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SEPTEMBER 2008
NEW CD: JUMPIN' AT THE YALE

The Keith Bennett band has performed regularly at the Yale Hotel in Vancouver for the past six years. The Yale Hotel, one of Canada's premier blues clubs, boasts live music seven nights a week and has hosted an astonishing array of world class musicians over the yoars. When rumors of the closing of this prominent musical attraction began to surface recently, it seemed only natural to me to retain an audio snapshot of my time there. This recording, JUMPIN AT THE YALE, is what we sounded like on any given night. I have been honoured to have had the opportunity to work with such great talent both on the stage and behind the scenes on this project. My warmest thanks to all those involved.

Keith Bennett


OCTOBER 12, 2006
QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS TOUR
KEITH BENNETT & ED MOHORIC

Day 1

The flight from the Vancouver airport was fantastic as we followed the Sunshine Coast past Desolation Sound and beyond. We were on a small Dash 8 carrying around forty people and the trip took 90 minutes. We landed in Sandspit, were met by Pat from the arts council and were ushered to a waiting school bus for a 23km ride to the ferry which would take us to Charlotte City.

The coastline here is etched from stone and seems to have a weathered pine or two on every rock. There are so many shallow islands that navigating here without good charts would be the peril of any boater. The last time I was in the Charlottes it rained the whole time and to now see this coast in the afternoon sun was breathtaking.

On the 20-minute ferry to Charlotte City we saw a fishing barge being towed by a tugboat. It is a complete floating hotel for fisherman with rooms and a huge dining room, kitchen and bar. They were probably towing it towards quieter waters in Prince Rupert for the winter. The bus dropped us off at the post office where our contact for the tour works.

Day 2

Using a car that was loaned to us for the day, I picked up Ed from where he was staying. We headed off towards the town of Tlell. The first stop on our National Geographic adventure was Ernie Burnett’s woodworking shop where we were given a tour of his studio. He did fine freehand carving on boxes and fine furniture. In the Charlottes the quality of wood available to wood carvers and builders is amazing. As I do a little wood turning myself as a hobby, I am aware of the fine-grained wood preferred by woodworkers. I asked Ernie if he might have a scrap of this excellent yellow cedar that I could buy off of him to try on my little lathe at home. He walked me to a shed stacked to the roof with it and handed me a gorgeous clear plank, 3" thick by 14" wide by 12" long and said, “Will this do?” My mouth dropped and I said "Wow! This is beautiful. How much do you want for it?” He said “Oh, you can just have it. This is my fire wood pile.”

We then stopped at the shore and took a walk on an amazing beach that drew your eyes beyond the waves to the horizon. It is one of the vastest beaches I can remember seeing and the warm October sun brightened the already colorful rocks. There is a major problem with erosion here, with the winter storms eating away at the sandy coastline. Many stretches of road have had to be diverted and re-paved farther inland as the sea eats into the shores. In the winter there are many power shortages from the sea-loosened trees being blown back into the land by the powerful storm winds, and then falling onto the power lines.

Our next stop was to take a hike along Anvil trail. This is by far the most magical moss-covered trail I have ever seen. It is so infrequently used that you are indeed walking in the moss. It was a soft, meandering thread through many different and changing forest environments, from dense underbrush that you couldn’t see through to Robin Hood-like wide-open moss and fern-filled meadows. It is well marked and leads to a walk along the Tlell river with salmon jumping and splashing every 10 seconds.

Back on the highway we stop at the famous Funk It! Shop for a quick look. I found a great little book entitled “How to Mow a Lawn” which I thought I would give to my son as a mild hint. Ed and I began talking to Dawn, the owner, and told her why we were in the islands and that we were performing on the weekend. “Can you teach me to play the stand up bass?” she asked. “Sure,” I said. “No problem. I’ll trade you a lesson for that little “How to Mow the Lawn” book. Five minutes later Ed and I were doing a tandem lesson on the 12 bar blues for stand up bass. Her instrument was upstairs above the shop in their living room, which had, in my mind, one of the finest million-dollar views I had ever seen. We gave her some ideas on what to do to play the notes for the blues and then wrote them out for her to practice along with later. She was delighted to practice what she’d learned. We said our goodbyes and headed off again.

The next stop was Spirit Lake Walk, which looked innocent enough and was touted to be wheelchair accessible. It took us about 1 km on this trail to begin wondering what kind of all-terrain wheelchairs they must make here. It went straight up a mountain for about 25 minutes!

Just before we got to the top, the only people we were to see on either of the trails were two women jogging, and they ran past us like we were standing still. We asked them about which way we should go when we reached the top and they told us that the trail went around the lake and either direction would work. The last thing they said, with a grin, was “watch out for the bears.”

It was another nice walk around a lake that was snarled with mossy snags and had many islands of rotting trees and sun bleached wood. Around the back of the lake there were some long boardwalks that had been built above the marshes.

Our next stop along the highway was the famous balancing rock, untouched by the winter storms. We took some photos and headed back as the afternoon sun lowered in the sky, making the rolling surf look like cotton candy as waves broke far out to sea and rolled slowly into the shore.

We got back to the house and were treated to a fantastic meal of smoked salmon, baked salmon, halibut and rockfish. After dinner I drove Ed to his billet’s home and was asked to record two songs for a cd by Wendy Watts, a very talented local singer-songwriter.

The first concert was in Masset, and driving there I stopped counting grazing deer when I reached 50. We performed two sets; the first was original pieces from our Tin Sandwich cd, and the second half was a mixture of classic blues songs that I played guitar and sang to as well. We had a great reception there and were told that the turnout was good.

The next night we performed in Skedegate and received an equally good reception. There were close to 60 people there and compared to the population, that was a great turnout. There is a special energy in the Charlottes and the audience, and I think the performance itself reflected that.

The next day we finished packing and said our goodbyes to all the great people that had helped with our stay. We were truly blessed to have been able to visit such a spectacular place and meet such wonderful people. When we left we thought only one thing: When is next time…?


JULY 12, 2006
PERFORMING WITH SUPERTRAMP'S ROGER HODGSON AT THE CALGARY STAMPEDE!

Day 1

The day had finally arrived and I was up and at 'em to get ready for the trip to Calgary. I looked everywhere and could not find my wallet. I searched everywhere and it was nowhere to be found. The mind goes through stress in different ways but this is one of the worst and makes the body scream with terror! No ID = no plane! I finally thought of my last resort and rushed to find my passport.

It was now close to the minimum time that I could get to the airport, leave the van at Park and Fly and get to the terminal, check in, and get on the plane. I drove out anxiously, hoping that nothing else would interfere with my mission to play with my favourite band of all time.

The flight was uneventful and looking out of my window seat, clouds obscured the Rocky Mountains but for one snow-covered peak that poked through. When I arrived, I was met by the project manager and she drove me across town to the rehearsal venue in a local college.

When Roger Hodgson, the lead singer of the band, Supertramp was approached to perform at the Calgary Stampede Round up. He had been touring in Canada touring with a saxophone player. He was the writer of most of the hits that come to mind when you think of the band.

It was suggested that a full band be put together for the “Stampede Round Up”. The concert being held off of the Stampede Grounds at a heritage park contained four bands and 12 thousand tickets had been sold.

The concert was outdoors and was sponsored by Sleemans beer. Free beer flowed for hours.

How did I end up in this band you ask? Well sometime earlier in the spring I had been hired to perform a number of harmonica tracks at Miles Hill’s studio in Lynn Valley in North Vancouver. This music was then mixed and used for the Calgary Stampede nightly Grandstand Show entitled, “Moments in Time”. It was a lavish production with over a hundred and fifty dancers aerial performers that flew around at all levels, and the funniest comic bagpiper I have heard, recreating Eddie Van Halen guitar solos on the bagpipes.

My harmonica was prominently featured in a number of dance routines in the show.

When my harmonica was about to be heard, Dave Pierce, the conductor and musical director of the show would put down his conductor’s baton and pick up his Blackberry cell phone and fake like he was playing soulfully on the harmonica. One of the band members later told me that their standard musician’s gag was to speed dial Dave’s Blackberry cell phone and call him right when he was about to perform his harmonica “act”.

When the Supertramp band was being put together, my name came up and the fact that I can sing tenor had a lot to do with my being chosen. The two songs of his repertoire that had harmonica in them that I carefully studied before I left were: Take the Long Way Home and School, which had a very long intro on the harmonica.

The band members were asked to study the music on the cd’s and learn our parts exactly as they appeared on the original cd, without improvising.

This may sound easy, but I suggest you have a listen to the intro of Supertramp’s School and imagine that you have to play it perfectly all by yourself for the beginning of the band’s encore in front of 12,000 screaming fans!

The rehearsal was in a small lecture lab and we assembled the two keyboards, bass, drums, sax, and three back up singers, one of them playing the harmonica. As I am accustomed to doing one-off projects like this, I did my homework on the harmonies before I left and notated them all in bold after retyping the lyrics to help me learn them.

I was ready and prepared and when we were about to begin, the other singers had nothing with them to refer to. One of them asked me if he could photocopy all my notes so he would know what was going on. I smiled and said: “No problem,” and we all were on the same page so-to-speak.

We took each song and went through it once just to get a rough idea of who would play what and where the harmonies would lie. Supertramp’s music is very well crafted and though it appears to be busy, it is written with lots of space and room for subtle nuances. It also has many sounds “flown in” like bells, chimes and wind with these being delegated from the many sounds found in the memory banks of the Korg keyboards.

After the 6-hour rehearsal we went back to the hotel and the rest of the band prepared for the evening's Grandstand Show. When I checked into the hotel I had no wallet so had to give $200 (almost all the money I had with me) for the room deposit.

Apparently, famous rock bands have been known to trash their rooms! Luckily for me we were treated like royalty with meals, towels and water bottles always available.

After checking in and having a brief rest, I was off to visit relatives in the area and headed off to the suburbs on the commuter train.

Day 2

I didn’t sleep well as there was a huge outdoor tavern across the street that played country music very loudly all day and all night for private corporate pancake breakfasts.

Lobby call was 9:00am and we took the van to the next rehearsal location that was a large venue with 50 foot ceilings and a huge stage. It was here where we would later meet Roger and have our first rehearsal with him. But first we needed a sound system and herein lay the day’s problems. During Stampede Week, every sound system in the city had been booked long ago and this one had to be brought out from Vancouver in a van. When we got there, the movers hired to move the PA were there but there was no PA. I was amazed at how cool everyone stayed as the time to Roger’s arrival became closer and closer with nothing on the stage but our gear. They finally put together a small sound system they improvised with gear that was part of the theatre, and we made due with a small mixer and monitors. The monitors however couldn’t be moved closer to the singers than 20 feet so we could hear little of our vocals during the rehearsal.

Roger’s limo arrived: the largest SUV stretch limo I have ever seen. The driver had to back it up down the long alley, as there was a crane in the lane loading sheets of gyproc up 10 flights to the building next door. We loaded his rack gear, keyboards and acoustic 12 string guitar out of the limo and took it to the stage. As he was in contact with the project manager, he was told of the situation and we would not be seeing him until the sound system had been tested and we were truly ready to go.

Finally Roger and his manager arrived and he introduced himself to all the band members.

His keyboard had been set up as if we were doing a concert facing and audience and the first thing he asked for was to have his keyboard turned around so he could see us. The rehearsal that followed was amazing as he knew his music inside out and could hear every part perfectly. We went through the same set and took each song apart and discussed who would do what. As now there where three keyboards, and judging from Roger’s 48? of rack space he brought to use with them, the sound options would be many. To recreate the sounds he needed from his Korg Triton keyboard, he needed 5 outputs. So when all the inputs were used up in the mixing board they were using, we were short a vocal microphone. After each song was rehearsed for the music content he then moved onto the vocals he wanted to hear.

I now know how a film director feels when all the hours of work end up in the floor of the edit room.

Many of the harmonies I had studied and sweated over were lost: “I’ll sing that whole part by myself ” or “don’t come in till near the bottom on this song”.

At the end of the day I was bestowed all the high vocal harmonies and was rewarded for my efforts by being asked to accompany Roger on ‘Give a Little Bit’ singing melody while Roger sang the harmony with me.

After the rehearsal the band went to have something to eat in a gourmet restaurant next door.

It felt strange eating food that looked like edible flower arrangements when all we wanted was a basic fare. We went back to the hotel and after being given a VIP pass for the Stampede, I hopped on the band bus for the ride to the Stampede grounds.

Day 3: Day of the Show

I exited a night of butterflies in my sleep and I woke up quite excited.

Lobby call was 8:45 and we took the bus to the site and had a rather long sound check. With four bands performing one after another, it was important to keep track so it was someone’s job to put tape on the floor and write where absolutely everything was placed. Each band got a different colour of tape and that way they could keep track of each band’s set up. To my right, Tim, our on-stage mixer could give you anything you wanted sound-wise in your monitor.

He was a wizard on the mixing board. He reminded me of the character “Radar” in M.A.S.H. He knew exactly what you wanted in your monitor mix before you could tell him.He was one of the main reasons what was to follow was such a great experience for me, I could finally hear myself!

It had been worked into the show that Ian, the lead singer from the band Big Wreck, would open with a song that he had supposedly written when listening to Supertramp. It was called: “That Song”. At sound check I got the idea that he had worked with the main soundman as he walked up the front of the stage signaled hello to his friend and then proceeded to moon him and then walk away. When the fake grand piano had one of Roger’s keyboards nestled in it and all was ready to go, we tried a few of the songs to see how the sound was. Roger finally showed up and we did three short sections of four songs and that was that.He said it sounded great to him and so ended our final sound check. At 1pm we headed for the hotel and I had a power nap and relaxed. As we were downtown the thought of going outside to wander around the core of the city with big buildings and no parks didn't interest me in the slightest. We headed for the venue and the town was jammed with traffic, it being rush hour.

Dave, our fearless leader being a local, took us down the alleys of Calgary to get us there on time. It was a little tense but we made it with lots of time to spare.

As the other bands had done a sound check after us, we had to do another quick one to test everything again. When we arrived the once-empty field was packed with thousands of cowboy hats as far as the eye could see. The show kicked off with the president of Sleemans being awarded an honourary key to the city – a white cowboy hat.

The guitarist from Big Wreck opened the show and when Roger wasn’t finished adjusting his in ear earphones he motioned him to do another one.

We finally hit the stage and I got to open the first song with the Take the Long Way Home harp intro and the crowd went crazy! They whistled and cheered as soon as they recognized the song. It was the same for every song after that – what an experience! You could hear the audience sing along with the band and it was amazing how many words they all knew. When the set was finished we all walked off the stage and as we were standing there, Roger walked up to me and told me to wait for one minute and then go up and play the 45 second intro for the song School. I waited the minute and walked up on the stage as the crowd went nuts hoping for an encore. I started playing the intro to School and about halfway into it I heard the crowd go wild and didn’t understand why until I saw Roger walk by me with a Calgary Flames hockey jersey on. I stopped playing as he went up to the microphone and said: “If Calgary keeps growing it’s going to stretch all the way to Edmonton.” This was met with groans and boos from the audience. I started the solo again this time and the soundman turned me up and when they realized what it was, they went crazy again. We ended with the famous hit: “Give a Little Bit” and the audience sang the whole song with the band. Thank God for monitors. I could hear it perfectly!

I think Roger was impressed with the band and when I went to leave I was given a signed 8x10 glossy photo of Roger thanking me for playing and singing with him. When I talked to his manager to thank her, she asked me for my card, which I thought was promising. You never know.

My son, Jason was beaming in the front row with his movie camera to keep one of the best gigs ever.

He later got to meet Ian, the lead singer of the Big Wreck and they talked for quite a while. He was a really nice guy. There were beers in our band trailer, a buffet backstage, and I thought: “It just doesn’t get any better than this!”


JULY 12, 2006
SUPERTRAMP!

I will be performing with SUPERTRAMP's ROGER HODGSON on July 12 at the Calgary Stampede in the Grand Theatre. The band will be performing mostly Supertramp hits as well as three songs from Roger's solo album. I will be singing background harmony and playing harmonica on famous hits like Take The Long Way Home and School. The performance time is 6:00 pm.


JULY 7, 2006
NEW WEBSITE!

The new website is finally online! For any questions or comments about the site, please email Keith: keith@keith-bennett.com or Keith's web designer, sara@sarakoven.ca.


MAY 17, 2006
NEW CD!

I have just finished working on producing my first cd in my new studio in Deep Cove. It was started in March of 2006 and mastering has just been completed. The cd, KINDA CORNY, SORTA SWEET is a compilation of songs by my sister, Fay Bennett who lives in Bamfield, BC on Vancouver Island. It was an interesting project and a lot of fun to do. I had expert assistance from my good friend and Logic Guru George Cristen Widule who did an excellent job of mixing and mastering the project. Fay’s songs are earthy and reflect the live in a small town on one of the most rugged and beautiful coasts in Canada.

I am now in pre-production for my next cd, which will be this summer’s project.

Please keep posted for updates on the process of things to come.