A MUSICAL ODYSSEY

BILL & SUE-ON HILLMAN
RECORD ALBUM #5
14 ORIGINAL SONGS
Maple Grove Records
MGS-1005

RECORDING ANECDOTES

We had written four songs for Album No. 3 which we released on a jacketed EP. The reviews from trade papers and radio stations were encouraging enough that I kept at it. We did four more originals for another EP which got good play on CBC radio. In fact, my Grandmother Jane Hillman, who lived in Elrose, Saskatchewan, was quite surprised, and I guess a little proud, to hear us on CBK Regina. By now we had eight originals to which we soon added six more to release as an all-original album. This album differed considerably from our previous efforts in that we used no sidemen -- Sue-On, Barry and myself did all the instruments, with a little help on keyboards from Kevin Pahl who was about to replace Barry in the group. I lived and breathed this album for many months and was involved in all stages of its development: words and music to all songs, arrangements, production, all guitars, half the lead vocals, back-up and harmony vocals, photography, album design, pressing and mastering decisions,  promotion, etc. Whew!... got that outa my system. From this album on, Sue-On and I were fully involved in all our albums -- mainly because in those early days of Independent record production there really wasn't anyone to turn to who could offer much in the way of professional advice, so we had to learn as we went along.

This album marked the session debut of Sue-On on drums and as a songwriter. She adapted a Mandarin Chinese poem to an oriental-sounding melody I had written. Sue-On came to Canada when she was 10, and although she speaks fluent Cantonese, she left her Hong Kong schooling before she had mastered the intricacies of Chinese writing. We asked her dad, Soo Choy, to write out the Chinese characters in the brush strokes that appear on the back cover of the album.

I had known Kevin Pahl since he was a kid. His dad, Howard, was the Strathclair Pool Elevator grain buyer, who also flew and sold aircraft as a sideline, while his mom Oretta operated an insurance office in Strathclair. Howard had even been my summertime employer back in my high school and college days. He contracted painting jobs around the area and hired me to use his paint spraying unit to paint barns, elevators, houses, etc. Son, Kevin inherited his dad's love of flying and eventually became a flying instructor and crop duster. Howard is still flying and is one of the chief pilots flying Harvards and other vintage WWII aircraft out of Brandon's Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum. Kevin showed a remarkable singing and piano talent at a very early age. By the time he reached my grade 9 class at Strathclair Collegiate, we started to work him into the band as a stand-in for times when Barry couldn't make gigs. The first date he played with us was at the Air Force Base at CFB Portage La Prairie. We did a panic all-day rehearsal at Maple Grove and then drove 130 miles to set up at the Junior Ranks Club. Kevin always looked young for his age and I remember that the audience were quite impressed with this "kid's" performance on Sue-On's Hohner Pianet. It was natural then, that as he became more familiar with stage work and our material, that we would call on him to join in the rehearsal some of our soon-to-be recorded originals. An uncredited musician on this session was another young Strathclair musician -- and future band member -- drummer Kerry Morris who dropped by the studio. He helped Sue-On out by adding the crash cymbal to Cajun Child. Not to be outdone, I did the percussion work on Glory Land -- the main backbeat came from my slapping a Fender Malibu guitar case. It's been held together by duct tape ever since.

Most of the photos on the album cover were taken in the new music and games room in our Maple Grove basement. We sat on a full-size snooker table -- a big antique oak effort with thick heavy slates that Sue-On and I had disassembed and dragged down the stairs in pieces. The background is one of our shake-covered walls while the splash of white in front of us is actually the furry back of our Great Pyrenees dog, Mya I. We had brought Mya back with us from our Montana tour the summer before.

The finished albums arrived from Toronto the same day we left for Nashville on one of our summer holiday driving marathons. We had been on Nashville's music row before but we had never had a product to flog. This time we got into all the studio and publishing offices on the row: Chet Atkin's office at RCA, Columbia, Tree, Billy Crash Craddock, Pete Drake, etc. Most were very polite and listened to cuts from the album and many of them showed off their own latest, soon-to-be released records. There were nibbles, words of advice, apologies, address exchanges, etc. Most companies showed some interest -- Chet liked our duet harmonies -- but the concept of a Chinese girl singer and her redhaired husband from Canada obviously didn't fit into the formula of Nashville and America's Southland. One company, which boasted a fairly eclectic roster of artists, including Rosemary Clooney, showed quite a bit of excitement -- we even carried on telephone conversations after we returned to Canada.-- but nothing seemed promising enough to lure us away from the security of our teaching careers in Canada. The whole experience of knocking on the doors of these houses-converted-to-music-biz offices, exploring the Nashville streets, seeing the stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the old Ryman Auditorium, having drinks at Tootsie's Bar, squeezing into the Ernest Tubb Record Shop for the after-Opry broadcast, going through the Country Music Hall of Fame, and seeing the many other Music City sites was a bit of a dream come true. Sue-On was a bit of novelty in the South... many people assumed that I was a Viet Nam vet and she was a bride I had brought back from Nam, and they proceeded to tell their own stories about their sons' involvement in the Asian war.

Many of the music execs suggested that the album wasn't country enough for the Nashville market. We never guessed that in a year we would be taking the same album around to studios, publishers and promoters in London, England where we would be told that the album was a little too country for their market.

TO THE HILLMAN MUSICAL ODYSSEY

Copyright 2000/2002 Bill Hillman

BILL & SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO

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