You’ll find Bryan Adams there. Celine Dion, of course. There’s also New York City, an album by the (okay, obscure) Toronto punk band The Demics. Maybe Newfoundland folk is more your style. Classical? Or calypso from the late Stan “Dr. Cool” Martin. Whatever you like, it’s probably part of Robert Williston’s truly massive collection of Canadian albums – which he’s sharing with the rest of the country as of today. Why? Just call him the ultimate musical patriot.
A civil engineer by trade, Williston is digitizing Cancon on a massive scale and opening up what he touts as the largest private collection of Canadian music artifacts through his new website, museumofcanadianmusic.ca, an online archive and store being launched on Canada Day.
Williston, who is based in Calgary, says he knows of about “10 or 20” other big collectors. He has spent more than two decades assembling thousands of Canadian music artifacts from across the country, mostly rare recordings by Canadian artists. And mostly on vinyl, more durable than recent formats.
“CDs won’t be playable in 100 years,” he says. “It would be a shame to lose all that culture just because we didn’t have it in the right medium. I want to have every recording by every Canadian artist ever made. Right now I have 50,000 – but I know there are 10 times more out there.”
For now, Williston’s medium is online – he finds, catalogues, records and digitizes albums for the website, which museum members, for an annual fee of $40, can browse and purchase. It’s early days, so only 30 albums are available for download so far. But part of the fun is just checking out his musical treasure trove, the campy-looking album covers and random music facts (did you know that Artok, a Waterloo, Ont., rock band from the 1980s, is planning a 2010 tour?). And eventually, Williston hopes to obtain the rights to offer up his whole collection for sale. For artists, posting songs is free, and unlike Williston, they can actually profit from the music sales.
Every day I do it and every day I find something new
The online museum, however, is non-profit, and as its director Williston won’t earn a salary – even though he estimates his collection has personally cost him about $1-million since he started in 1988 at the age of 22. “I know, I’m nuts,” he says with a laugh.
Since the late 1980s, Williston has been going from town to town, scouring yard sales, record fairs and swap meets across Canada. If he encounters an international pressing of a Canadian album while on vacation, he ships it home. His treasure hunting is never over, and never boring.
“Every day I do it and every day I find something new, an album I didn’t know about,” he says.
His rarest and most expensive purchase is a $5,000 record by the late-1960s Toronto rock-psyche band Bent Wind. For Williston, rarity is based on the number of records made, and on those still in circulation. There were 200 pressings of Bent Wind’s Sussex album and “you never know” how many survived, he says. Williston adds that the record’s value is partly subjective – psychedelic rock recordings are highly sought after, but some albums, like Sussex, “create their own mystique,” he says. And it has really cool cover art.
“It’s my hobby, but I’m turning it into an institution,” says Williston.
He has big plans for expansion. He hopes to some day house his physical collection, which he keeps at a storage vault in his hometown, in a proper museum divided into theme rooms, such as the top 1,000 Canadian singles of all time, hockey-themed music and a room called Canadian Places, dedicated to every song that makes mention of a Canadian town.
The top 1,000 singles won’t be based on music charts or record sales, though. “Just because an album sells a lot doesn’t mean it’s good,” says Williston. Instead, he suggests that museum members discuss and vote on their favourite records, reaching a diplomatic and Canadian-style consensus, and a more representative sampling of what music means to Canadians.
A few Canadian musicians are already on board, including Cape Breton guitarist Gordie Sampson and folk singer Mary Jane Lamond, two of Williston’s favourite artists. “The music I like is mostly stuff about our country, the folklore and history of our country,” he says. “We don’t seem to think we have an identity, and I don’t think that’s true.”
As for the future? In five to 10 years, the Museum of Canadian Music will be the place to get Canadian music, Williston insists. He has no idea where that museum will be housed, however..
“If St. John’s calls up and tells me they want a museum, I’ll pack up and move there,” he says. “I’ll go anywhere.”
