I remember getting hammered on rye and Coke back in the early 60's watching the original incarnation of The Band playing with Ronnie Hawkins on the Yonge St strip in Toronto.
AND THEN THERE WAS ROBBIE…
From 1958-1965, Robbie Robertson played guitar in clubs along the Yonge Street strip, the bulk of that time spent with Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band, The Hawks (later to become The Band). Their regular gig was at Le Coq d’Or (at 333 Yonge Street, where HMV now stands). Robertson tells the Post about his experience of Yonge Street’s rock ‘n’ roll scene:
“Because I was playing with Ronnie Hawkins, although I was underage, somehow or another I never got caught. Ronnie was really good at that diplomacy with whoever could have gotten me in trouble. We would be playing at Le Coq d’Or, and next door at the Edison, Bo Diddley or Carl Perkins could be playing. The doormen would say, “Let me see your ID,” and I’d say, ‘Oh, I play with Ronnie Hawkins,’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, go ahead.’ It worked in other places too, so I thought, ‘Well, this is great!’ It would be between sets; you’d only have a few minutes. I’d go down to the Brown Derby and there’d be somebody funny playing there, and further down the street at the Colonial, there’d be some amazing jazz artist playing: Cannonball Adderley and his band, Joe Williams – on and on and on. It was never somebody not good. Then somebody like Ray Charles would be playing at Massey Hall, and you’d go in and hear a few minutes of that. And then there was all kinds of after-hours places up the street, and it was just fantastic. I thought that that’s the way things are and would be. I didn’t think that that would melt away.
“There should be more of an effort to preserve the centre. Yonge Street was this Mecca of talent, and it isn’t just about the music – it’s about the whole community, and the characters. It was the centre of Toronto’s nightlife and entertainment, so I feel somewhat nostalgic about it, because it probably meant more to me than it would have done to a lot of people today. Yonge Street shouldn’t become a discarded part of the history of the city.”
Yonge Street — Toronto Rock & Roll Stories runs from Monday to Wednesday on Bravo! at 10 p.m.
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Posted in: Arts & Culture, Posted Toronto Tags: Arts And Culture, Music, Post Toronto, Toronto