Prairie Bohemian: Frank Gay’s Life in Music

Published by

The University of Alberta Press

Ring House 2

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada  T6G 2E1

www.uap.ualberta.ca

Copyright © 2015 Trevor W. Harrison

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Harrison, Trevor, 1952–, author

Prairie Bohemian: Frank Gay’s life in music / Trevor W. Harrison.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978–1–77212–047–9 (pbk.).—ISBN 978–1–77212–066–0 (EPUB).—ISBN 978–1–77212–067–7 (kindle).—ISBN 978–1–77212–068–4 (PDF)

1. Gay, Frank, 1920–1982. 2. Stringed instrument makers—Canada—Biography. 3. Guitarists—Canada—Biography. I. Title.

Index available in print and PDF editions.

First edition, first printing, 2015.

First electronic edition, 2015.

Digital conversion by Transforma Pvt. Ltd.

Copyediting and proofreading by Meaghan Craven.

Indexing by Adrian Mather.

Cover design by Alan Brownoff.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written consent. Contact the University of Alberta Press for further details.

The University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from The Canada Council for the Arts. The University of Alberta Press also gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund (AMF) for its publishing activities.

To Gerald K. Harrison (1921–1985) and Lena A. Harrison (1923– )

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

1 | Beginnings

2 | Army Tunes

3 | Postwar Toronto

4 | Edmonton the New

5 | The Shop

6 | Guitar Maker to the Stars

7 | World-Class Concerts

8 | The Dark Side

9 | Musical Flights and Nothing More

10 | Giving Back

11 | House Parties and Mr. Montoya

12 | Marriage Redux

13 | Wood Songs from the South Side

14 | Frank Gay’s Travelling Music Show

15 | Jack Paget’s Tape

16 | Searching for a Miracle

17 | The Final Years

18 | Frank Agonistes

19 | Final Days

20 | The Funeral

21 | Legacy

22 | The Repressed Unmakeable

23 | Coda

Notes

Bibliography

Preface

IN THE LATE 1950S, a photograph, now lost—a memory (a false one, perhaps?)—was taken in the living room of a home in the then new and growing Ottewell neighbourhood of southeast Edmonton. In the photo, one man sits in a chair, looking down at his hands, which are laid over a shiny, National steel guitar resting in his lap. To his right is another man, playing an acoustic guitar. The first man is my father, to whom—along with my mother—this book is dedicated; the second is Frank Gay. When that photo was taken, I was, perhaps, six years old. I am not in the picture but somewhere on the sidelines, watching and listening.

Frank came to our house several times to play guitar. It was in our living room that I first heard Lecuona’s flamenco piece Malagueña played.[1] It was magical.

I have often thought about those occasions, more so in the years since Frank’s death in 1982 (and my father’s passing three years later). There was little notice when Frank died. The Edmonton Journal ran a standard obituary. A couple of weeks later, Alberta Report also carried a short notice, and other newspapers printed similar brief mentions of his death. Shelley Youngblut’s article in Living West, published ten years later, noted bitterly that, when Frank Gay died, only the guitar players gently wept.[2]

It must be said that Frank received only occasional notice during his lifetime, as well. A few short newspaper articles aside, most people outside the country-music industry and Alberta never heard of him. He lived far from the centres of cultural celebrity.

To this day, no authoritative account of Frank’s life and accomplishments exists. Much of what does exist is either incorrect or incomplete, and out of date. The most detailed description of Frank Gay is found in an article written by Mansel Davies, published four years before Frank’s death.[3] Every short biography written since appears to take its information from this article. These include one written by Mark Miller that appears in the 1980 edition of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, later reproduced in The Canadian Encyclopedia,[4] and a short biography on the Canadian Museum of History’s website dealing with the history of the making of musical instruments in Canada,[5] neither of which include the date of Frank’s death. Youngblut’s article, previously mentioned, captures something of the raw truth of Frank’s unusual life and persona, but is only one page in length, contains some inaccuracies, and is prone to mythmaking.[6]

Yet, during his lifetime, Frank made guitars for some of country music’s greatest artists at the time: the accomplished Johnny Cash; Canada’s Cowboy Troubadour Stu Davis;[7] American songwriter Don Gibson;[8] American guitarists Johnny Horton and Ferlin Husky;[9] Canadian singer, songwriter, and broadcaster Stu Phillips;[10] American honky-tonk stars Webb Pierce and Faron Young;[11] popular country and western performer Carl Smith;[12] Canadian country and western musician and songwriter Joyce Smith;[13] and Nova Scotia–born Grand Ole Opry singer Hank Snow,[14] to name only the most prominent. Today, three of his guitars reside in Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, another in the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.

In later years, moreover, Frank also made at least one Elizabethan lute, as well as classical guitars, including one—albeit not delivered—for Carlos Montoya,[15] one of the twentieth century’s greatest flamenco guitarists. He also made electric guitars, including one—likewise undelivered—for George Harrison.

In addition to making musical instruments, Frank was an accomplished musician who played several instruments: the banjo, the violin, the accordion, and particularly the classical and flamenco guitar,[16] for which he was recognized by those in the music business. In his 1978 article, Mansel Davies remarked, Although he performs classical guitar at a high level of complexity, his forte is his individual style of playing the music of Django Reinhart, Les Paul, and Chet Atkins, though Frank can play in any style.[17] Writing six years after Frank’s death, Teisco Del Rey referred to him as a formidable jazz and classical guitarist.[18] His contemporaries viewed him as an extraordinary guitarist with a unique style whose admirers included Tennessee-born guitarist and music producer Chet Atkins and Montoya.[19] In fact, the latter—according to Jim Sanborn, an attendee at an after-concert social in Edmonton in 1968—declared that Frank was the world’s greatest flamenco guitarist.

Despite his accomplishments and the accolades, Frank Gay is still largely unknown to the general public, remembered only by friends and those musicians—some quite prominent—whom he tutored. I hope this book will change that.

}{ This is an account of the life and times of Frank Gay. It began as a simple, three-chord melody, suitable for play perhaps in a small, academic journal; it ends as a complex suite about a man’s life. What I originally intended to be a straightforward tale about a relatively little-known luthier and classical guitarist expanded to become a more complex inquiry into the nature of fame and the wellsprings of creativity. But it is the nature of writing to end up telling a tale different from the one first envisioned. Writing is as much a search as an exposition.

The unexpected story of Frank Gay is that of a simple yet complex man whose life at first seemed to be an open book but, as I soon found, instead contained a number of secret and deceptive chapters. Here was a man who was outwardly garrulous and happy but could become shy and quiet, inward-looking and troubled; who was almost simultaneously urbane and uncouth, sophisticated and slovenly; who was kind and generous, especially to children and young musicians, yet whose relationships with his wives and girlfriends were often unhappy and sometimes abusive. While he was a confidant performer on stage, fully in charge of his actions, offstage, his life sometimes veered out of control. Ultimately, like many artists, Frank Gay was brilliant and self-destructive. He was, in the words of one individual interviewed, a bohemian: one who lives an unconventional life.

The gathering of material for this book began in the summer of 2005, when finally—after years of contemplating the project—I ran advertisements in the Prince Albert Daily Herald, The Globe and Mail, and the Edmonton Journal, asking for anyone who knew Frank Gay to contact me. In the end, I conducted more than twenty-five formal interviews with people who knew Frank well, and I gathered e-mails, written questionnaires, and off-the-record comments from others. During my research I also obtained several official documents, including Frank’s war records and marriage and death certificates; a number of newspaper and magazine stories written about Frank when he was alive; letters Frank wrote; and numerous photos, some of which appear in this volume. Finally, I also obtained several tapes, some from radio archives of interviews conducted with Frank and others from friends and acquaintances that feature Frank playing music and sometimes speaking.

No biography is ever really complete. What we know—or think we know—is often fraught with contradictions, facts competing with factoids and linked by blank spaces. Still, I hope that in the end I have succeeded in giving an accurate portrait of Frank Gay’s life, one through which those who knew Frank—and those who did not—can see something of his extraordinary talent.

Acknowledgements

EVERY BOOK IS AN ENSEMBLE PIECE, this one especially so. At the risk of overlooking some individuals, I want to acknowledge and thank several people for their contributions.

I am first and foremost indebted to all those individuals who consented to be interviewed, several of whom, sadly, are now deceased. Among the living, I want to especially thank Joe Jacobs, whose enthusiasm for the project has never ceased; Olive Grayson, who early on provided valuable leads; Kathy Post, who kindly consented to the inclusion in this book of numerous photos from the collection of her late husband, Victor Post; Ed Granrude, who also gave permission for the use of photos and letters in his possession; Holly Wright and Lucas Welsh who have also permitted me to use certain photos; and Herb Elgert, who supplied important legal information regarding Frank Gay’s estate.

I want also to acknowledge the assistance of the CBC’s Laura Chapin and Brent Michaluk, and CKUA’s Brian Dunsmore, who tracked down broadcasts of Frank Gay’s interviews and recordings; the Canadian Department of National Defence, which supplied information dealing with Mr. Gay’s service record; Robert Forbes-Roberts, who provided useful information and several contacts; Yvette Gareau of the Prince Albert Roman Catholic Diocese, who located the Gay family’s marriage, birth, and death records; and historian David Bercuson, who helped me understand the fine points of military nomenclature and Canadian enlistment in the Second World War.

Special thanks goes to several former students at the University of Lethbridge, who diligently transcribed the many taped interviews and who valiantly hunted down bibliographic information and other materials: Natasha Fairweather, James Falconer, and Abe Tinney. Thanks to Diana Pegoraro at the University of Toronto, who researched details of Frank Gay’s time in Toronto.

Several individuals made contributions at key moments in the book’s development. Both George Myren and luthier Leonard Letourneau carefully reviewed my description of Frank Gay’s process of guitar manufacturing. Michel Forestier, a classical guitar instructor with the Alberta College Conservatory of Music at Grant MacEwan University, kindly read a penultimate version of the entire manuscript, correcting several of my technical, spelling, and grammatical errors.

Several of my university and departmental colleagues also deserve mention, among them Ed Jurkowski, Kim Mair, William Ramp, and Mickey Vallee, each of whom read the manuscript or parts thereof and provided useful suggestions dealing with cultural, especially musical, theory. Thanks are also in order to the inestimable Jenny Oseen, whose administrative efforts make my departmental life immeasurably easier. I want also to acknowledge the contributions of two anonymous reviewers, whose comments on an earlier draft proved valuable in making revisions.

This book would not be possible without Alan Brownoff, Linda Cameron, Meaghan Craven, Adrian Mather, Peter Midgley, Mary Lou Roy, Duncan Turner, and the rest of the staff at University of Alberta Press. The Alberta Historical Resources Foundation provided me with generous financial support made possible through a grant by the Alberta Lottery Fund—thank you.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Terri Saunders; my children, Jayna and Keenan; and my mother, Lena Harrison, for their encouragement and support. Terri provided a very useful read of the text in its late stages; and my mother provided thoughtful corrections (and memories).

Any errors or omissions are my responsibility alone.

1

Beginnings

APRIL 20, 2006. I am driving in northern Saskatchewan, dodging potholes and roadkill, on my way to meet and interview some of the people who responded the summer previous to an advertisement I ran in the Prince Albert Daily Herald, searching for people who knew Frank Gay. Beside me is my thirteen-year-old son, Keenan, on school vacation. He has paused in his reading of Will Ferguson’s Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw to plug Creedence Clearwater Revival into the CD player, good driving music. The fields around us are a pale, grungy yellow, broken only by what Ferguson calls (alternatively) boggy marshland or marshy bog-land—the kind of landscape Frank Gay said he would walk out on as a kid and hear symphonies.

Joe Jacobs with his Gay guitar, September 2005. [Collection of the author]

The land is bereft of symphonies as I drive, however; it is silent, even bleak. The few remaining barns and sheds, now abandoned, are slowly sinking into the miserable soil. Cadres of gulls sit like white foam on the sloughs. A few northern poplars and elms dot the countryside while, here and there, rusting automobiles decorate farmers’ fields, a familiar form of prairie art.

The first day, we drive north on Highway 12 from Saskatoon, past Martinsville and Gruenfeld, then over the Petrofka Bridge, across the North Saskatchewan River to the town of Blaine Lake, before hitching northeastward on Highway 40 to Marcelin, where Frank Gay was born. From there we head northwest to Leask, where his grave marker stands, then east again to Prince Albert, where (at the home of Joe Jacobs, an old friend of Frank’s) I conduct my first interview with Bill Cantin, a boyhood chum of Frank Gay’s. Over the next two days I conduct several more interviews with people who knew Frank when he was young: Noreen and Willard Dicus, Walter Duck, Dave Howe, and the Pompu sisters, Edna Peake and Marjorie Nagy.

Leask and Marcelin remind me of other small prairie towns I’ve known, many of them long gone. They are like the small towns in The Twilight Zone: black and white, timeless, their inhabitants a touch paranoid. A main street, a few red-brick buildings (the town hall and a bank), a couple of gas stations (one closed), a family restaurant, and a hardware store and a few other family businesses. Off the main drag, the houses are mostly old and small, many in need of care, not unlike the people who still reside in them. Lone grain elevators beside abandoned rail lines; small boarded-up schools; dust, prairie thistle, and roads leading nowhere: this is the land where Frank Gay grew up and lived until his early twenties. It is where the search for him begins.

}{ Frank Gay was a first-generation son of French immigrants.[1] His father, Claudius (Claude) Gay, was born in France, likely in the north, on March 15, 1891; his mother, Mathurine (Mary) Herveau, was likewise born in France, though likely in the south, sometime in 1894. Both the Gays and Herveaus were farming families.

Mathurine arrived in Halifax on April 23, 1904, with her parents, François and Mathurine Herveau, along with her brother (François) and sister (Geshine or Triphene) on the ship Malou from Marseille, France.[2] Canada’s 1916 census confirms their identities.[3] Upon arrival, the family journeyed to the district of North Battleford in northern Saskatchewan.

Claudius Gay arrived in Canada five years after Mathurine and just after his eighteenth birthday on March 25, 1909, aboard the ship Sardinian.[4] Like the Malou, the Sardinian docked in Halifax, but set sail from London, England, with a stop at Le Havre, France. Accompanying Claudius on his journey was the rest of his family: father Gilbert Gay (forty-seven years), mother Eugenie (née Jars) (forty-two years), and sister, Blanche (age unspecified), all French citizens. Like the Herveau family, the Gays soon moved to Saskatchewan, specifically Duck Lake, the site at which the opening battle of the North-West Resistance had taken place twenty-four years earlier.

The Herveau and Gay families chose to settle in northern Saskatchewan because of the propaganda put forward by Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal government, which had embarked on an ambitious scheme to populate western Canada through immigration, especially with experienced European farmers who could turn the region into Canada’s breadbasket. The Herveau and Gay families were among over one million people who immigrated to Canada between 1904 and 1909, many of them moving to Saskatchewan and Alberta, which became Canada’s two newly minted provinces in 1905. The Laurier government’s plan worked well. By 1911 Saskatchewan had a population