One of the first and finest of the northern B.C. music scene is coming to Prince George for a long overdue concert.
Roy Forbes has been to P.G. many times over the years, and some of those shows have been standout performances, he said, but it has been a long time since he was here for a show. He has some new music to share, and he is also polishing up some old gems that got his famed career going back in the early 1970s. This city played a prominent role in those formative years, he said, back when he was known by his childhood nickname Bim. That single monicker was the name he went by when he was opening for the likes of Supertramp, John Lee Hooker and Santana, while living in Vancouver and Los Angeles, when upstarts like David Foster and Bob Glaub and Jeff Porcaro played in his band before going on to giant careers of their own.
His debut album Kid Full of Dreams came out in 1975, earned a Juno Award nomination, he got picked up by big American label Elektra Records, and his career was off like a rocket.
Since then he has put out more than a dozen albums as Bim, Roy Forbes and his supergroup stint in UHF with Shari Ulrich and Bill Henderson.
His songs over that span were so highly regarded some have been covered by the likes of by Sylvia Tyson, Garnet Rogers, Valdy, Cindy Church and Susan Jacks.
He has a lot of material to draw from, and he promised to salt and pepper his show this weekend with the length and breadth of his rangy career.
"There'll be some stuff I played at the Back Door Coffeehouse in 1974," he said. "I think that might have been my first solo Prince George gig put on by Harvey Chometsky.
"I'd played Prince George before that in a club called The Captain's Locker with my band The Crystal Ship. We drove down from Dawson Creek on a bus, blew a head gasket in the Pine Pass and had to hole up for a day at Mount Le Moray until they could get the part in for our flathead six in the '49 Fargo bus, and then we played The Captain's Locker a couple of times. I'm not sure, but the Books & Company building has something in the basement, and it might have been in there. That was in 1970.
"And I did countless shows at the Prince George Playhouse.
"And actually, 40 years ago this summer, I have a tape of it somewhere, CBC's Great Canadian Gold Rush ran me and Tim Williams (legendary Calgary bluesman) through Prince Rupert and Prince George and I was down in L.A. doing my album for Elektra Records and came up and did this dazzling show at Vanier Hall, and I've been back there many times since then.
"Now, my home seems to be Art Space and I'm very comfortable there."
Forbes was forced to redefine his comfort zones, in recent times, or give up the music industry. He laughs now that he upped his degree of difficulty to keep interested in that guitar fret board he thought he knew so well.
"I had this stupid accident about a year-and-a-half ago and it took about six months (of surgeries and doctors' consultations) before we knew I had permanently lost my sight," he explained. "It's been nothing but going forward ever since."
He got strong support from the CNIB, his family and friends, and he has successfully modified his life - most importantly the playing of his music - to adapt.
His fans have been his biggest boosters, he said.
Those fans are often other musicians. When famed B.C. rock band Chilliwack needed a hot guitar player a few years ago, frontman Bill Henderson called up his old UHF chum and Forbes was suddenly a classic rocker.
When the CBC Radio jazz show Hot Air called Forbes in for a live singing session, the players who came in to back him up were none other than pianist Miles Black, trumpet player Brad Turner, sax player Campbell Ryga, bassist Miles Hill and drummer Buff Allen - Canadian jazz A-listers, all.
Forbes has always been a musician's musician. That's why he has his own radio show, Roy's Record Room, where he narrates and plays vinyl from his massive record collection.
It's also why he was called on by CBC radio to do a special show back in his hometown alongside two other Dawson Creek performance stars. The show was called Straight Outta Dawson and spotlighted Forbes, opera superstar Ben Heppner (who also has family ties to Prince George) and soul singer Tonye, all of them different in musical style but linked by those northern B.C. roots.
Forbes was the eldest of those three, and one of the very first to come from any B.C. community north of the 53rd parallel to score a national audience.
He pointed to Prince George's Gary Fjellgaard as another of his peers, but also connects the dots back to some earlier influences (coincidentally, family relations of Prince George-Vanderhoof musician Lloyd Larsen of The Pucks, whom Forbes also counts among the region's best acts).
"For me, I can't talk about my career and Dawson Creek's place in my career, without talking about Bob and Keray Regan. You know that song My Home By The Fraser that was so huge back in the '50s? That was a Keray Regan song," Forbes said. "Remember Lucille Star? Bob was married to her. They were all involved in Aragon Records. The Regans were family friends, and even though their music was different than what I was interested in as a kid, it was still part of the impressions on me that these people were from my home town. The Regans really broke trail for Gary and me and everybody who has come since then, whether they really know it or not. I regard them highly."
Now Forbes is the one personally igniting the northern music scene with the examples he's set, and still demonstrating how quality songwriting and quality musicianship can lead to a long and fruitful career for aspiring performers.
For those fans who have followed along through Forbes' career, this weekend is one more chance to hear a true original make his musical mark.
Forbes will be in Quesnel tonight at the Elks Hall for an 8 p.m. show.
Saturday he is in Prince George at Art Space for an 8 p.m. show here.
Tickets are on sale at Books & Company while supplies last.
