'Wild Eyes' will be lighting up for fans of the iconic Canadian rock trio The Stampeders who blew up the charts in the 1970s as they put their stamp on Cowichan Valley with a stop at Duncan's Cowichan Performing Arts Centre on May 2, as part of their 'One More Time' tour.
"At this stage of life, you never know when the last tour's going to be," chuckled drummer Kim Berly. "One more time and than maybe once again, who knows. It's wonderful to be able to still do this and to have people come out and to have a good time with it. It seems like we have developed almost a Grateful Dead like following, we have die hard fans who come to see us every time we come through, and more and more see a wider variety of ages in our audience."
Berly, whose real last name is Meyer, has been the drummer with the classic rock group since they first formed in Calgary in 1964 under their original name The Rebounds. After hitting the skins for a few months and feeling pretty good about his skills he put an ad in the paper, which led to Brendan Lyttle showing up. Lyttle was playing in another band with Rich Dodson, which, as luck turned out, was in need of a drummer, giving Berly the opportunity to step into an already fully formed band. The band's name was changed to The Stampeders the following year in 1965. This came about when their manager Mel Shaw had made an arrangement with an agent out of London, England to get a Canadian band across the pond. The deal was intended for another band Shaw was working with, but when that band suddenly broke up, the opportunity was then passed to The Rebounds.
"We needed $10,000 to get to England so we went to the Chamber of Commerce and asked around to see if many of the local business men would invest in us and in return we'd promote the city of Calgary," said Berly. "An oil man proposed that if they changed our name to The Stampeders, he would see if he could get us the $10,000. We got all excited and went out and bought cowboy hats and clothes, we changed our name but unfortunately the oil man didn't give us any money, so we never made it to England, but we did make it to Toronto and that's where things began for us."
Berly said the boys had never been very fond of their new name, which to them felt cheesy, as in their mind to The Stampeders was Calgary's football team, but at the time the change was a small price to pay when $10,000 was seemingly in their reach.
They arrived in North Bay, Ont. in July of 1966, where their first gig was at a road house just outside the city limits that happened to be a hot spot, and as Berly put it, a great introduction to the Ontario music scene. It was an agent from Toronto who brought them out there in the summer of '66, and according to Berly they loaded everything into a 1957 Cadillac limousine, and a U-haul trailer along with their manger, his wife and two very young children. After a successful summer of gigs, they decided to stay in Toronto.
"We worked the Ontario bar circuit, beach pavilions and high schools and whatever else we could do for for five years until we finally broke out," said Berly. "It was a great way to cut your teeth, you worked every night from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and you got good. We weren't that crazy about being in the bars, but it was a living. But of course the most exciting times for any band is when things just start to happen."
Their break out song 'Carry Me' hit the airwaves on every radio station across the nation. It was written by Dodson while he was going through a U.S. Civil War phase, which also inspired their 1971 single 'Sweet City Woman', which Dodson also wrote. It stayed at the top of the Billboard chart for 16 weeks, and earning the band their first Juno Award.
That same year they also won Juno Awards for Best Group, Best Producer (Mel Shaw), and Best Composer (Dodson).
In 1977 the trio of Dodson, Berly, and Ronnie King on bass parted company but reunited, fittingly at the Calgary Stampede in 1992, and recorded new music for the last time in 1998. Since, they have been recognized by SOCAN for their Lifetime Achievement, been inducted into the SOCAN Songwriters Hall of Fame on five occasions as well as the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for 'Sweet City Woman'. Dodson still lives in Toronto today, while Berly and Dave Chabot, who replaced longtime member Ronnie King after he died in March 2024, both now live in B.C. While King was in palliative care, he insisted that his band mates carry on with their scheduled tour.
They are still carrying on today, with their 'One More Time' tour that will rock the Cowichan Performing Arts stage on May 2 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $96 and can be purchased in person at the ticket centre in the lobby of the Cowichan Community Centre, by calling 250-748-7529 or by visiting cowichanpac.ca. They will also play the Victoria Royal Theatre on May 1, and Nanaimo's Port Theatre on May 5.
"Rich was the first guitar player I ever worked with, and we still are working together," said Berly. "I hope our audiences have a great time, and a few laughs and hopefully feel inspired by some old guys who are still cookin."
