Quick Red Fox Press is a Canadian book publishing company specializing in Canadian history, culture, and nostalgia.
Hawkins, Hound Dog, Elvis, and Red: How Rock and Roll Invaded Canada, by Greig Stewart, the definitive history of Canadian rock & roll’s beginnings, an era arising from the 1950s American pop-musical and cultural invasion that defined a generation and set the stage for the British invasion of the 1960s.
“I’ll tell you, Greig, you brought me back some good memories.”
⸺Ronnie Hawkins on Hawkins, Hound Dog, Elvis, and Red
Hawkins, Hound Dog, Elvis, and Red: How Rock and Roll Invaded Canada, by Greig Stewart, the definitive history of Canadian rock & roll’s beginnings, an era arising from the 1950s American pop-musical and cultural invasion that defined a generation and set the stage for the British invasion of the 1960s.
“I’ll tell you, Greig, you brought me back some good memories.”
⸺Ronnie Hawkins on Hawkins, Hound Dog, Elvis, and Red
1958 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz “Raindrop” Prototype. Darin Schnabel © 2020. Courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
National Business Book Award-winner Greig Stewart (Shutting Down the National Dream: A.V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow and Arrow Through the Heart: The Life and Times of Crawford Gordon) delivers extensive research (including more than a hundred interviews with vintage bands, DJs, and impressarios, over the course of seven years) and a takes-you-there writing style.
It began with a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio, a 50,000-watt clear-channel signal reaching teens across the “Buckeye State” and over the Great Lakes to Southern Ontario and beyond. The invasion continued on the airwave voices of popular radio disc jockeys such as Alan Freed, “Hound Dog” George Lorenz, and Dick Biondi, combined with outlandish performances on Canadian stages by well-known American entertainers such as Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and a host of others.
National Business Book Award-winner Greig Stewart (Shutting Down the National Dream: A.V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow and Arrow Through the Heart: The Life and Times of Crawford Gordon) delivers extensive research (including more than a hundred interviews with vintage bands, DJs, and impressarios, over the course of seven years) and a takes-you-there writing style.
It began with a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio, a 50,000-watt clear-channel signal reaching teens across the “Buckeye State” and over the Great Lakes to Southern Ontario and beyond. The invasion continued on the airwave voices of popular radio disc jockeys such as Alan Freed, “Hound Dog” George Lorenz, and Dick Biondi, combined with outlandish performances on Canadian stages by well-known American entertainers such as Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and a host of others.
By the time Ronnie Hawkins arrived in Canada from Arkansas in 1958, Canadian rock bands such as Bobby Dean and the Gems, Frank Motley and His Motley Crew, Little Caesar and the Consuls, and The Prowlers with Les Vogt, were already rocking the country’s teens from New Westminster to Montreal and eastward.
In Vancouver, a sixteen-year-old disc jockey named Red Robinson was on the air playing just about every rock and roll song he could get his hands on. In Toronto, an almost-bankrupt radio station with the call letters CHUM was about to gamble its future on playing rock and roll full time, all the time.
In Vancouver, a sixteen-year-old disc jockey named Red Robinson was on the air playing just about every rock and roll song he could get his hands on. In Toronto, an almost-bankrupt radio station with the call letters CHUM was about to gamble its future on playing rock and roll full time, all the time.
In 1959, local Scarborough boy Robbie Robertson (Kingston Road and Midland Avenue) performed with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks at Scarborough Arena (Kingston Road and Birchmount Road).
The stuff of early Canadian rock nostalgia, the book focuses on the critical twelve-year window from 1951―when the term rock and roll was coined―to 1963 when a Canadian band, Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights, rocketed to #1 on Toronto’s CHUM Chart and pop charts across the nation with “Charlena,” Canada’s first home-grown, chart-busting rock and roll hit, especially popular in Toronto’s Beaches/Beach neighbourhood. In the words of one of the Mid-Knights, “We owned Balmy Beach.”
Below: Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights about to perform “Charlena.” (L-R): Barry Stein (drums), Rich Hubbard (a.k.a. Richie Knight, vocals), Mike Brough (sax), Doug Chappell (bass), George Semkiw (guitar), and Barry Lloyd (keyboards).
This is about the rock and rollers who didn’t leave Canada for the U.S., bands that played the high school gyms, church basements, and the dance pavillions of the resort towns. It’s about equipment that worked sometimes, fifteen-cent beer, five-dollars-a-night gigs, and never forgetting the million-dollar dream of putting out a hit record.
Includes in-depth index.
ISBN: 978-1-7751876-1-5
Hardcover, 424 pages (416 + 8 pages photos), $44.95
Not available from Amazon.
Quick Red Fox Press supports independent bookstores, especially those that only sell books, and recommends purchasing direct from them. If this title is unavailable at your local bookseller, please contact the press:
https://quickredfoxpress.com/contact-quick-red-fox-press.html
Signed copies are available from Georgian Bay Books:
https://quickredfoxpress.com/georgian-bay-books.html
Quick Red Fox Press Customer Care: 647-381-3838
We are not experiencing higher than usual call volumes and our menu options have not recently changed.
Email: glenellis@quickredfoxpress.com
See also Jukebox Books: https://www.quickredfoxpress.com/jukebox-books.html
Includes in-depth index.
ISBN: 978-1-7751876-1-5
Hardcover, 424 pages (416 + 8 pages photos), $44.95
Not available from Amazon.
Quick Red Fox Press supports independent bookstores, especially those that only sell books, and recommends purchasing direct from them. If this title is unavailable at your local bookseller, please contact the press:
https://quickredfoxpress.com/contact-quick-red-fox-press.html
Signed copies are available from Georgian Bay Books:
https://quickredfoxpress.com/georgian-bay-books.html
Quick Red Fox Press Customer Care: 647-381-3838
We are not experiencing higher than usual call volumes and our menu options have not recently changed.
Email: glenellis@quickredfoxpress.com
See also Jukebox Books: https://www.quickredfoxpress.com/jukebox-books.html