Can-Con 45 Of The Day - August 2

[radiofan]

Today's Can-Con 45 is from 1964 ... a hit on both sides of the border for Vancouver's Terry Black ... "Unless You Care" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uSmds1pCKg

[Richard Skelly]

One of great mysteries of West Coast pop music is why the late Terry Black skedaddled back to Canada. He seemed extremely well connected with the production and writing team of PF Sloan (RIP) and Steve Barry. Unless You Care was a Dunhill production. Although the Lou Adler-controlled label of the same name was still about a year away from creation, Adler and his Trousdale Music was clearly financing the Black sessions.

I always figured Terry would have been a natural to audition for the second version of The Grassroots when the original band split after only one album. One rumour had Terry leaving the US before getting drafted to fight in Vietnam. Whatever the story, he turned up in Toronto starring in Hair. That led him and costar Laurel Ward (soon to be his wife) to be invited into Doug Riley’s fledgling Dr. Music. As an offshoot, Terry and Laurel recorded as a duo and charted Road To LA in both Canada and the US.

Whether it was a coincidence, Black and Ward enjoyed their biggest success signed, in Canada, to Yorkville. It was a descendant of the old Arc Sound/Arc Records that released Terry’s early teen idol recordings. Terry passed about a decade ago in Kamloops. Former wife Laurel died a few years later on the Prairies.