[Auburn Annie]

And a DVD of "Shakin' All Over" will be released as well:

Lowdown: Cdn. music doc DVD/CD planned

By KAREN BLISS -- For JAM! Music


EMI Music Canada will release a DVD and companion CD based on "Shakin' All Over," the two-hour documentary about Canadian pop music in the '60s that airs tonight (Jan. 30) on CBC Television at 8 p.m. ET.

Sales will benefit the charity MusicCan, a national music education program implemented by the Canadian Academy Of Recording Arts & Sciences.

"It's going to have a life beyond the TV special," says noted Toronto music journalist Nicholas Jennings, who wrote the book "Before the Gold Rush -- Flashbacks To The Dawn Of The Canadian Sound" (Penguin Books), on which the film is based, and served as the writer and associate producer of "Shakin' All Over."

Details have yet to be worked out with EMI such as track listing and additional content, but Jennings says the DVD and CD should be out this year, "maybe the spring, maybe the summer."

Jennings, the former music critic for Maclean's magazine and current music editor for Inside Entertainment, conducted more than 60 interviews for the documentary and licensed as many songs.

He was also able to dig up such rare clips as David Clayton Thomas & The Shays on NBC's "Hullabaloo," Halifax garage band The Great Scots on "American Bandstand," Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell in separate performances on BBC's "In Concert," Murray McLauchlan at the Riverboat club, Bruce Cockburn on CBC's "Rock II," and Steppenwolf on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

"There's tons more that we edited for the TV show," says Jennings. "Would EMI want the DVD to feature full performances? I guess it all comes down to budget."

Many of those finer points "Shakin' All Over" producer Pierre Touchette of Montreal-based Amerimage-Spectra will be working out with EMI, namely vice-president of marketing Rob Brooks and director of catalogue marketing Warren Stewart. Jennings expects to have input as well.

Jennings has an existing relationship with EMI Music Canada stemming back to the late '90s when label president Deane Cameron hired him to write the company's anniversary tome, "EMI Music Canada -- Fifty Years Of Music 1949 to 1999" (Macmillan Canada), which came out in 2000.

"Deane is a fan of 'Before The Gold Rush.' That's why he commissioned me to do the EMI history book, but beyond that, he also cares passionately about Canadian music history," says Jennings. "I really respect Deane because he has been a huge champion of Canadian music and heritage."

Both books are now out of print.

However, Jennings is hoping that "Before The Gold Rush," which came out in hard cover in 1997 and paperback in 1998, will get back into circulation. "A lot of people love the book and want it to be back in print. I was very lucky that it got into a lot of libraries before it went out of print. It's just a matter of do I find another publisher or do I publish it myself?" he says.

The idea for "Before The Gold Rush," -- initially titled "Yorkville Daze" which was deemed "too Toronto-centric" by Penguin, according to Jennings -- came to him in 1996 after he interviewed the five music veterans inducted into the Juno Awards' Canadian Music Hall Of Fame that year and found a common thread of Yorkville.

In separate interviews for his Maclean's magazine article, David Clayton-Thomas, Denny Doherty, John Kay, Domenic Troiano, Zal Yanovsky each brought up the Toronto district "as this looming presence" in their early careers.

Jennings had his own history with Yorkville, having worked part-time at the Riverboat club in the '70s while he was a journalism student at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, and witnessing show by the likes of Dan Hill, Colin Linden, Cockburn, Lightfoot, and McLauchlan.

He decided to write a book on the Yorkville and Yonge Street scenes before anyone else did.

"I tried convince my publisher, Penguin Books, back when the book was published that people would love a CD too, but Penguin couldn't envision it; they couldn't see a way to make that happen," says Jennings. "I tried to involve some record labels and some people in the industry were very excited about the idea, but it never came to fruition."

From the time the book was published in 1997, Jennings was approached by many film and television producers to turn the book into a documentary or even a series. "None of those approaches led to anything because none of those producers could get the financing or a broadcast commitment," Jennings says.

That changed in 2001 when he was approached by Touchette, who worked for the TV production side of Amerimage-Spectra. Among its many entertainment ventures, the company has recorded performances at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and more recently produced DVDs such as "Diana Krall - Live at the Montreal Jazz Festival" and "Creating The Lord of the Rings Symphony."

"He optioned the book and hired me to write the documentary," says Jennings.

Joining Touchette were producers Nick Orchard and Randolph Eustace-Walden and executive producer Luc Chatelain. The project also became a co-production between Amerimage-Spectra and Vancouver's Soapbox Productions. And Gary McGroarty (2000's documentary "Stand Up And Be Counted") was brought in as the director.

"Gary completely shared my passion for getting as much Canadian music from the 60s on the screen," says Jennings.

Touchette got a broadcast commitment from CBC Television and he and McGroarty were given access to the broadcaster's massive archives.

Initially, Jennings says CBC wanted the film to focus on who he calls the "Mount Rushmore of Canadian music" -- Young, Mitchell, Lightfoot and Cohen.

"That's not really doing justice to the '60s and the wealth of music that this country produced, so we dug our heels in and started going into the archives," says Jennings. "There's not a lot of great material left from the '60s and most of what does exist resides in the CBC archives."

More than half the footage in "Shakin' All Over" is from the CBC.

With the mass of material they had assembled of Canadian music from the '60s, Jennings began talking with Ross Reynolds at CARAS, the organization that presents the Juno Awards, and with Graham Henderson of the Canadian Recordings Industry Association (CRIA) which represents the companies that create, manufacture and market sound recordings.

"CARAS was immediately interested because they are developing the Juno Hall Of Fame, and CARAS and CRIA both wanted to find a way to see this TV special made into a DVD," relays Jennings. "It's a challenge, of course, because the licensing of songs is incredibly expensive and this show has 60 of them, so CARAS wanted to play a role in this and it will wind up being a charitable project along the lines of a "Oh What A Feeling,'" he says, referring to the 1996 and 2001 box sets produced by CARAS to celebrate the 25th and 30th anniversary of the Juno Awards.

"The CARAS charity is (for) music in the schools which I'm very pleased about because I really see this documentary has a real educational role to play. It has that kind of value," says Jennings.

"Shakin' All Over" is the first of a planned three-part series Jennings is making with Touchette and McGroarty on the history of Canadian pop music, tentatively titled "Maple Music."

"The format that was used for 'Shakin' All Over' will carry the series through," says Jennings. "The next part will begin in the early '70s and bring us up to the birth of music television in the mid '80s and the third will be the mid '80s to present."

CBC has been offered the entire series.

Jennings is also developing two television performance specials on Canadian Celtic music acts Leahy and Natalie MacMaster. "Gary and I are the creative producers and Amerimage-Spectra will be the producer," he says.