Page 3
Stevedore Steve: phase one
They came up with Stevedore Steve because they wanted an angle, a hook to market him now that he was a Dominion Records recording artist. They also wanted something with a definite east-coast flavour to it, thus the songs were all centred around the Maritimes. Steve was delirious about having his own album out and went along with it all. He was proud to call himself "Stevedore Steve". This marketing ploy proved to be hugely successful as it lead to better paying jobs before all sorts of audiences, no matter where he played.
It was at this time that Steve took up residence in Toronto. He had fathered a son (wasn't living with the boy's mother in Saint John) and was soon to meet his destined partner in life: Gini Brooksbank, from Hamilton, Ontario.
Travelling, in those days, was the only sure way to sell records. There was very little infrastructure in the Canadian music business; distribution networks were controlled by one or two companies. There was no CRTC; there were no Canadian Content rules, and it was next to impossible to get Canadian country music played by Canadian radio stations. Playing gigs, selling from the stage, that was basically how it was done.
It was a hard grind but for the first time in his life, Steve Foote was on the road to something big, and he could feel it. What made it bearable for him was the companionship of his new mate, Gini. They married and honeymooned in Britt, Ontario, the place he wrote the song called Log Drive On The Pickerell. Steve and Gini seemed inseparable, they went everywhere together, to every gig, working from their van for weeks on end.
"Gini and I have been married now going on about eight and a half years and we've been on the road together all that time. But Gini is not on the show or anything like that. She's the world's greatest moral support, and she's in my audience all the time. She's heard all my cornball jokes over and over, she's heard all my songs and she listens to them, I think, just as intently now as when I just wrote them." 1
"I don't really like playing clubs, beer joints, shooting galleries, and all that stuff. I like meeting people, but when they're sober, you know. I love one-nighters: the people come out to hear their favourite song by whoever the artist is, or maybe they come out to see the artist for the first time or whatever. But they come out to listen.In clubs it's different. In clubs, fifty per cent of the audience is there to either hustle themselves up a chick or a guy. Somebody else is there on business. And some of them are there just because it's booze time - let's get filled up.
Once in a while somebody'll come in that knows you, and wants to hear you, but that's pretty seldom. Rest of the time, you're just there." 2
The long, hard hours at a gruelling pace
eventually paid off. Steve and Gini found it difficult to keep enough records
in stock. Since the company found it difficult to distribute them to places
like Hawke Junction, Foleyet, Des Jochimes (known as The Swisha), where
there were no record selling stores, selling from the stage was the only
guarantee that fans would be able to buy them. It depended on the sincerity
of one's on-stage presence. The fact that Steve respected his audiences
and treated them thus; that his product - his songs - were well crafted,
countrified folk songs, made him popular with his increasing fan base.
"No 'phoney sophistication' for singer Stevedore
Steve", read the headline in the London 
Free
Press.3 "My songs are honest, they're not phoney sophistication,"
he is quoted as saying.
While Tom Connors and Jury Krytiuk
were formulating their future partnership, acquiring much of the Dominion
Records catalogue of acts, it was obvious that they had their eyes on Stevedore
Steve to be one of the new, "Boot Records" label's premiere acts. Krytiuk,
in an email sent to me, clarified how this happened:
"When
Stompin' Tom and I formed Boot Records we didn't purchase the catalogue
of Canadian Music Sales. However, several items that had been released
by Dominion Records on a lease basis, were eventually released on Boot
once the lease to Dominion expired. The Dominion label continued for several
years after Boot was started." 4
(The official logo of Boot Records, drawn by Steve Foote)
Stompin' Tom already had several of his own recordings released on Boot and was gaining popularity by leaps and bounds. He was a star born of red dust and tubers with tires. He was featured on television, would have his own national CBC television program, would release a film called "Across This Land With Stompin' Tom Connors". He and Jury would formulate a clever strategy to allow him maximum exposure for major endeavors, like getting married on the Elwood Glover TV show 'Luncheon Date', or by riding on a spud truck through the streets of Charlottetown and being presented with a golden spud by the Premier of that province. They capitalized as well on other photo-ops and news scoops, boosting the image of Stompin' Tom on a national scale unprecedented in the Canadian music business. Stompin' Tom Connors became one of the most recognizable Canadian figures, a pop icon that reverberated with fresh nationalistic qualities, putting real people in real places on the charts and maps.
While all this was happening, Stevedore Steve was quietly getting into gear, scoring points which would eventually lead to his own weekly TV program on Moses Znaimer's then fledgeling CITY-TV station in Toronto.
With the release of his second album for Boot
Records, I've Lived, Steve was about to hit the big time in Canadian country
music. It seemed as though Boot Records had another popular star on their
hands.
Notes:
1. Singin' About Us
2. Singin' About Us
3. Article in London Free Press,
September 12, 1973 by Silvio Dorre
4. Email from Juri Krytiuk
entitled A SLIGHT ERROR, January 1, 1998
