I was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, the youngest of eight children to my parents Albert and Wilhelmina. They and all my siblings were musical in one way or the other. My dad played banjo, violin. guitar, piano and harmonica. My sister Marge sang in jazz bands in her late teens and early 20's. On more than one occasion she would bring some musician home that she had met one of whom was Jerome Richardson who had been on tour with the Count Basie Orchestra. I was maybe three or four at the time. She sang several times on CKCK radio live studio broadcasts. She also built up a fairly extensive jazz record collection. I got an earful of a lot of great music from those old 78's. I sang at an early age. Once I got to go to the radio station with Marge and sang Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer over the air. The DJ gave me 50¢. My first paying gig! As a kid I enjoyed playing the harmonica, singing in school choirs, listening to the radio and trying to pick out tunes on my Dad's violin. At 12, he bought me a student violin but that just triggered my desire to play the guitar. I never did learn to play that fiddle.

[JPG] At thirteen in my sister Millie's house in Regina with my brother-in-law's Stella acoustic. I hadn't yet gotten my own first guitar, a Harmony arch-top which my brother Willie gave me for Christmas '61. Sometime in 1960 I had gone to see the movie "The Gene Krupa Story" and was so inspired I tried to turn my dad's tenor banjo into a drum by laying a cloth over the strings and tapping on the gut head with chopsticks. I wound up busting all but one string and decided I had better try to play it as a banjo instead. After re-stringing that banjo I attempted to play the Duane Eddy tune, The Theme from Peter Gunn - with one finger. I found that those early Duane Eddy and Ventures tunes were a lot easier to play on the guitar. Thankfully the rest of my fingers joined the party. That old Stella is long gone but I still have the banjo!

[JPG] Winnings from the CKCK-TV quiz show for 8th graders "Knowledge College" including a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Great Books Of The Western World and the Beltone electric guitar and Gibson GA 8-T amp I bought with my Grand Prize cash. I was on my way. Those days a lot of my influences came from what I'd hear late at night in bed through the earpiece of my geranium crystal "Rocket Radio". I'd listen to US AM radio stations like WLS Chicago and KOMA Oklahoma City. I had learned the Freddy King tune Hideaway from hearing it on that little toy.

THE RODANS 1962-63
Doug Griffith - drums
Bill Hersche - rhythm guitar, vocals
Bill Rothecker - bass guitar, vocals
Brian Szysky - rhythm guitar, piano, vocals
Marty Daborn - rhythm guitar
Bob Deutscher - lead guitar, vocals

My first band. I was initially invited to jam with Bill Hersche and Brian Szysky, two guys that went to the same elementary school as me, St. Joseph. I had been playing my own guitar for six months. At first all I could play was lead/melody parts. Thanks to Bill I learned the rudimentary chords. Along with Brian I took a few lessons from Johnny Klimczak, then Regina's premier guitarist and a great rockabilly singer. We used to rehearse at Judy Williams' house across the street from my high school, Balfour Technical School. Some days I'd ride there on my bicycle with my guitar in one hand and my amp in the other. Must have been quite a sight! The first gig was for a 'Hi-Y' dance for 7 and 8th graders. We had no bass player at this time. I was in grade 9. The first song I ever sang on stage was Kansas City. Brian didn't stay long. After an audition we became affiliated with 620 CKCK Radio, Regina. The line-up of Doug, Bill R, Marty and myself played backup for a 16 year old singer from Vancouver named Terry Black. He had a regional hit with a song called Unless You Care. I had learned the 12-string guitar parts from the record using octaves on my Gibson ES-295. This was a one gig shot. He later went on to be one of the vocalists in the Toronto band Dr. Music. Bill Hersh (sic) has had an ongoing career as a country recording artist.

This was the period I discovered The Beatles. A group was formed from students at my high school to put on a handful of concerts at school as The Balfour Beatles . It included Doug, David Warren and Toby Racette. After a couple concerts I was asked to fill in for Toby on bass. We all wore Beatle wigs. The kids loved it. I sang Twist & Shout. We enjoyed our fleeting moments of fame for a week or so in the hallways of school!

A buddy of mine since the age of 12, when we played peewee football, Mick Grainger, had also become interested in the guitar and The Beatles in particular. We spent many hours figuring out the chords to their songs. Today he has a massive backlog of his own compositions on tape. He's a great songwriter. We never did play in a band together, though.

INFLUENCES: Duane Eddy, The Ventures, Freddy King, The Fireballs, The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five and the whole British Invasion thing.

THE CHEVRONS 1963-66
Phil Stan - rhythm guitar, vocals
Scott Peaker - bass guitar, keyboards
Don Young - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - lead guitar, vocals

I was invited to replace Byron Ebell when he left this band. A school mate of Scott's, Brian MacDonald, had gotten a couple Yardbirds 45's from his uncle in Britain, Eric 'Slowhand' Clapton. The band had been playing the song A Certain Girl. Byron figured out the 'trick' of turning the volume on his Fender Tremolux amp to 10 to get that sustaining sound. I started doing the same with my amp. Actually, I wired a foot pedal to my amp that would short out the volume pot to switch the level from about 5 to 10!

Those were the high school days of hanging out with the likes of  "D" Charles (later known as Johnny Walker - real name Duane Dodson), Russ Campbell and other radio personalities of the day, We recorded a song for CJME radio, a spoof on Big Bad John for a mock kidnapping of DJ "Beatle Johnny Onn" (John Aune) and while in Earl Brown's studio we recorded the first two songs I ever wrote, Keep It Down and an instrumental entitled Rush Hour. Don Young has the acetate of the 45, the only source copy I know of. He is now the president of the Regina Musicians Association, Local 446, American Federation of Musicians.

We had known a band called The Dynamics, perhaps the premier Saskatchewan band of the early sixties. They had been having a lot of success playing the Eastern Townships of Quebec in '65 and '66. So in the summer of '66 after graduating from high school we headed out by train to Sherbrooke and on to the Rockcliffe Hotel, a saloon six miles from the Vermont border. We played around the Eastern Townships until we disbanded in the fall.

INFLUENCES: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, James Brown, Steve Cropper and soul/R&B music in general.

THE ANDANTES 1966
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, guitar, trumpet, vocals
Don Gutheil - bass guitar, trumpet, vocals
Ken Leonard - vocals, trumpet
Gary Montague - drums
Bob Deutscher - lead guitar, vocals

After returning to Regina from Quebec in October, 1966, I joined The Andantes for a brief period as the temporary lead guitarist until early '67. This was when I met Don Edwards, a transplant from Kankakee, Illinois.

THE CHEVRONS (2) 1966-67
Bill Rothecker - bass guitar replaced by
Gerry Klein - bass guitar, vocals
Brian Davis - guitar, vocals
Don Young - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Early in 1967 Don Young conscripted me into a new version of the Chevrons. There were actually three versions of this band. We started out as a four piece unit, changed bass players then Brian left. We remained a trio until we split up upon my offer to join The Backstreet Dudes. In the summer of '67 we backed up Bobby Goldsboro at the Regina Exhibition Grandstand for four nights. What a nice guy. He almost didn't do the gig because of a bad experience the week before in Brandon, Manitoba with a pit band that couldn't cut his songs. It was a lot of fun playing hits of his like Little Things and Voodoo Woman.

THE BACKSTREET DUDES/PHOENIX OF AYRESCLIFFE 1967-68
Ken Folk - bass guitar, vocals
Norman Burgess - saxophone, flute
Ken Brabant - drums
Chan Romero - guitar, keyboards, vocals replaced by
Hans Staymer - vocals, harmonica, cornet and
Richard Terry - Hammond organ
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

I jumped at the chance to take the lead guitar chair replacing Jimmy Mann in a band that included Chan Romero, the writer of the classic Hippy Hippy Shake, and who had earlier played the western prairie region with a band called The Knights which also had included Norman. Originally called The Dynamics, upon Chan joining the band, they changed their name to The Backstreet Dudes, a play on words meaning 'white boys' playing black (R&B) music. They had recorded a couple of Chan's compositions in L.A.. Unfortunately Quicksand b/w Bulldog Workout was never released. I only played a handful of gigs with Chan in the band, all in the Edmonton area. We had all gone to our respective homes for Christmas '67 and were to meet up again in Quebec after New Year's. Chan never showed up. We discovered later that he found Jesus in his home town of Billings, Montana and I believe he is now a full gospel minister there. Chan is gifted with one of the finest voices in rock & roll and rhythm & blues singing from the Sam Cooke gospel feel. It was a pleasure to play in a band with him. He and Ken could have at that time given The Righteous Brothers a real run for their money.

To replace Chan we acquired the services of Hans Staymer, another great R&B voice, and a bass player named Richard Terry, who also played keys, both formerly of the Edmonton band The Famous Last Words. The plan had been to have Ken and Hans do a dual front-man thing with RT playing bass but their voices were so similar that we decided it would be best if RT went to the Hammond organ. You had to have one of those hogs in those days if you wanted to work the Jersey Shore which we were aspiring to do.

It was with this band that I got my taste of the BIG APPLE. I'll never forget driving into the city during rush hour trying to follow Norm's car towing a trailer! Actually, we were playing in Lodi, NJ, and were staying at a motel in Hackensack. During one night off, Ching, RT and I went to visit Richard's sister who lived in Manhattan. We found our way there alright but got lost on the way back - in Harlem!! We were at a red light when a cab pulled up beside us. Being a naive Canadian white boy I rolled down my window and asked that black driver for directions to Broadway. He said 'follow me' and guided us to where we could get our bearings!

Notable amongst the gigs we did was a stint at a show bar in Buffalo, NY called The Inferno. We backed up Bobby Hebb, famous for his hit Sunny, one night there. The band had changed it's name to The Phoenix Of Ayrescliffe by this time, Ayrescliffe being the town in Quebec that we were based out of at the time. I became somewhat disillusioned with where the band was headed so I split in mid '68.

An incidental highlight of this period was a concert at the Paul Sauve Arena in Montreal. There I saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience with The Soft Machine and a group called Olivus which included the young Bruce Cockburn.

THE GREASY MIXTURE 1968-69
Vern Hoffert - bass guitar
Don Young - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Fresh from the influence of mega-doses of funk, R&B and NYCity radio this band was put together. The name came from a commercial I had heard on WNEW for some kind of hair straightener. (It wasn't a slippery syrup, gooey liquid or greasy mixture). We were kind of nuts in this one. From Jimi Hendrix to James Brown to Gary Puckett and The Union Gap! It didn't last long but was fun while it lasted and we worked a lot. It was at this time that I met my longtime friend Garth Ternes who used to come to some of our gigs and 'roadie'.

ANDANTE 1969-70
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, guitar, trumpet, vocals
Don Gutheil - bass guitar, vocals
Don Young - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

The Andantes had gone through a few changes and when it was down to Don and Daryl Gutheil, Don Young and I joined forces and shortened the name to simply Andante. With our agent, Don Edwards having connections in the midwest USA, we extended the band's traveling range to North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Kansas. Up until this time most of the gigs I had been doing were one-nighters. We branched out into the club/bar scene with this band. Among the highlights were warming up in concert for John Denver at a small college in Racine, Wisconsin and having José Feliciano sit in after a concert he had performed in Moscow, Idaho. He played bass and we did some R&B tunes. Both were real nice gentlemen.

During this tenure Don Edwards had been in contact with the Bruce Allen Agency in Vancouver. One agent/affiliate came out to hear us in Regina and there we struck up a friendship with Shelly Seigel who would later found Mushroom Records. We made it up to Vancouver after some NW US dates and Shelly took us to record a demo in a small studio owned by Tom Northcott. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of it. Another agency we worked with at the time was Actron out of Saskatoon. It was run by David Tkachuk, now a Senator in the Canadian Government!!

It was on one of our Northern US tours that we passed through Billings, Montana and spent some time with Chan Romero. I played him a dub of my song 29 One-Nighters. He liked it and proceeded to publish it with his "Warrior Tunes" thus my becoming a writer affiliate with the performing rights agency BMI. By osmosis I became an affiliate with BMI Canada which in turn became Procan and is now called Socan.

WASCANA 1970-73
Norman Allard - tenor, soprano saxophones, flute
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, vocals, trumpet
Don Gutheil - bass guitar, vocals, trumpet, percussion
Drew Lawrence - drums, flute, vocals
George Martin - trumpet, valve trombone, percussion
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals, electric piano

This group had started out as a hobby band with Drew, Norman, George, Brian Davis, Gerry Klein and my old friend Mick Grainger. That fizzled and the brothers Gutheil and I joined up with Drew, Norman and George to form Wascana. Thanks for the name, Mick! Don, Daryl and I basically folded up Andante to put this band together. Having a horn section was a major catalyst in my 'on the job' musical training. I started transcribing horn charts for cover songs, and wrote original charts for my own compositions as well as other cover songs. This was perhaps the most creative period of my career. It was a very stimulated time!

There were many highlights during this band's tenure. Here are a few:

A live recording for The Great Canadian Goldrush on CBC radio, produced by Claire Lawrence.

A National Rockworks Company CBC radio recording produced by Ian Thomas.

Several CBC Regina recording sessions.

A recording of a pair of Mick Grainger compostions at CHED Radio, Edmonton produced by Tommy Banks. While in session we met the inimitable Lenny Breau.

Several local and regional TV broadcasts.

Two stints at the Chicago nightclub The Rush-Up where we met several members of the group Chicago and swapped sets with a group called Shanti which included Ashish Khan, Zakir Hussein and their guitarist who was formerly with Gary Lewis and The Playboys. They were great, kind of an East Indian version of Santana.

A warm-up gig with the Seigel/Schwall Blues Band.

A gig with The Flying Colors and A Group Called Mudd at the Trianon Ballroom in Regina. At the end we all got together and played the Edgar Winter's White Trash song, Fly Away. Magic moments.

Many jingle sessions at Century 21 Studios, Winnipeg.

Opened the Vancouver Nightclub The Body Shop.

Met Chief Dan George and William O.S. Ballard (1973 vice-president Toronto Maple Leafs) at another Vancouver club Oil Can Harry's.

During the last year of this version of the band Drew, Norman and Don immersed themselves into the Krishna Consciousness Movement. In the fall of 1973 Drew and Norman left the band to devote their lives to Krishna. The rest of us wished them well.

WASCANA (2) 1973-74
Don Gutheil - bass guitar, vocals, trumpet, percussion
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, vocals, trumpet
Richard Peterson - drums
George Martin - electric trumpet, valve trombone, percussion
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals, electric piano

Upon Drew and Norman's leaving we embarked on finding a new drummer. We had heard and become acquainted with the Edmonton band The Great Canadian River Race. We asked their keyboard player, Duncan Meiklejohn and their drummer, Matthew Frenette to join forces with us. They passed but Matt recommended a young drummer he knew named Richard Peterson. I met up with and jammed with him in Edmonton, we clicked and he moved to Regina to join the band.

Rich only stayed with us for about six months but we still had our share of highlights the most noteworthy being as warm-up group in concert at the Saskatchewan Centre For The Performing Arts in Regina for the 11 piece version of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. This would have to be my personal career highlight as I got an ovation from the audience after my solo during our performance of the Billy Cobham tune Stratus in the presence of who I felt at the time and still would say is arguably the best guitarist in the world! It was great to meet the band which included among others, Narada Michael Walden who went on to be a major record producer for the likes of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey; Jean-Luc Ponty, Gayle Moran (Mrs Chick Corea), Steven Kindler (played with Jan Hammer and Jeff Beck) and of course the man himself, John McLaughlin. I kept a poster from the concert and in 1994 had it autographed by John McLaughlin when he was in Calgary in concert with The Free Spirits.

WASCANA (3) 1974-75
Craig Kaleal - drums
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, vocals, trumpet
George Martin - electric trumpet, valve trombone, percussion
Ken Sinnaeve - bass guitar
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals, electric piano

Rich had become despondent living in Regina and wanted to go back to Edmonton and Don had decided to devote his life to Krishna, so again we were in pursuit of a drummer and now a bass player. We knew a bass player in Regina who had played with a band called Road Apple (included guitarist Steve Hegyi who would later on play with Kilowatt) and another called the Souls Of Inspiration. While Rich was still in the band we jammed with Ken Sinnaeve. We contacted Craig Kaleal, a former drummer with Saskatoon's Witness Inc and at the time with an Edmonton band called Redemption. He came to Regina to check us out. He had wanted to bring down Peter Elias, the bass player from Redemption, but Ken was first to show and got the gig by default. We didn't need to hear anyone else. During this time we hired a manager, Gerry Stoll from Saskatoon.

We had been doing so many jingle sessions in Winnipeg that we thought it would be a good idea to move there and we did so in autumn '74. Unfortunately the sessions dried up. Although we were stretching and developing our musical boundaries with more original tunes we found ourselves somewhat lacking in the vocal department having lost our main lead singer, Don Gutheil.

WASCANA (4) 1975
Craig Kaleal - drums
George Martin - electric trumpet, valve trombone, percussion
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, vocals, trumpet
Kenny Sheilds - lead vocals
Ken Sinnaeve - bass guitar, alto saxophone
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals, bass guitar

We had been friends with Kenny Sheilds for some time and began our efforts to persuade him to join the band as his previous band, A Group Called Mudd, had recently split up. We wanted someone strong up front to help project our fairly esoteric, jazz/fusion style. Kenny had been somewhat of a fan of the band since the early Wascana days and we thought the mix would be interesting. He balked for quite some time then in early '75 finally came to Winnipeg to talk seriously. He arrived at our band house on Henderson highway with his personal manager, Gary Stratychuk in tow. The proposal in a nutshell was Gary would manage the band leaving Gerry Stoll out of the picture. We consented, Gerry was somewhat hurt and we moved on under the wing of Star Kommand Productions.

The band was never quite the same. We drifted from our original ideas and turned into a pretty good mainstream rock cover band. Gary presented his idea for us to return to Saskatchewan and change the name to Witness to benefit from Kenny's past association with Witness Inc. We moved to Saskatoon in the spring of '75. While in Winnipeg we had hired a sound/lighting tech named David Lynes. Immediately after our move to Saskatoon, Gary promptly fired him. We then hired Guy Scott, from the interior of BC.

WITNESS 1975-76
Craig Kaleal - replaced by
Bob Ego - drums
George Martin - electric trumpet, valve trombone, percussion
Daryl Gutheil - keyboards, vocals, trumpet
Kenny Sheilds - lead vocals
Ken Sinnaeve - bass guitar, alto saxophone
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

I found my style of guitar playing gradually being stifled during this period. Also, although we had continued to play a selection of original songs, I found myself at loggerheads with some members of the band with regards to songwriting credits with the possibility of recording on the horizon. My contention was that whoever writes the song gets the credit and ultimately those benefits. The others felt it should be shared. I countered with the the fact that if the band gets a hit record with the songs, everyone would benefit - from sales as well as live shows. My opinions did not go down well and caused some very heated debates. Still, however, we did some sessions at Tommy Banks' Century II Studios being produced and engineered by Les Bateman, yet another Witness Inc alumnus, but nothing came of it.

Craig became disillusioned and was replaced by Bob (Herb) Ego of Edmonton, another Witness Inc alumnus as well as having been the former drummer in Painter. We moved to Edmonton in late 1975. Craig has since played with the likes of the Downchild Blues Band and Ellen MacEllwain.

Kenny, Daryl and Ken (who was dubbed Spider by a fan) became increasingly tight with our manager, Gary Stratychuk, and in spring '76 he called a meeting in which the band was given notice of it's dissolution. We finished off our run in July at The Penn in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and bid our adieus. This was where George met his wife-to-be, a medical student from Saskatoon.

While in Edmonton Guy Scott had been mixing our sound as well as running our lights. Guy, Spider, an old buddy of his and I shared a house with a couple young ladies at the time, one of them being the former Katie King now known to her viewers as Kathleen Petty, a news anchor on CBC-TV Newsworld.

During the last couple months Gary, Kenny, Spider and Daryl set on their path to start up a new band. Upon the demise of Witness they moved back to Regina and set their wheels in motion. Their plan was to put a group based on dual keyboards ala Gino Vanelli and had recruited Jim Folk (now an alumnus of the Jack Semple Band). The drummer of choice again was Matt Frenette, from The Great Canadian River Race, who met up with the band for a few rehearsals there and then returned to Edmonton without a commitment. The guys all returned to Edmonton to wine and dine Matt. They returned from their meeting, to the house where I still resided, feeling quite despondent at Matt's passing on the proposal. My recollection is that over a few beers Guy Scott and I discussed their situation that evening and between us figured that they should forget about this keyboard based concept and go for a guitar player the obvious choice being Paul Dean who was Matt's buddy in The GCRR and also the former guitarist with Scrubbaloe Caine. I laid the idea on Kenny that they should go for Paul as the guitarist because Matt would likely follow. This turned out to be the case and thus Streetheart was born. George moved back to Saskatoon, spent a period of time as Streetheart's road manager, and putting his music career behind him, went back to school to acquire a degree in accounting. He is now a CA in Vancouver, his wife a pediatrician.

GRANFALLOON 1976
Duncan MacKenzie - guitar, vocals
Bob Ego - drums
Wayne Nicholson- lead vocals
Bob Walker - bass guitar, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

In the fall of 1976 I felt my playing had been suffering and I was somewhat despondent about being without a band for the first time in nearly 10 years. I needed some sort of shot in the arm so I packed up my gear and headed back to Winnipeg to just hang for a bit. Upon my arrival at a particular bar I bumped into some fellow musicians amongst them being Bob Fuhr, keyboard player and vocalist with the group Zdenka. He invited me to jam with them which I did at their rehearsal space. It was great. I got to play with others who felt the music like I did and I found my confidence renewed. I returned to Edmonton ready to play again.

Herb, as Bob Ego had come to be known, called me up to sit in with a group he had been rehearsing with called Granfalloon. They had been learning a Little Feat tune called All That You Dream. He asked me if I could learn the electric piano solo on my old Wurlitzer and sit in at rehearsal. I suggested I learn the solo on guitar instead since I wasn't that much of a keyboard player and the piano was somewhat of a hog to haul around being an old cabinet model. Thus I joined Granfalloon with Herb, Wayne Nicholson (formerly of a group called Horse) and Duncan MacKenzie, two ex-maritimers and Bob Walker. This was a raw ballsy rock band and the first one in which I shared guitar duties in a long, long time. It was refreshing. It also could have been called "The Bobs" because everyone except Duncan's actual first name was Robert! However, being somewhat mismanaged, we disbanded in late '76.

SHANGO 1977
Ferdie Braithwaite - keyboards
Barry Braithwaite - bass guitar
James Llewelynn - drums, replaced by
Billy MacBeth - drums, vocals
Dawni Martens - lead vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Dawni Martens, former lead vocalist with the Regina group The Flying Colors, had called me around the time I had committed to Granfalloon about joining the Calgary band Shango so I passed. Upon leaving Granfalloon however, I gave her a call and found the chair was still available. So in January '77 I headed down to Cowtown and rehearsed for a month with Dawni, Barry and Ferdie Braithwaite and Jim Llewellyn (Bob Ego's replacement in Painter) in a back room at Lou Blair's club, The Refinery. Dawni was the first female vocalist I had ever worked with and one of the finest, most natural bluesy singers I have heard. Just before our first gig Jim bailed and we recruited Bill MacBeth, former drummer with Scrubbaloe Caine, to fill in. That was the only gig we ever did. The band folded shortly afterwards.

After Shango I was offered a job by an ex-Reginan, Barry Thompson, at a Calgary music store, Sound One, where I worked 18 months playing only the occasional casual gig. However, this was a period when I got to hear a lot of bands and also mixed sound for my roommates at the time, a band called Nosey Parker, occasionally sitting in. I met Patricia Conroy while mixing them at The Tradewinds Motor Hotel bar. I moved into a house the basement of which had an 8-track recording studio called Jonathon Sound Productions run by Mike Chursinoff and did several sessions for him there in return for studio time to do my own thing. I recorded half a dozen or so original songs there even playing drums on a few tracks. In the summer of  '78 I got a call from Paul Dean who had been let go from Streetheart. He had wasted no time in his attempt to put something new together and had been auditioning several Calgary musicians and making demo tapes. He wanted to do some reduction mixes on these tapes and asked me what it would cost to use Jonathon Sound to this end. I told him to come on down with a bottle of scotch which he did with Mike Reno. Mike and I drank the scotch and Paul, being the workaholic that he is, got down to business with the genesis of what was to become Loverboy.

JAMIESON BOOKER 1978
Brian Stewart - lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Margie Burtt - lead vocals
Ed Gauvreau - drums
????? - bass guitar
????? - keyboards
Dave Glowasky - violin
Bob Deutscher - guitar

This was basically a backup band for Margie and Brian who were embarking on a recording career. They had been doing some original material and had been building a reputation as a popular duo known as "Burtt and Brian" throughout Alberta. I played two concert gigs with the band, one for a CJAY-92 "Discumentary" and another warming up for CANO at Calgary's Jubilee Auditorium. Before playing the first gig, at The University of Calgary, Brian told everyone to where something 'stagy'. I came to the gig with a white and red shirt and white pants. I really stood out in the lights compared to the 'stars' of the show! So, for the next gig, the directive was 'no one wear white!' So who comes to the gig in white? B&B!

I also played lead guitar on their Sophistication single session at Richard Harrow's Living Room Studios in the fall of '78. They asked me to join the band on a permanent basis but a more appealing offer came up.

CROWCUSS 1979-80
Marc LaFrance - drums, lead vocals
Hermann Fruhm - keyboards, vocals
Larry Pink - keyboards
Bill Wallace - bass guitar, lead vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

I had met the group Crowcuss out of Winnipeg which included two former members of The Guess Who, Bill Wallace and Greg Leskiw in Edmonton in 1976. They had been formed from remnants of the groups Mood Jga Jga which included Greg and Hermann Fruhm and Musical Odyssey which included Marc and Larry. I had been knocked out by their sound. In those days, in the bars, it was somewhat unusual to see a band playing mostly their own material but this was one of them. I sat in on a couple of their gigs in Calgary during the latter days of my tenure at Sound One. In October '78, Hermann gave me a call asking if I'd like to audition for the guitar chair which Greg had vacated. They had been playing as a four piece unit without guitar and had signed with and recorded the album "Crowcuss" for Holger Peterson's Stony Plain Records. I jumped at the chance and was accepted into the band in late '78.

In early '79 the band had a Number 1 Hit in, of all places, Guatemala with Larry's composition Running Start. This led to our appearing on several TV programs including the Alan Hamel Show on CTV and others on CBC. We had the cover story of the Sept '79 issue of Music Express published by Keith Sharp and played many concerts with the likes of Burton Cummings (CNE Grandstand, Toronto), Prism (PNE Stadium, Vancouver), The Charlie Daniels Band, Goddo, Doucette, Long John Baldry, One Horse Blue and Streetheart.

I would have to say that this was the most talented group of musicians I have ever played with. There was an almost overabundant amount of ideas coming from it's individuals. I learned that whoever shouted loudest and longest would get his way arrangement-wise if there was a debate! Recording the "Starting To Show" album in the summer of '79 was a truly gratifying experience for me although I was sicker than a dog while tracking the title song. It was produced by Greg Riker from Indianapolis in 8 days of recording and three mixing at Century 21 Studios in Winnipeg.

The album got panned in it's day but I still believe it stands up now as we all believed then. Holger arranged for the album to be released in Japan on Trio Records as well as in the USA as a compilation of songs from both albums distributed by First American Records. Radio just didn't pick up on the record and that, along with a management arrangement that didn't pan out with Lindsay Shelfontik and Grant Harder and some ensuing personality conflicts, led to the bands demise. All of us except Bill moved to Vancouver in mid '80 and for awhile we tried to quash rumours of the band's breakup but soon enough it was evident that it was over. For a short period of time just prior to our break-up, we had Perry White, a young tenor saxophonist from Vancouver touring with the band.

Les Bateman was working at CBC Vancouver at this time and through the acquaintance of his then wife Delby, who was an awesome session singer at the time, Marc LaFrance got his own foot in the door of the Vancouver studio scene as a session singer himself. He has since accumulated innumerable album credits including his own solo effort Out Of Nowhere produced by Paul Dean. Marc has also created a children's television program called Babblebrook and has his own record label, Delinquent Records. Larry has played and recorded with One Horse Blue and Hermann has recently recorded with Mood Jga Jga on their second album. They all have remained in Vancouver. Bill is back with the reunited Guess Who and has a very entertaining website at beancakes with a more detailed Crowcuss history.

BROTHER RAT 1980
Larry Pink - keyboards
Carl Erickson - tenor saxophone, vocals
Muddy Fraser - guitar
Al ? - drums
Bob Deutscher - bass guitar, vocals

This band is more of a footnote in my career than anything else as we played one gig only for a week at The American Hotel in Vancouver (where I got punched out in the washroom by some lunatic for no apparent reason) and that I signed on as the bass player. Crowcuss was toast and I just wanted to do some playing. I have to say that I did enjoy playing bass and had some encouraging comments on it. This was a mostly blues, R&B based band. This particular experience made me re-think where I was headed and it turned out to be Calgary again.

TOKAN 1980-82
Ann Sitter - bass guitar, vocals
Ken Sitter - guitar, vocals
Tom Cunningham - drums
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Things were booming in Calgary in the early 80's. The club scene was quite vibrant with among others, Gaye Delorme making regular rounds. Playing bass with him during some of this period was Dennis Marcenko who had auditioned for Loverboy and later played with kd lang and Colin James (another Regina emigrant). After the Brother Rat experience I went to Calgary to visit some friends one of whom was Tom Cunningham who had been the drummer in Nosey Parker. He was playing small lounges in Calgary with the then husband/wife team of Ken and Ann Sitter. I went to hear them play a few times and was invited to sit in on occasion. They liked the way the band sounded with me and asked me to join them. I went back to Vancouver, loaded my stuff in Crowcuss's 3-ton truck and headed back to Calgary where I sold the truck for the band and joined Tokan. I was with them throughout 1981 and January '82. In that 13 months we had two weeks off - by choice. It was a popular unit.

In the summer we recorded a few tracks for CKXL and CHFM radio's "Rocky Mountain Magic" album, a compilation of songs by some popular Calgary groups, produced by Mark Goodman at Bruce Thompson's Circa Studio. One of the songs we did was my I Learned A Lot From You. A song that Ann wrote, Olive, was chosen for the album. Seanna Collins, a lady who was receptionist at the studio and also a singer, liked my song and recorded it using the Tokan tracks. It was released on the Circa label under the name Seanna. This was also the studio where Jann Arden made her first recordings. (I have a 45 of her Never Love A Sailor b/w Did We Really Hide? on Circa Records under her real name Jann Richards). Incidentally, we once played a Stampede bar-b-q at Elkana Ranch by Bragg Creek where she was also on the bill, playing outside on a flatbed truck as a stage!

Eventually I got tired of the country/rock style that the band was in and I had done very little lead singing since Wascana. I needed to express myself more both as a guitarist and as a singer. Tom had also had enough of Tokan's particular scene so we both left the band after a few too many performances of Kansas City.

PLAYGROUND 1982
Steve Klotz - bass guitar, vocals
Tom Cunningham - drums
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

From singing one or two songs a night to doing the lead vocals for the whole gig. That and being in a trio for the first time since The Greasy Mixture back in '69 was what Playground was about. In this band I learned how to better pick songs for my voice as well as for the trio format. We also did a few of my own songs and stretched out a lot musically. All in all a fun band but we were doing some obscure material in venues that weren't quite appreciating it so we didn't last too long - six months or so. 

THE COMPONENTS 1982-83
Astrid Voll - vocals, keyboards
Bruce Bjornson - bass guitar
Gary Bowman - drums
Bob Deutscher -guitar, vocals

I was with the Components for a little under a year. This was a pretty good mainstream rock band with good vocals and musicianship. One of our agents had been pitching us to a club in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, but I kept balking at it. Finally, after a particular relationship that I was in ended, I relented. He told us in his office that a member in another band he'd booked there had come back in love and said that who knows, it could happen to one of us. Well how was I to know that it would indeed happen to me?

We drove up to Yellowknife via a gig at Slave Lake, Alberta in late January, 1983 in bone-chilling -40°C weather. I met Lisa Gallant, a Prince Edward Islander, on the second weekend of a three week gig. It was love at first sight, we were married in '85, and have two wonderful daughters, Samantha and Jesse. Both have demonstrated precocious musical talent. There's gold in them thar gals! Needless to say we are very proud of them.

Gary got an offer to do another gig with some former buddies so we disbanded in June '83. The rest of us decided to move on rather than re-group.

SIDEWINDER 1983
John Dunn - drums, vocals
Jamie Hassard - keyboards
Steve Martin - bass guitar, vocals
Debbie Dunitz - lead vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

This was another of the Calgary groups with a song featured on the Rocky Mountain Magic album. On that record their guitarist was John Mills now known as Johnny V. He had left to pursue his blues rock roots, Sidewinder being more of a country rock band. I auditioned for the band and started playing with them the week after playing the last Components gig. Around this time Debbie's boyfriend was Neil McGonigal, now Jann Arden's ex-manager. We did a couple originals songs, one of them being my I Learned A Lot From You. Once, at a gig we were doing in Saskatoon, we had already played the song then someone requested it again. That was nice. It was enroute to this gig that I discovered I was allergic to clams. Not a pretty sight! I had to spend the night in a hospital in Oyen, Alberta. There were some personality clashes in this band that led to my leaving under not the best of terms. Oh well, shit happens!

TRICYCLE 1983-84
Astrid Voll - bass guitar, vocals
Tom Cunningham - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Tom and Astrid weren't busy at the time so we put Tricycle together. This band was a blast. Again another trio, a format which I have always enjoyed, I got to stretch out on guitar a lot. I was never one for just copying the hits verbatim off the records although I have done my share especially in the early days. Astrid and I shared lead vocals. She could stand her ground on bass guitar as well, coming from a musical family herself. One brother, Burghardt (Boogie Voll), is an excellent blues/boogie pianist/vocalist who also spent some time playing with Gaye Delorme. Astrid is now married to Bob Foster who has played keyboards with Jann Arden.

Astrid and Tom wanted to join up with Boogie as he was planning to travel overseas to Germany, the Voll's homeland, to play. So, I was left without a band in mid '84. Feeling frustrated with the short life spans of my last few bands, I decided to carry on solo.

BAND-IN-A-BAG (SOLO) 1984-89
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals, keyboards, Midi

I had bought a Teac 144 4-track Portastudio as an aid in my songwriting and with the advent at this time of programmable drum machines I decided to take the one-man-band approach to my solo act. I bought an Oberheim drum machine, programmed parts for the songs I'd perform, then dubbed them onto one track of the Portastudio. Then I added bass parts and occasionally, backup vocals and keyboard parts from my also newly purchased Yamaha DX7 synth. Technically this gig was a learning process. I started out recording half sets of songs on the cassettes but soon discovered the limitations of that format so then I picked up some blank cassette casings and spliced in one song at either end. Unfortunately, at the beginning, I used low grade tape. At this time I couldn't hear much loss of quality but later on after playing these tapes over and over my mistake was evident so I commenced using good chrome tape although ultimately they all stretched somewhat and I had to utilize the Teac's pitch control.

I wrote a few songs though this period of time and as they were recorded on the Portastudio I'd perform them occasionally at my gigs. Once, in the winter of 1984-85, my wife and I were leaving a bar in the Chinook Mall in south Calgary and as we were walking across the parking lot in sub-zero weather she commented 'Brrrrrrr Take Me Home and Tuck Me In'. We got such a kick out of that obviously country music title that we wrote the song on the way home and once we got there put it on tape.

As my repertoire was expanding and I was playing a good number of gigs my wife and I decided to move to Souris, PEI, her hometown, as Lisa had an offer to work for her father in his fish processing/restaurant business. I even considered learning the trade of an inspector at a fish cutting plant but my father-in-law talked me out of it. Thanks, Cyril!

Before we moved, in the spring of '86, the City of Calgary put on a songwriting competition for a theme for the upcoming 1988 Winter Olympics. While driving east through Illinois I came up with the song The Face Of Calgary. I entered the song and got a nice 'Thank You' note for entering from our then mayor and now Premier Ralph Klein. I didn't win but still think the song is pretty good! Can anyone name the winning song let alone hum a few bars??

It was in PEI that I started calling my act "Band-in-a-Bag". I had been carrying my tapes from gig to gig in a blue and white striped beach bag - hence the name. I had thought my particular one-man-band approach would be a lot more successful than it turned out to be in PEI. I can speculate indefinitely as to the reasons but, although I did get a smattering of gigs at first, suffice to say I couldn't really crack the local scene. In a nutshell I'd call it a stressful, character-building experience.

There were some high points. I entered a song I had more or less written in my sleep into the CBC Maritime Songwriting Contest of 1987-88. My song Right Now was the ultimate co-winner out of some 400 entries along with a tune by a Halifax group called The Screaming Trees. I got the news while on vacation in Calgary in January '88 where I had also picked up a gig, for the heck of it, at Fernie, B.C. The prize was supposed to be a recording session at CBC Halifax after which the song would be included in the next forthcoming CBC Coast To Coast album. Well, the powers that be at CBC Toronto wound up rejecting everything that was submitted out of Halifax including those so-called winning songs. The sessions, produced by Glen Meissner were, however, a gas. I recorded another of my songs in the studio, The Turning Point, playing and programming all the tracks as I had with Right Now. In this case a local singer, Cheryl Lescom, did a nice job on the lead vocal. However, it never did get to the final mix stage.

Right Now got a small bit of local CBC airplay and I appeared on Charlottetown CBC's '88 Children's Miracle Television Network telethon for the IWK (Isaac Walton Killam) Hospital in Halifax. I altered the lyrics of Right Now a bit for the fund-raising pitch. I also performed Take Me Home And Tuck Me In. Even with that kind of exposure the gigs were hard to come by so I became fairly frustrated. That, along with a downturn in the fish industry, sealed our decision to move back to Calgary which we did on New Year's 1989.

I commenced to continue my solo gig in Calgary upon our arrival. By this time my older tapes had begun to show their wear-and-tear including stretching. I had to constantly tweak the pitch control on the Portastudio. My newer songs were sounding great but the venues that I was being booked into wanted to hear the older-type material that happened to be on the now crappy sounding tape. This led to a lot of personal frustration onstage and the decision to go MIDI instead of tape. I had picked up an Atari computer in '86 and used it to re-work the gig. Still, I guess my heart really wasn't into it much so I let it fizzle. An incidental detail - for a short period of time we lived next door to Todd Kerns of Age Of Electric/Static in Stereo.

From there came a series of stabs in the dark playing gigs with such local bands as Big Trouble, The Ravens, Babalouie, Presto Tango, Ginger Street and Crossroads. I even spent some time being a DJ! Not my cup of tea.

BIG TROUBLE 1989
Billy MacBeth - drums, vocals, harmonica
Julian Kerr - keyboards, bass guitar
Bob Deutscher - guitar

I did only a handful of gigs with this band stepping in for Brad Steckel, now of QSound and formerly with the band Prototype. The second time I'd played with Billy, the first time being one gig with Shango. After this I stepped into a fiasco of sorts - a short career as a DJ!

BABALOUIE 1990-91
Valerie Halvorson - vocals
Rick Mizzoni - bass guitar, vocals
Bill Higbee - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Nice folks. Val married Rick and is now embarking on her own country music career as Val LeRoy. This was a transition period of sorts.

THE RAVENS 1990
Don Seaman - guitar
Dean Cummings - vocals
?? - drums
Gary Law - bass guitar
Bob Deutscher - guitar

This wound up being a big waste of time. We rehearsed with a very green drummer, I could play better, then we got another guy to fill in for the one and only gig we had. It was not a good mix. Dean was a neat singer, though. He has done some local theater and has been a crew member at a number of film productions in the Calgary area.

PRESTO TANGO 1991-92
John Moseby - keyboards, guitar, vocals
Greg Fairweather - bass guitar
Esther Purvis-Smith - keyboards, vocals
Marty Old - drums
Dar White - vocals, tenor saxophone
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Originally called The Dar White Band, this was a pretty good group and should have been more successful. Marty had played with the Winnipeg band Next in the 70's. That was the predecessor to Harlequin, George Belanger being the lead vocalist at the time. The band lost some snap and sizzle when Esther Purvis-Smith, herself a stage and screen actress, left to further pursue her acting career. She's a very talented young woman and her playing and vocals were missed. Partway through my tenure with this band they took on a manager, Frank Middleton, whom I personally could not accept so we mutually agreed to part ways. The darkest days were yet to come.

GINGER STREET 1993-94
CROSSROADS 1994-95

These next two bands I worked with were, simply put, awful! The former of the two included a bass player I had known for a very long time and who had for a period of time played with The Andantes, Dinny Wilkie. The latter, nice people but very green. It was very painful for me but I just wanted to play. I gave my notice after I received a call from Greg Fairweather in January, 1995.

THE STEAMERS 1995-2001
Rod Partin - keyboards, Midi, alto saxophone, vocals
Dennis Davies - drums, vocals
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals

Within days of getting the call from Hot Cargo, I also got a call from Dennis Davies, a drummer who had formerly played with Fosterchild, Winnipeg's Bootleg and The Stamps (second generation of The Stampeders). He and Rod Partin, a keyboard/saxophone player, had a blues/R&B duo act called The Steamers that on occasion added a guitar player to the line-up. Ironically, David Knight, the guitarist I replaced in Hot Cargo, had also played with The Steamers in the early 90's. I joined Hot Cargo on a permanent basis and The Steamers on an interim basis as one of a revolving group of guitarists. 

HOT CARGO 1995-2003
Renee Hetherington - vocals
Gerry Moser - drums, vocals
Fred Thoutenhoofd - keyboards, vocals
Brandon Oberhamer - saxophone
Bob Deutscher - guitar, vocals
Greg Fairweather - bass guitar replaced (2003) by
Bobby Brooks - bass guitar

Greg Fairweather had been playing with Hot Cargo since shortly after Presto Tango, renamed "Little Sister", disbanded. A replacement for their guitar player, David Knight, was required and they were holding auditions. David coincidentally was the guitar player who replaced me in Presto Tango. I was hired, played my first gig with  the band in February, 1995 and remained with the band until June, 2003. Greg, who had been playing on the side with another party band, also left the band as I found out later in September, at which time I received a call requesting my return as a 'hired gun' for the 2003 Christmas Party season.  Bobby Brooks, who Greg replaced in 1993, returned to the band over the course of the summer. I finished my tenure permanently with a New Year's Eve gig. 

CheckOne2 is the name of my 'virtual' band. It's the 'artist' who has recorded my original compositions. I would love for any of my songs to get picked up and recorded and released on a 'label' by a major or an up-and-coming artist but it is extremely difficult these days to get signed by a major music publisher so here I am, as thousands of others are, doing it on the web. 

Check out a selection of full length original songs at  http://kazoovatory.bravehost.com 

I had a couple pleasant musical experiences during 2003. Some people I knew in Regina back in the 60's organized the 'Regina Eastenders Reunion' which was held in July at the Dunnet Park Campground near Avonlea, Saskatchewan. I brought my wife and eldest daughter along and we had a blast! Mick Grainger, Bill Rothecker, Harvey Frasz and myself were the band for the party to conclude the weekend. I got a decent sounding recording of the two sets we played on my Sony MZ-1 minidisk. I'll be uploading some samples of that in the near future. We had a couple guest vocalists including my daughter, Samantha Joyelle who sang 'Band Of Gold'.

There is quite a selection of jam sessions amongst the bars in Calgary. I don't often attend but I did go to one at the King Eddy Hotel a week after the Dunnet Park party. I wound up sitting in with members of Sam Cockrell and the Groove and it was a smokin' set! They were playing a gig at the Kaos blues club and invited me to come down to the gig that night and sit in which I did for one set. This was also a blast.