During the summer we were married - 1966 - Sue-On accompanied me to most of our Country Gentlemen dance jobs and fair gigs. We performed at quite a few Manitoba Exhibitions - the forerunner of what would evolve into our extensive Federal Grain tours with Russ Gurr. Two of the larger events were the Dauphin Fair and the Austin Threshermen's Reunion. These involved appearances where we provided entertainment and music segues for the rodeo in the afternoon and full grandstand shows in the evening. We also performed on a float during the parades. Throughout these appearances Sue-On took well to the road and obviously had natural stage presence and her female presence, moves and occasional playing of percussion instruments certainly livened up what, up to that time, had been an all guy band.After the summer fair season we had a small wedding -- attended by just band members and close family. By then I realized that my bride had great showbiz potential. She had taken seven years of classical piano lessons and had sung in the United Church choir ... and she looked great. And I knew that she wouldn't be content to sit at home while I was out performing every weekend -- too often I had seen this lead to marital discord among my musician friends. So, we went to work on developing a stage act. Our audiences had been mainly light rock and country fans so we dug through our record collection to find material that would work for her and came up with current songs from Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline, Patti Page, Lulu, Nancy Sinatra and we also worked at adapting many country, folk and rock standards.
Sue-On's great ear for harmony opened another avenue as we started to work on duets. Knowing her piano background I sent for a electric Hohner Pianet, taught myself to chord on piano and then passed on as many by-ear tricks to her as I could. Gradually we worked these new solos, duets and piano sounds into the band. Setting a trend for the rest of our married life, we encouraged each other and dovetailed our individual strengths and weaknesses. Soon I had the confidence to start doing my own vocal solos. The guys in the band were generally very tolerant of this newbee interloper but more and more the two of us started to play local country bars -- gigs in which we were joined by Jake Kroeger on vocals/rhythm from the Gentlemen, and for a short time, bassist/singer Ed Neufeld from a group we had worked with on CKX and the Austin grandstand shows. We started off in hotel beverage rooms in Hamiota, Shoal Lake, Strathclair, Minnedosa, but as our popularity grew the bookings increased in larger venues -- as far away as Brandon and in the many military bases around the province -- we started to look for a new name.
The name Country Gentlemen didn't seem to fit a band with a featured girl singer. Searching through my Zane Grey collection, the title of one of his western novels drew my attention: Western Union. The name stuck for the next ten years.
Throughout this '66/'67 season I used two new guitars on stage. A few months before we were married my Gretsch Chet Atkins Nashville guitar was while I was freelancing with a band at a dance in McCreary. My grandmother and parents both came to the rescue and soon I was using both a Gretsch Country Club and Fender Telecaster on stage.
Our Pub Play list ~ circa '66/'67 ~ Sue-On ~ Jake Kroeger ~ Bill
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I Don't Care Honky Tonk Man Act Naturally My Heart Skips a Beat Love's Gonna Live Here Above and Beyond Muddy Water Wild About Lovin' The Longer You Wait Alabam Truck Drivin' Man Travel On Bill Bailey Blue Moon Cabin On The Hill |
Buckaroo Rise & Fall of Flingel Bunt No Trespassing Hideaway Driving Guitars 'Round and 'Round Memphis Let's Go Bull Dog Green Onions Country Gentleman Sour Biscuits Apache Wheels Wreck of the John B Hula Love Suzie Q |
Sugar Town Downtown Dum Dum Baby Cried Go Tell It On The Mountain My Love Need A Little Help Kind of a Hush Be So Nice Tammy Love Letters Easy to Forget Bb That's What It's Like (To Be Lonesome) C Ode To Billy Joe Bossa Nova To Sir With Love |
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Wildwood Flower Under the Double Eagle Silver Bell Tippy Toes Guitar Breakdown Mexican Polka Black Mountain Rag Buck's Polka Sugarfoot Rag WALTZ Fandango Blue Skirt Waltz C G
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Sweet Thang Crazy Arms Fugitive Faded Love Alley Cat Your World Abilene King of the Road Gone Cheating Heart Swinging Doors Distant Drums You Win Again Blues Stay Away Bottle Let Me Down
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Last Date Blue Hawaii Green Grass of Home Mansion You Stole Don't Be Angry All For the Love Together Again There Goes My Everything Almost Persuaded So Lonesome I Could Cry
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By spring our new Western Union was rejoined by Barry Forman and John Skinner for dance dates and we started to make preparations to join Russ Gurr for another Federal Grain tour of Western Canada. Around this time I received a tip from the Guess Who's Randy Bachman. Randy was familiar with my stolen Gretsch and reported seeing a guitar just like it in a Winnipeg Main Street pawn shop. I passed the information on to the RCMP and within a short time they had returned my lost Gretsch - just in time for the Federal Grain tour.Our appearances in bars and dance halls were a great training ground and were generally quite exciting and rewarding. The only real clunker that stands out was in our hometown. We were hired for a community dance by a sports club. The band assembled early at our country home, Maple Grove, as the local paper wanted to do a photo feature on us. The photos and newspaper feature turned out great, but no one showed up for the dance, not even the members of the sports club. Embarrassing... but we had a good practise.
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BILL & SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO