THE BEGINNINGS
On August 15th I was born Norbert Theodore Wyatt in Swft
Current on the Saskatchewan prairies in the year Rock 'n'
Roll was born (1955). In my younger years my nickname was
"Nob",... a shortened dissection of the name Norbert.
(note: in 1980 I legally changed my name to Jefferson,...
or Jeff for short).
When I was still young my family moved to Regina where my
first musical training was on piano, thanks to the support
of my parents providing me with lessons from a neighborhood
piano teacher named Valerie Juorski. This being the
early sixties, I quickly grew bored with the music I was
playing on the keys as my attention was being drawn to the
interesting guitar sounds that were coming out of
Britain. After falling for the music of The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Dave Clark Five it
was quite evident that guitar was the instrument that I
wanted to explore.
My
parents, Jack and Marianne Wyatt, bought me my first
acoustic guitar from the late National Music in Regina. My
very first 3 chord introduction to guitar playing came from
our parish priest, Father Ralph Fry. After mastering
those 3 chords I was like a dry sponge soaking up new
chords and techniques wherever and whenever I could by
listening to music on records and watching guitarists live
and on TV.
MY
FIRST ELECTRIC GUITAR
I was seriousy craving owning an electric guitar, so I
saved $35.00 to purchase a second hand Silvertone guitar
from Randy Beller, a friend of my brother Bernie.
Shorty thereafter my parents bought me a small Gibson
amplifier from Arcade Music (note: Arcade Music has since
bought out by St John's Music).
This old Gibson guitar amp was one of those old vintage
tube amps that would be a collectors item today had I
kept it and not traded it in on a Winnipeg made Garnet
Pro amp. But jeeze,... that brand new Garnet amp smelled
and sounded so damned good,... plus it had the
rock'n'roll volume I needed to keep up with my band
mates in the early bands I played with. Any old Garnet
amp that is still around and in good working condition
would also be considered a collectors item (especially
to a Canada collector).
STARTED
PLAYING IN BANDS
In the late 60's (in my early teens) I had the pleasure of
playing lead guitar in some of those early Regina bands. I
wholeheartedly worked at learning how to bend and strum
those 6 electric strings, trying to sound like what I was
hearing on the radio. These early bands I belonged to
included
The Wildsmen,
The Unwritten Document,
and
The Sound of One Hand Clapping. The
memberships of the first two bands consisted of my
childhood friends Vern Wild (guitar & vocals), Curtis
Wild (drums & vocals), Gerry Baumgartner (bass &
vocals), Preston McDade (keyboards) and me (lead guitar
& vocals). The membership of
The Sound of One Hand Clapping were my
friends Brian Malloy (drums & vocals), Gerry
Baumgartner (bass & vocals), Greg Curtz (bass vocals),
Ray Silzer (keyboards & vocals), Bernice Braumberger
(lead vocals) and me (lead guitar & vocals). There may
have been other members in there as well, but I'm a little
foggy on it after all this time.
Often I would go and watch some of my early local
guitar heroes which included
Bob Deutscher,
Steve Hegyi,
Richard Lautsch,
Doug Rusu and a
few others. (For
an interesting and extensive look at Canadian-prairie
rock music history, check out the site put together
by
Bob Deutscher).
Steve Hegyi and I
became friends. He taught me how to do a proper
"whole step bend + vibrato" on electric guitar; a
technique that takes a lot of practice to perfect.
Usually he would show me stuff but I remember teaching
him a particular Jimmy Page riff that he rather liked
when he heard me play it. It was Steve who invited
me to come and see Pink Floyd at the Regina Center of
the Arts on October 11th, 1970. I had no idea who
they were at the time but the intense music left a
permanent impression on me. I still remember Roger
Water's blood curdling screams in Careful
With That Ax Eugene.
And although the intensity of their stage presence and
music was quite evident, they still lightened things up
with some funning around on stage. I chuckled when
I saw Roger Waters sneaking up with a mallet behind the
unawares drummer Nick Mason to hit the large gong
(actually it was a tam tam) that was directly behind
Nick's head. This large tam tam was commonplace in
any photo you can find of Nick Mason on stage with Pink
Floyd.
ALWAYS
LIKED LIVE MUSIC BEST
Even prior to this live concert I always had an
appreciation for live music. My parents took me as a
little kid to see
Marty Robbins in
concert. From then on I was hooked on the live
stuff. In addition to
Pink Floyd and
Marty Robbins,
over the past 40 years I've had the privilege of seeing,
and being influenced by, the following Canadian and
international talent in concert (among others):
Five
Man Electrical Band, Streetheart, The Payola$, Tom Cochrane
and Red Ryder, Kilowatt, Valdy, Streetheart, Roy Forbes,
Chilliwack, VHS, Crowbar, Gary Pucket and the Union Gap,
The Stampeders, Trooper, Dr. Music, Peter and Gordon, Sugar
'n" Spice, Gainsborough Gallery, Little Richard, Dire
Straits, Mark Knopfler, John MacLaughlan, Jack De Johnette,
Duke Ellington, Jean Luc-Ponty, Jan Hammer, Jeff Beck, Pete
Seger, James Levine, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras,
Placido Domingo, Elvin Bishop, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins,
Neil Diamond, Little Village, Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, David
Lindley, Blood Sweat and Tears, Kris Kristofferson, Bonham,
Emerson Lake and Palmer, April Wine, Johnny Winter, Stevie
Ray Vaughn, Colin James, Dr. Hook, Adrian Legg, Don Ross,
Leona Boyd, Ray Davies, Paul McCartney, The Fixx,
Supertramp, Split Enz, John Mayer,...
THE
'EDEN'
BAND YEARS
As stated earlier, during the late 60's and 70's I
performed extensively as lead guitarist with Regina based
rock bands. The most popular of which was the 1970’s
band
Eden.
The original band members included
Jim Folk (keys/vocals),
Stan Dorsett (bass/vocals), Van Lautsch (drums/vocals)
and myself (guitar/vocals). The membership was in
a state of flux for some of the middle years, which
brought to the band other such members as Doug Zurowski
(bass/vocals), Brian Morgan (fretless
bass/vocals),
Ken Sinneave (bass/sax/vocals),
Keith Soehn (synth/tape
sounds/vocals) and Dale Sauer (guitar/vocals). It
seems to me there were one or two others that passed
through as well but the names presently escape me.
For the final years of the bands existence, the original
4 members once again took the stage together.
As
Eden, we
toured in our 48-passenger school bus performing at a
barrage of one-night stands. For more info and
pictures of the
Eden years
refer to the
Eden - the band
page
on this website.
The
Eden years
were creative, challenging and fun days. It was an
education in music, life and long distance driving.
We were more than friends,... we were family. During
this era, thanks to the musical influences of my friends
Keith Soehn and
Eden drummer
Van Lautsch, I became intrigued by the sounds of electronic
music, which led me to study it’s possibilities for my own
musical compositions at the University of Regina under the
tutelage of professor and composer
Dr. Thomas
Schudel.
In
the early 80’s, after
Eden had
disbanded, I assembled (from some analog and early digital
gear) a small project studio in Regina I called
Concrete
Studios.
Yah,… it was in a concrete basement. Numerous
experimental recording projects came out of that facility,…
most of which were “tossed”. Some of the results I
would never want anyone to hear. But in that old
musical laboratory the journey of education, exploration
and discovery was more important than any polished or
useable outcome. It was a time of research and
development, so to speak, and a time of discovering new
possibilities. The gear at my disposal was limited,
but my imagination ran rampant throughout the available
circuits, stretching them to the limits. In that
concrete cocoon I spent countless hours listening to
recording techniques used on my favorite albums, as I tried
to reproduce what I heard.
EXPERIMENTS
WITH RECORDING
Although Concrete
Studios was
mainly a personal playground, I did use it to write and
produce a jingle for the Regina food bank. An old
friend and fellow guitarist Will Putz, who was very active
with Regina service clubs, approached me with a commission
to write and record the jingle. I was fortunate to
enlist my old friend and Eden
band
mate
Jim Folk to
perform the lead vocal as well as a local singing
quintet called The
Sunshine Company to do
the layered backup vocals. The
Sunshine Company included
Melanie Jacobs, Don Monk, Ron Huber, Cheryl Schwarts and
Barb Hillworth. It was producer Doug Russell of
CKCK TV who used my finished audio recording as the
soundtrack to record a promotional video at Taylor Field
on July 12th, 1985.
There
were a whole host of local celebrities, politicians, etc.
present for the videotaping, although my personal favorites
were the Saskatchewan
Roughrider Cheerleaders and
Gainer
the Gopher. If my
memory is correct, I was standing next to Johnny Sanderson
(popular CKCK TV host) and
Ned Shillington
(attorney
and NDP MLA) and between takes Ned said to
Johnny,
“This
song was written by Jeff Wyatt. I wonder which one Jeff
Wyatt is?”.
Johnny
pointed out front, toward
Jim Folk and
responded with,
“That
must be him doing the singing out front by the camera,…
he’s good.”
I
just bit my tongue and laughed silently to myself,
feeling like the invisible man. I didn’t wish to
speak up and embarrass them or myself, but I could
hardly wait to tell Jim after it was all over. The
final video was aired for a special food bank week from
June 23rd
to
28th
in
1985. It highlighted with a CFL football game at
Taylor Field between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and
the BC Lions on June 28th. (note: the Lions won
that contest 21 to 3, although it was only an exhibition
game). The jingle I produced was played regularly
for a couple of weeks on Z-99 FM Radio and CJME AM
Radio. On the
Autobiography pics link on
the upper right of this page are a couple of newspaper
clippings from the Taylor Field video taping.
DELVED
DEEPER INTO SONGWRITING
The 1980’s were a period of intense songwriting for me and
I worked hard exploring guitar sounds, alternate tunings,
playing techniques and styles. During this time I
also did much in the way of acoustic performing at various
restaurants and clubs, including performances for
the Regina
Guild of Folk Arts (which is
the group that sponsors the annual Regina Folk
Festival).
At these intimate Guild performances at Regina's
Copper Kettle Restaurant
I had
the honor and privilege of warming up on separate
occasions for such Canadian greats as
Don Ross,
Stephen Fearing
and
Lynn Miles.
Another fun Regina place I regularly performed at was a
quaint, family owned restaurant/pub called
Michaels
On Hamilton,
which had a warm, entertaining staff and
clientele. The atmosphere and bar room activities
bore much in the way of similarities to that of the
infamous Boston pub in the TV series CHEERS.
RECEIVED
'FACTOR' NEW TALENT DEMO AWARD
In 1990 I was fortunate to be the recipient of a
FACTOR New
Talent Demo Award. This provided me financial
assistance toward the recording of a 4 song demo of
original tunes in a professional recording
facility. This demo was recorded in 1990 at the
late Inner City Sound Studios in Regina with engineering
and production provided by Warren St Onge.
RECORDED 1st SOLO ALBUM
This same year brought me back in the studio to record my
first solo album
FLIGHT OF THE HAWK, which
I released later that year. CBC 540 AM Radio invited
me into their Regina studios to be interviewed by producer
Lori Regare for the program Daybreak,
which included the airing of 3 songs from the album.
MOVED
TO VANCOUVER AREA - CANADA'S WEST
COAST
In 1991 I relocated to British Columbia to explore the west
coast music scene. When I finally made that
inevitable westerly trek to Vancouver area I felt quite
intimidated for a year or more about the talent to be
encountered there. I thought of myself as being this
inferior guitarist, musician and songwriter from the
Saskatchewan prairies moving to the “big city”. A
kind of "new kid on the block" mentality. However, it
was not long before I discovered that the musicians and
songwriters on the west coast weren’t any MORE talented
than those I grew up with on the prairies,… there was just
MORE OF THEM in Vancouver. Because of that I could
see it was easy to get lost in the crowd. Along with
that realization though, I was able to relax, meet other
musicians and indulge in an honest mutual appreciation of
each others work and abilities. In order to prevent
myself from occasionally slipping into a
homeland-inferiority-complex I had to remind myself that
Saskatchewan was known for giving birth to some amazing
unknown as well as known talent. Some of the later
include guitar giants
Jack Semple and
Colin James,…
“kick ass” bands which include
Kick Axe and
Streetheart,…the
ultra-bass player
Ken “Spider” Sinneave
who
supplied ample interesting bottom end for
Streetheart before
moving on to
Tom Cochrane,
Loverboy and
others,…and who could forget about the legendary
names
Joni Mitchell and
Buffy
Sainte-Marie?
The preceding is just a very small list of the various
musical talents that arose from the Saskatchewan prairie
lands, and I apologize for any obvious names that I
failed to mention in this condensed musical cross
section.
STUDIED
RECORDING ENGINEERING
It was in Vancouver where I studied the Digital
Analog Automated Recording Arts program
at
Columbia
Academy
in Vancouver. As a student in class #39DA7 I
formally studied recording engineering under gifted
instructors/engineers (and musicians)
Jim Meyer and
Kevin Williams.
This stint at recording engineering studies was indulged
in more for my own personal use as a songwriter and
arranger than it was for a possible career in recording
engineering. It was an expensive indulgence, but
worth the time and money required.
MUSIC
WEST
1992 held for me some interesting events.
Attending
Music West that
year I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with a
number of interesting local and international music biz
people which included
Corky Laing (drummer
for the raw power trio
Mountain)
and
Bob Clearmountain
(recording
engineer extraordinaire who’s worked with many of the
biggest musical names you can think of over the last 2
or 3 decades).
Corky Laing was
working for Polygram Records at the time, signing and
developing new acts. Having recognizing his name
from an open panel discussion I approached him afterward
and asked,
“With
a name like Corky Laing you must be the drummer
from
Mountain?”
He
seemed flattered to be recognized. We chatted briefly
amidst the noisy surroundings after which he shook my hand
and wished me good luck in my music endeavors.
Bob Clearmountain
was
not advertised as being in attendance, but I recognized
him at a booth which he was hosting as an assistant to
his lovely wife. She had a table and display
representing a certain brand of digital to analog and
analog to digital converters,...
Apogee, I
believe. Both Bob and his wife were very
amiable, pleasant people and Bob was not at all awkward
about being recognized. On the contrary, he seemed
flattered and possibly somewhat surprised that I did
recognize him. It just so happened that I knew
what he looked like from a picture with an article that
I had read in a recent
Mix magazine,...
or maybe it was an add,... I forget. Almost
immediately I initiated a conversation with him about
the first reel to reel digital muli-track tape recorder
that I had read about in a
Mix magazine,
wanting to know more about it and whether Bob was
familiar with it. It was a 32-track digital
recorder built by the 3M company (ie. Scotch) in the
1970’s. The development of this early machine was
undertaken in collaboration with the BBC. It was
used to record
Ry Cooder’s
Bop Till You Drop
album
at Amigo studios in North Hollywood, California.
This classic 70's Cooder album wears the crown of being
known as the first digitally recorded pop album.
Bob shared memories with me about working in a
studio with one of these very machines. He said it
was a little strange looking with,..”exposed wires
dangling”. However, the recording quality was
amazing. One of my recording engineer
instructors from Columbia Academy (Kevin Williams)
also just happened to be present. He came up to
the booth as I was there and had recognized Bob as
well. Kevin looked at me and said,
“That’s
Bob Clear…”
I
smiled and interrupted with
“Yah.”
While
Kevin chatted with Bob, I asked Bob’s wife what it was like
being married to such a busy, sought after pro recording
engineer/mixer. She smiled and stated that sometimes
many hours and days would go by before his face resurfaced
for her to see. I laughed because I could relate to
Bob’s engineering passion and musical work ethic.
RECORDED
2nd SOLO ALBUM
A second solo album project ensued in 1994 which I recorded
at the late Bullfrog Studios in Vancouver. The album
was appropriately titled
THE BULLFROG SESSION,
and was
produced by Ian Tarasoff and myself. It was a year or
2 after this that a series of events in my personal life
brought me to the point of taking an 8-year break from
making music of any kind. After selling my guitars I
even thought that I would never return to it.
WROTE,
RECORDED & PERFORMED WITH BARRY GREENFIELD IN DUO KNOWN
AS
'greenfield wyatt'
In 2004, while recovering from a hand injury, I ended up
buying a guitar again as I was killing time waiting for a
hand physiotherapy appointment. A few weeks later I
also bought another guitar from my friend Lance. It
was not long after that my friend
Mike Freda invited
me to a warehouse jam session in October of 2004.
Being disgustingly out of practice, I only very
reluctantly agreed, after much prodding on his
part. It was at this jam that I met drummer Ken
Dahl who days later introduced me to songwriter
Barry
Greenfield.
When
Barry and I met in November 2004, we got along well right
from the start, and thus decided to work together. In
the meantime (since I was “ampless”), my good friend
Mike Freda built
me an awesome 18 watt tube guitar amp in the style of
Jimmy Marshall’s 1960’s vintage circuitry, however, with
improved grounding modifications. It has that
awesome, vintage early Marshall sound, although with a
slightly altered tone which suites my playing. On
the
Bio Pics link
on the upper right of this page is a photo of my amp
(with Mike's Tele) just after it was completed.
Barry
and I co-wrote, rehearsed, performed and recorded together,
improving, inspiring and challenging each other’s
creativity. In 2005 we recorded an album
entitled
songs from the rothstein under
the name
greenfield and wyatt.
Later we simply started billing our live act as
greenfield wyatt.
It
was while working with Barry that I had the pleasure of
meeting and working with some veteran Vancouver musicians,
which included
Gaye Delorme,
Tom keenlyside,
Roge Belanger, Ken
Dahl,
Jack Duncan,
Nick Apivor and
Richard St Onge.
We performed together in various lineup combinations for
a number of Vancouver concerts. 3 concerts were
booked at the
Norman Rothstein Theatre
and 2
at
The Cellar Jazz
Club.
There were performances at other lesser known venues as
well. All were well received. Although
the
greenfield wyatt partnership
was a richly rewarding and creative time for both Barry and
I, after a change of management and the realization of
differing musical visions, Barry and I chose to stop
working together in July of 2006. A follow up
CD project to
songs from the rothstein,
which
was almost complete was abandoned in the process due to our
mutual decision to dissolve the musical partnership.
RECORDED
MY 3rd SOLO ALBUM
Over the years I’ve worked at developing my songwriting and
instrumental craft and have recorded sporadically.
Another album is completed, entitled
Reflections At Every
Corner.
This CD is available for purchase, as well as for mp3 album
download on
cd baby. It
is also available on
Apple iTunes. In
the weeks and months to come it will be on
Best Buy,
Yahoo Music,
Rhapsody,
Napster,
MSN Music and a
host of other popular (and lesser known) music download
sites. The entire album can be heard on the
Recordings page
of this site.
4th
SOLO ALBUM NOW IN THE WORKS
I have begun work on my next solo project which will be
more of a blues album. It will be called
People Do Blues (also on
the
Cardboard Alley Music label)
which will include an R&B title track of the same
name. I expect this project's release date to be in
winter of 2009.
Listen
to a demo version of this song through link below.
People Do Blues
--- [LISTEN]
© Jeff Wyatt 2008 (SOCAN)
MY
INFLUENCES
It's quite evident that my musical tastes are wide, and
those influences obviously and sometimes obscurely come out
in my music. I love rock, acoustic and electric
blues, soul, R&B, symphonic orchestrations, opera,
ethnic music, etc.
My work has been described to me as an interesting mix of
styles resembling that of artists like Ry Cooder,
David Wilcox,
Mark Knopfler,
Neil Diamond,
Johnny Cash,
Gordon Lightfoot,
Jeff Beck and
others. Now that sounds like a spicy musical
recipe. Well,...I'm
truly humbled at the mere thought of any such remote
comparisons to these musical giants. Personally I just
think I sound like me,... whatever that is,... however,
all those personalities have certainly influenced my
playing and writing. They
are some of the all time greatest.
STILL
LIKE TO EXPERIMENT
Although I am mostly a guitarist, I do like to dabble and
bang on the keys. Besides, as a kid I did study piano
for a number of years, although playing guitar is easily my
main musical obsession. But in this last few years
I’ve experienced a whole new interest in not only playing
piano,.. but also writing on piano and writing
orchestration. Some of the results of these dabblings
can be heard on my album
Reflections At Every Corner
which
you can listen to on my
Recordings page.
LIVE
MUSIC IS STILL BEST
I appreciate and am a sucker for a great musical recording,
but nothing beats the live experience and performance of
music in my mind. As much as I love cool recording
techniques and layers of tonal textures and colorful
percussive backdrops, nothing is more stunning and
captivating to me than simply watching and hearing a gifted
musician play an instrument with his or her whole heart and
soul.
CONCLUSION,...
FOR NOW
Since becoming a west coaster I have performed solo and
otherwise in the province and still continue to write
record and occasionally perform. Please feel free to
check out my other pages for details on this and other info
which I hope you will find interesting. There's
so much more work I wish to do,... writing, recording, live
performances and possibly soundtracks for film.....we'll
see - wish me luck. This site will be updated on an
ongoing basis as there is more to report.
THANKS
FOR VISITING !!
Jeff Wyatt
Vancouver, Canada
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
