Tommy Hunter, Red Shea, Les Pouliot, Gordon Lightfoot, Sir John
 

http://www.lfpress.com/blogs/brandne.../19475921.html

Tommy Hunter was in splendid form when we talked on the phone recently about his farewell tour which ends, as it should, on March 20 at the RBC Theatre at the John Labatt Centre. You can hear Tommy (who called back to share even more, v. flattering)Â for what is about 63 minutes of delightful reminiscing. Matchless memories. Johnny Cash stories & lots more.

JBNBlog was thrilled when Tommy talked about the Pouliot brothers . . . you’ll want to hear the whole thing anyway but the Pouliots arrived in Toronto decades ago as genuine gas-siphoning wildmen from Prince Albert (hometown of Dief the Chief)..

One of them, Les Pouliot, went on to become producer/writer with Tommy’s hit TV show & you can hear how highly Tommy thinks of him . . . & didn’t suffer fools gladly when it came to people he couldn’t work with.

Laurice Pouliot became Red Shea, guitarist with Gordon Lightfoot, in the 1960s and later with Ian Tyson. He was the bandleader on Tommy Hunter’s TV show in the 1980s and died in 2008.

Tommy filled in some other Pouliot details . . . JBNBlog has been trying to get in touch with Les Pouliot for years because he wrote Odd Man Out, a terrific rockabilly song, for Larry Lee (London’s Larry Broderick) and it’s on the Larry Lee & the Leesures album on Canatal where Red Shea (Les’s brother, Laurice) is apparently one of the guitarists. (The actual album credits don’t mention him).

London rawkabilly bands have covered Odd Man Out at various times as a tribute to Larry Lee . . . & through Les Pouliot to Tommy Hunter, who would have been a rawkabilly cat himself if things had worked out a little differently .. or he had been born a bit later.

Enjoy the interview. Tommy is in prime voice &, for once, JBNBlog has the sense to shut up & stay out of the way.