Old Enough to Forget

The Hometown Band released albums in 1976 and 1977, and served as Valdy's backing band for a little while, and then as quickly as they were, they weren't. As a kid there weren't a lot of choices in terms of television channels - CBC was a universal constant, which explains why so many kids of my generation revered Mister Dressup and Ernie Coombs. We knew there was a Mister Rogers, but that wasn't in our neighbourhood. Casey and Finnegan were awesome, and in a pinch there was always The Friendly Giant and Rusty and Jereome. However CBC was also home to the Juno Awards, which for a long time was the home of iffy Canadian Content that aspired to greatness, and often settled for mediocrity. We did have our own rock royalty - Bachman Turner Overdrive as our resident kings of rock, and Anne Murray was our queen. If she put out an album she won an award. I remember watching those mid to late '70s shows eagerly hoping to catch a glimpse or even better yet a performance by a...

Funny how you can know a name but not know anything about the artist. Shari Ulrich is one of those artists who just skirted on the fringes of real success here in Canada. That sort of reads as a dismissive shot, but it's not. Many years ago I was a camp counsellor for a couple of summers and one of my fellow "shapers of future minds" was Rick Scott's son who was incredibly funny and we had a hoot over those two summer camps. Anyway I can't remember how it came up that he was Rick's son, most likely because I fancied myself a songwriter who could song about food and animals ... yeah, whatever you're conjuring in your mind's eye it's even worse. Why am I telling you this? I have no idea, but it's one of those things that came to mind when I was sitting here listening to One Step Ahead . Regardless, Shari was a member of the Pied Pumpkin that was apparently a biggish deal in the early '70s, and then she, along with Valdy, was a member of  The ...