The Stampeders ready to rock this sweet city

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This article was published 18/05/2019 (2513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rich Dodson and his bandmates from The Stampeders were getting pumped for their latest gig today on a houseboat in Sicamous, B.C.

“They take us three hours out on the lake, and all these other houseboats park around it and we do our show,” Dodson said Friday in a telephone interview from Sicamous, a resort town about halfway between Calgary and Vancouver.

“It’s pretty cool,” the co-founder of the quintessential Canadian rock band enthused.

While they won’t be performing on a big houseboat, the trio — Dodson, Kim Berly and Ronnie King — are hoping to make a splash when they stop at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium in Brandon June 2, part of a 16-city tour.

The band hasn’t played in Brandon for more than a decade.

“We’re going to do all the hits that we’re known for, most all of them, and then a few new tunes,” Dodson said. “And then, I don’t know, just have a good time. We like to talk to the audience, kibbutz a bit, and we look forward also, really, to the autograph thing after. That’s lots of fun.”

The Stampeders are well-known for such hits as “Wild Eyes,” “Carry Me,” “Oh My Lady,” “Devil You,” “Monday Morning Choo Choo,” “Minstrel Gypsy,” “Hit the Road Jack” and “Sweet City Woman.”

They released a new album in 1998 titled “Sure Beats Working.”

Performing now at fairs, festivals, casinos and theatres across Canada, The Stampeders have been around a long, long time in one form or another.

The band formed in Calgary in 1964 as The Rebounds with five members: Dodson, Len Roemer, Brendan Lyttle, Berly and Race Holiday.

“It was sort of a hodge-podge of family members,” Dodson said, adding it was mainly an instrumental band.

“And then, of course, Kim brought his brother in — Race — and then all of a sudden we had a singer.”

They renamed themselves The Stampeders in 1965 and Roemer was replaced with Ronnie King and Van Louis. In 1966, they relocated to Toronto and became a trio in 1968 when Lyttle, Louis and Holiday left.

From 1971 until 1976, The Stampeders were the country’s international musical ambassadors, touring more extensively in Canada and overseas than any other Canadian group during that time.

In 1977, Dodson, Berly and King parted company.

“We had just been doing it a long time,” Dodson explained of his departure from the band. “I liked the recording projects, the background stuff. I was always the guy with the tape machine at the show and all that kind of thing.”

He added: “I’d been doing Stampeders then for 13 years, so it just felt like it was time for a bit of a change.”

The trio reunited at the Calgary Stampede 15 years later, in 1992, and they’ve been together ever since, putting on shows, often with family members working the merchandising booths.

They’ve been recognized by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) for lifetime achievement, been inducted into the SOCAN Songwriters Hall of Fame on five occasions and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for their 1971 seminal hit “Sweet City Woman”.

The three musicians are now in their early 70s (Dodson is 72 as is King. Berly is 70), but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to pack it in, Dodson said.

“We’re not doing Mick Jagger’s back flips,” he quipped, “but we seem to be able to have enough health to bob around and do this kind of stuff.”

The band’s next stop is Moose Jaw June 3, wrapping up their tour in Regina June 21.

Reserved seating tickets are $63.50 to $70 (tax and facility fees included, service charges may apply), and are available from the WMCA box office. Showtime is 7:30 p.m.

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