by paterson » Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:29 pm
Yes Dr. Music was an eclectic mix of jazz/rock/soul/gospel and still managed to have a somewhat unruly commercial or top 40 sound in many recordings. Nobody sounded like Dr. Music!
Andy Williams had a summer replacement TV show back in 1970 and the producers of the Andy Williams Show on NBC at the time were both Canadian lads, expats of the CBC. The Ray Stevens Show was produced at CFTO in Toronto and Doug Riley was the musical director of this 6 or 7 episode summer show for Andy. For the show he formed a 16 piece group that pretty much became what was Dr. Music. Some of the best Toronto studio musicians and singers around including Diane Brooks and Keith Jollimore, a few others that eventually formed Lighthouse. At times Dr, Music and Lighthouse members borrowed from each other.
Along with producer Terry Brown, Doug founded Toronto Sound Studios which was a busy place with hit albums from RUSH, The Stampeders, Funkadelic, and a lot commercial jingles, even some movie soundtracks.
Would have been interesting if Dr. Music had clicked in the US, don't know if their material was released on GRT stateside or by any other label. They weren't much of a touring band (toured Western Canada once). With 16 or so musicians and singers, many of which had families and probably made a decent living with studio session work and writing, touring might have been not very appealing or too complicated. Dr. Music was also the houseband (more or less) for Keith Hampshire's CBC TV show Music Machine around 1974/75.
Another little gem from Dr. Music's first album was Try a Little Harder that CHUM gave a fair bit of airtime to. Not a hit but still a great little gem that makes top 40 oldies stations sound more interesting.