L-R: Derek Blake, Wayne Arnold, Ron
Savoie, Edd Smith, Bruce Decker
It's
a little blurry exactly when I first knew
I wanted to be in a band, or had the
ability even to consider it, but one
certain incident may have cemented my
ultimate fate. Grade Eight ...
Luxton School ... music class with Miss
Milgrom. Edd Smith and I were just
about best friends, hanging out together
almost constantly. He already had a
cheap electric guitar and amp. We
had auditioned for the Amateur Show, a
local Winnipeg television deal, dreaming
of winning and being asked back to perform
another time on tv. Our work toward
the audition had deemed that we spend a
large amount of time together.
During those early "rehearsals" we worked
up duet versions of several numbers.
Edd and I, having learned these several
numbers ANYWAY, privately approached Miss
Milgrom, our Luxton Grade 8 music teacher,
and asked her if we could perform
something in front of the whole room
during our next music class.
We ended up performing "This Time" by Troy
Shondell and "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles
in front of the kids in our home room
class. I played piano and sang, and
Edd played along on electric guitar.
Members of the whole class, particularly
the girls, were seemingly impressed ...and
it seemed like a damned cool thing to do.
Edd was constantly turning me on to "all
things rock and roll" that I otherwise
might not have come across. I must
give Edd Smith a HUGE amount of credit and
gratitude concerning what he did for me
during the most malleable period of my
adolescent life. I might never have
heard "Silver City" by the Ventures were
it not for Edd. I might never have
been interested enough to send money
orders to England for Shadows albums on
vinyl in '62,'63,and '64 were it not for
Edd. Even in Grade nine (our last
year at Luxton) his knowledge of and
enthusiasm for all things rock and roll
hit me square in the face.
Shortly after Winnipeg had first gotten
"Channel Twelve" (KCND Pembina North
Dakota), Edd and our friend Tom Laszlo
started talking about the coming D day ...
I had no idea what they meant, nor that
they were referring to "DEE" day ... they
were talking about the imminent appearance
of Joey Dee and the Starliters on American
Bandstand to lip sync something on Channel
Twelve at four thirty on a Friday
afternoon.
All week long at school, I looked forward
to that few minutes of black and white
television history. Since the single
of Peppermint Twist peaked on the
Billboard chart in January of 1962, this
magic "week of anticipation leading up to
DEE day" must have occurred during the
winter of 1961/1962. Edd Smith
nurtured the seeds that radio had already
planted in the head of a North End kid,
several years earlier.
Edd and I did another Amateur Show
appearance several months after the first
one. This time we had a drummer with
us, a school friend named Francis Kostiuk,
who lived on Atlantic Ave, down near
Scotia. He had a great set of drums
and somehow we ended up on television,
just the three of us, doing Dion Di
Mucci's "The Wanderer". As memory
serves me, we rocked pretty good this
time.
I was still delivering the Winnipeg
Tribune six days a week at this point, and
I remember some of the younger girls who
lived with their parents on my paper route
commenting and giggling about my singing
"The Wanderer". The Wanderer came
out in the first part of 1961, so I would
have been thirteen at this time, and VERY
shy of girls. I found out quickly
what power there lurked in the ability to
get up and sing a few tunes ... even stuff
you hadn't written yourself. The
Beatles hadn't happened yet, but I was
already thinking how cool it would be to
be one of those guys makin' records and
guys like Bobby Rydell and Bobby Darin and
Carl Dobkins and Brian Hyland and a
million others were all just about the
same age as me, maybe just a tad older.
Nowadays when I talk to many of my old
friends and other people who are
approximately my age, they tend to forget
anything musical which occurred before the
Beatles. There was a very healthy
rock and roll scene prior to the British
Invasion. During the 62/63 school
year, I managed to weasel my way into the
Deverons, a band I would eventually end up
kind of leading. During our earliest
lineups we had a rather larger repertoire
composed ENTIRELY of pre Beatles
music. In retrospect I realize those
were the best days of my life in show
business. We in the Deverons were
all still living under our parents' roofs,
yet we were treated as local royalty ...
all the trappings of success in life
without having to take any of the risks
involved to attain it.
I've only ever been in two bands in my
life ... the Deverons and the Guess
Who. Edd Smith, Derek Blake, Boris
Pawluk and John Gach all went to St.
John's High when I did. Those four
started rehearsing in John Gach's parents'
basement, a beautiful rumpus room with
really good acoustics. It was one of
those older houses dripping with
personality and vibe, directly across the
street from the beautiful St. John's Park
- pretty cushy, actually. During the
days at school, Edd would casually mention
what numbers they were currently working
on ... I would always drool with jealousy
... I wanted so much to be in the
band. They played instrumentals only
... none of them sang. I guess their
"repertoire" consisted of numbers by the
Ventures, Fireballs, Chantays, Surfaris,
Duane Eddy, and any other guitar-based
instrumental acts of the day. After
a few weeks of hearing about the Deverons
second hand through Edd, I asked him if I
could come to a practice and listen.
That week I found myself in the Gachs'
basement at a Deveron practice. I
asked them if I could sing something ...
would they play along.
I sang Donna, Come On Let's Go, and Bonie
Moronie from the Ritchie Valens
album. Every guy in every band in
Winnipeg at that time knew those
numbers. I sang my heart out.
They immediately liked having a
singer. We may have tried Baby
What's Wrong by Lonnie Mack and Shortnin'
Bread by Paul Chaplin and the Emeralds
that day too ... probably some others, I
think "Walk Right In" by the Rooftop
Singers, cause I'd figured out the changes
on piano at home ... I honestly can't
remember. Before I knew it I was
singing with the Deverons. I didn't
stay on the stage all night ... they
remained primarily an instrumental band,
and several times during the evening, I
would come out and sing a tune then
disappear quickly.
Derek and his dad had put some serious
money into Derek's guitars, amp and
mikes. The Deverons would never have
gotten off the ground so early without all
that gear. Peter, Derek's dad, had
bought two mikes, cables, a huge Fender
amp for Derek and whoever else, and a
Fender Jazzmaster for Derek. For a
long time I sang all my vocals through one
of Derek's amps. Later, when I began
playing the available upright pianos at
all of the community clubs, churches, and
schools, it too went through one of
Derek's amps.
I'm not sure exactly when the Deverons
w/yours truly first played publicly, but
the first lineup was John Gach on drums,
Edd Smith on guitar, Boris Pawluk on
guitar, Derek Blake on guitar, and Burton
Cummings on perhaps six vocals throughout
the evening. We played for a long
time without ever getting paid. My
mother got us five matching rainbow
striped shirts from Eaton's ... those
shirts were the first band uniforms I ever
remember wearing. Shortly thereafter
I purchased a Buescher C Melody sax from a
guy named Barry Lank in West
Kildonan. I paid him the sum total
of twenty-five dollars for this
instrument. In my small bedroom on
Bannerman I listened over and over again
to the solo in Country Boy by Fats Domino
and to anything at all by Johnny and the
Hurricanes. A couple of weeks later,
the boys let me start playing a few sax
instrumentals on stage with the
Deverons. Now with both the singing
AND the sax playing, I was having to leave
the stage less and less throughout the
evening. Things were getting better for me
in this thing called The Deverons.
The name Deverons is a direct rip-off from
an American group called the
Devrons. I know nothing of this
group, except that they had one minor,
regional hit with a guitar instrumental
called Brand X. I have checked Joel
Whitburn's books on Billboard's charts,
and according to him, this Brand X record
never charted for even one week at a high
number on Billboard's top 100. Derek
had heard and learned the instrumental and
I suppose he became enamoured with the
name ... probably kept saying it over and
over in his head like a mantra, falling
prey to its sonic spell ... Derek had
subtly added an extra E to the spelling,
and this band from St. John's High School
came to be known as the DEVERONS.
This was all during 1962.
I still hated having to leave the stage at
all during the Deveron shows, but I had
nothing to do when I wasn't singing or
playing sax. Then one night in the
early winter months of 1962 we played at
St. Martin's In the Field Church Parish
Hall - not Smithfield Ave - this was the
church I had attended for all my childhood
... .off to the right side of the stage
stood a beautiful old upright piano ...
the boys started off the first set that
evening with a couple of guitar
instrumentals ... I came out afterward and
sang a couple of tunes ... then at the
point when I would ordinarily have left
the stage again, I calmly walked over to
the old upright and pounded along with the
ensuing instrumental. It wasn't even miked
or amplified in any way whatsoever, but I
felt like I'd never skulk off the stage
again to wait my turn in the wings.
I think Derek felt threatened that night
... that may have been the point at which
he began losing hold of the reins of the
band to me ... but Hell, I wasn't even
miked yet!
No one had a real electric bass yet in the
Deverons. Edd Smith was playing a
black and white electric Silvertone
guitar, tuning the four bottom strings
down and playing what amounted to his
versions of bass lines for the
arrangements. We would do Sheila by
Tommy Roe, Only Love Can Break A Heart by
Gene Pitney, Wild Weekend by the Rebels,
Minnesota Fats by Johnny and the
Hurricanes, Donna and Bonie Moronie by
Ritchie Valens, Wonderful World by Sam
Cooke, Walk Don't Run by the Ventures and
a host of other ditties of the day.
This particular lineup went on for a
while. When I say "a while", I
probably mean only a few months.
Boris was the first problem. He and
Edd and I had been in the same home room
for years at St. John's ... the three of
us knew each other fairly well.
Boris and I had both been in each other's
homes. He seemed to get bored with
it all very quickly. He probably
didn't even play with the Deverons more
than two months after I had come along.
I think Don Gunter replaced Boris for a
short while ... then it seems we became
disenchanted with John Gach's drumming ...
Ken Birdini was there for what now seems
like thirty seconds ... then suddenly
Craig Hamblin was drumming for the
Deverons. Or was Craig there when
Boris was still there ... have to take
pentathol to figure that out ... .as if
anybody cares.
The lineup that was really to be the
Deverons finally cemented itself early in
1964. It was Ron Savoie on drums,
Edd Smith on bass, Derek Blake on lead
guitar, Bruce Decker on rhythm guitar, and
yours truly on piano and vocals.
By this time I was using a Di Armond
violin pickup to amplify every available
upright piano at the gigs. Once this
particular five piece lineup was in place,
things went on to a much more serious
level.
Edd Smith was now using a real Fender
Bass. Everyone but Ron behind the
drums was singing. Oh yeah, by the way ...
the British Invasion had just happened...
Burton Cummings 2015
Burton Cummings, Edd Smith, Ron
Savoie, Derek Blake, Bruce Decker
Following Cummings' departure in 1965, The
Deverons released two more singles on
Quality Records in 1966 with
Wayne Arnold (formerly of The VIPs)
on keyboards/vocals and Orest Andrews (ex-Syndicate)
on guitar/vocals.
Promotional Card, Front & Back Courtesy of Jim Rose
