub-playing days: The Green, Green Grass of Home. Sue-On
soloed on most of this but I tried my hand at harmony on the chorus, and
did a melodramatic narration that would have done Walter Brennan proud.
A few years earlier, while we were still going to Brandon University
and living with Sue-On's brother, Kenny Choy and his wife, Rebecca, they
had brought back a Pentax camera for us from one of their trips to Hong
Kong. This started me on a photography kick that continues to this day.
It seemed natural then, that we do our own photography for the album jacket.
The front cover was taken in front of the stone fence and spruce trees
at the entrance to our Maple Grove country home where my family has lived
since 1878. These trees were planted by my grandfather sometime after the
turn of the century (See John
Campbell, Pioneer). The black and white photo on the back of the album
was taken in the ruins of a stone barn built by my great grandfather in
the late 19th century. Creating our own photos involved my setting
the timer on the camera and then scrambling up a stone wall to fall into
an heroic eagle-like pose with my much more photogenic partner.
As with any photo shoot, there is a bit of a story behind the chosen
costumes. Sue-On's flowery dress was made by our sister-in-law, Rebecca,
while my black shirt was sewn by my Grandmother, Jane Hillman. The yellow
shawl and weird medallion made of horseshoe nails we had recently picked
up in Mexico on a trip taken at the end of one of our annual Federal Grain
summer tours across Western Canada. The system of haggling we used
at the Mexican market involved our making an offer in English, listening
to the Mexicans confer in Spanish, and then discussing their return offer
in Chinese - a language which I pretended to know fluently. This technique
never ceased to bewilder the salespeople and usually resulted in our coming
away with a pretty good deal. Sue-On wore a gold chain that was presented
to her by her grandfather when she left
Hong Kong at age ten. The specs of course were my best Buddy Holly
horn rims.
We took our photos and liner notes into a Winnipeg graphics shop
that specialized in colour separations and album covers. The master 1/4
inch stereo tapes were sent to Toronto for mastering. While this was going
on we set plans for a 45 rpm release in motion. To get maximum value for
our money we had our four originals pressed on an Extended Play album for
which we had the local Leech Printing run off slipcover jackets. Before
we could release the original material I had to form a publishing company,
Maple Grove Music, and register the four songs with BMI. The original
"single" got some good airplay and recognition but one of the most gratifying
bits of encouragement came from the BMI magazine,
Music Scene, which gave In Sadness a rave review.