In 1991 I found myself playing for The Stingrays which featured John LaRocca on guitar, Willie Leigh on vocals and Blues harp and, I could hardly wait, another opportunity to play with my favourite Blues drummer, a blast from my Chessmen and Gooduns past, John “Babe” Myles. Willie had come out of London, Ontario where he had sung and played harp for The Fabulous Sheiks. Now he was living in The Hammer where, natch, he was a professor of chemistry at McMaster U., don’t know if it was the working climate or the chemicals themselves but he had a craving to play in a working Blues band again. John LaRocca was a local lad from the McNab St. N. and Barton St. W. area. And Babe was from Beachroad.

I had met LaRocca while in the Real Thing when he started the Hamilton Blues Society (long defunct) and asked me if I could comeup with an image to be used on a Blues Society t-shirt. I continued to stay in contact with John through sharing our mutual interest in Blues and collecting it as well as early Rock’n’Roll, Jump Blues and New Orleans R&B. Oh man, do you really have…can I borrow it, make a copy? I just got a computer with a CD burner man. So when he put a band together, The Stingrays, and needed a bass, who’s he gonna call? We were basically a Blues cover band. Those guys didn’t write and play their owntunes, but who cared? Bluesamatic!

One of my favourite gigs was opening for Albert Collins for a Hamilton Blues Society gig at the Leander Boat Club and oh, what a night it was with The Iceman. We played other joints around town for a couple of years, mostly at the La Luna Sunday nights and weekends at the Gaslight which, under the old Royal Connaught Hotel, John Street entrance, was the main Blues club downtown in The Hammer at that time, well yeah, maybe the only one eh!. We also did a few one nighters here and there including the Hammer Gallery, 10 James N., Hamilton , and also a set at the Blues Festival at the Brig in the Norfork Hotel in Port Dover in 1992.

John, Willie, Babe, myself and special guest Ron Copple

Here’s a couple of songs from a gig at the Gaslight…..

Muddy Water’s I Wanna’ Be Loved

Ray Sharpe’s Linda Lu

Charlie Musselwhite’s River Hip Mama

Here’s a set we did at the Hamilton Blues Society’s Blues BBQ Picnic at the Leander Boat Club, Hamilton, August 1992.       

All the songs were recorded live and should be considered ‘historical documents’. Best listened to through a sound system where the bass and treble can be controlled.

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