In Vancouver, a city so young that people often lament its lack of history, an exception comes in the form of a swinging old world bandleader. Dal Richards is a Vancouver institution: about to host his 73rd straight New Year's Eve concert tonight, followed days later by a pair of shows to mark his 90th birthday.
He has been playing music in Vancouver, where he grew up, since the 1930s - most notably at the swanky Panorama Roof atop the Hotel Vancouver, where he and his orchestra performed for 25 years. At the other end of the venue spectrum, Richards has played for 68 straight years at the Pacific National Exhibition, running a talent show that helped discover one of the biggest names in music today, fellow British Columbian Michael Bublé. (Boogie-woogie and jazz pianist Michael Kaeshammer was also a PNE talent-show discovery.)
Richards has hosted national and local radio shows, he has been named to the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia, he holds the Queen's Jubilee Medal, and the City of Vancouver once declared a Dal Richards Day. In Vancouver, he is a household name synonymous with big band, New Year's Eve, and good guys making it big.
Like many storied careers, it might not have happened, save for a fateful event which at the time seemed like a disaster. At the age of 9, while running with a slingshot, Richards tripped, fell and gouged out his left eye. The doctor instructed Richards's mother to keep him in a darkened room for two to three months, to adjust to life with only one eye. "I grew very despondent," Richards said earlier this month, sitting by the fireplace in his downtown Vancouver loft. "The doctor finally said, 'We've got to find a solution for this.' "
He suggested music might cheer the boy up, noting that Richards's mother played the piano. " 'Your son might have some musical ability,' " he told her. As it turns out, he did.
Richards joined the Kitsilano Boys Band, learning clarinet and the saxophone. When he graduated from high school at 17, he was offered a job with the band at the Palomar Ballroom. After two years as a sideman, there was a falling out between the Palomar's manager and the bandleader. Richards was asked to take over and lead the orchestra.
"I didn't know what I was doing," he says, "but that was good."
There was a lot of that in Richards's early career. Around the same time, he proposed a two-show Sunday afternoon concert series at Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl. To his surprise, the park's board accepted his proposal.
That meant on two occasions Richards had to conduct a 30-piece orchestra - something he had almost no idea how to do. For advice, Richards sought out the conductor Gregori Garbovitzky. "I went to him, I explained my predicament, and he laughed. He said 'How long do we have?' I said 'Three weeks.' He threw up his hands [and said]'no, no, no.' "
But they mapped out a plan. For three weeks, Garbovitzky, cigarette hanging from his mouth, ash dropping down to the floor, sat in front of Richards and played his violin, while Richards conducted him through selections.
In the end, the concerts went smoothly. "It came out fine," Richards says.
"That's been my life story - came out fine."
In 1940, when Richards was 22, he was asked to fill in as bandleader at the Hotel Vancouver. It was to be a six-week stint that wound up lasting 25 years. "I just stayed on and on and on," Richards says. There was a weekly live, national CBC Radio broadcast from The Roof, and an annual New Year's Eve broadcast.
But by the mid-sixties, big band music had fallen out of fashion, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were at the top of the charts, and the Hotel Vancouver decided it was time to move on.
For a year after losing that job, Richards tried to remain a full-time musician. But he only managed to pick up the odd gig here and there. The breaking point came the night he was playing the Boilermakers Union Hall. "I was climbing up the back stairs - I couldn't even afford a band boy - carrying ... my P.A., my music, my horns, and sat down halfway and thought this is not the answer."
Having spent so many years in a hotel, Richards figured he might try working in the hospitality industry. He enrolled in a course at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He was 48. "I hadn't been to school for 30 years," he says. "[I felt]a great deal of trepidation."
Math, in particular, was a problem. As his Christmas midterms approached, he worried he might fail. "I'd never written an exam; I didn't know how to go about it, even."
Richards had also found a gig playing the Holiday Inn six nights a week. A BCIT math teacher named Frank Greuen, sensing Richards's panic, travelled to the hotel each night, and tutored him during intermission.
"At one point I said 'Frank, what are you doing this for? You've got a family.' It was the week before Christmas. I remember to this day, he took my tuxedo lapels and said 'Richards, you're the oldest guy on the campus. If I have to drag you by the ass, I'm going to get you through those Christmas exams.' "
He passed his exams, ultimately graduating with honours and an award for high marks. "Probably the proudest award I'd ever received," he says, holding up the statuette that still lives in his living room.
Richards worked as a manager in the hospitality industry for a few years, but when swing music came back into style, he jumped at the chance to work as a full-time musician again, which he has now been doing since the early 1980s.
Today, approaching 90, Richards has a twice-weekly radio show called Dal's Place, and he played more than 200 dates last year.
How does he manage it? "I like what I do," he says, adding "I've got a young wife; that helps." Richards's wife, Muriel, is 59. They've been together 10 years. His first wife, Lorraine, to whom he was married 35 years, died in 1984. They had a daughter, Dallas, who is a real estate agent in Victoria.
He keeps in shape with weekly visits from a personal trainer, and daily sessions on the stationary bike and with an exercise ball. He quit drinking and smoking 35 years ago. "I'm probably in better shape than I ever was at 60, 50," he says. Richards had both knees replaced this year and in January, he'll have cataract surgery. "It's supposed to be a simple thing, I'm sure it is, but you're kind of nervous when you only have one [eye]"
Richards turns 90 on Jan. 5, but there are no plans to stop working. He says he has no idea what he would do if he retired. He also hopes to play at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He'll be 92.
"When I was 50 years old, I thought my next gig would be my last. Really. I started thinking that in a few years, I'd be 60 [and I thought]'I can't be doing this at 60.' "
Now at 90, he says he's busier than he's ever been. "It's incredible. It's just been a bunch of horseshoes all my life ... I've been one lucky cat. No question."
Dal Richards Orchestra plays River Rock Casino in Richmond, B.C., on New Year's Eve; Dal's 90th Birthday Celebration on Jan. 5 at the Hotel Vancouver at 6 p.m. (fundraiser); and Dal's 90th Birthday Concert, Jan. 6 at the Orpheum at 2 p.m.
Marsha Lederman