Dwayne Ford Interview

During my research of the recording sessions of Toto I discovered an album by Dwayne Ford – “Needless Freaking”. I contacted Dwayne to do an interview a couple of weeks ago. He agreed and we began by talking about his book: “Rock This Kitchen”. It tells stories about his solo works, the friendship with David Foster, the band Bearfoot and personal stories, not to mention his great recipes. It can be found on Amazon (Kindle), iTunes and other online book vendors. (See the end of the page for information on how to order this book)

I was also interested in his earlier works with Bearfoot. Unfortunately these albums are hard to find, but I finally managed to locate a copy of “Atkinson, Danko & Ford”.

Hugh Brockie (guitar) and Dwayne Ford (piano), both from Edmonton, were originally part of Ronnie Hawkins’ Rock And Roll Revival And Travelling Medicine Show. One night while playing the upstairs lounge of the Graham Bell Hotel in Brantford, Ontario Hawkins spotted two other hotshot musicians in the group “Tin Pan Alley” downstairs – Terry Danko (brother of The Band’s Rick Danko) and Jim Atkinson – and a new band was born.

Hawkins, like he had done with so many versions of “The Hawks” like “The Band” and “Crowbar” before them, taught the guys the ropes about professional showmanship and playing abilities. But eventually like “The Hawks”, this group of musicians decided that Hawkins’ straight-ahead rock and roll was creatively stifling so they left to form “Atkinson, Danko, and Ford” (with the addendum of ‘Brockie & Hilton’). The act soon signed to Columbia Records and their 1972 debut LP spawned the single “Right On”. Drummer Brian Hilton would leave to join David Foster’s band Skylark so “Atkinson Danko and Ford” added Mal Turner on drums but felt their moniker sounded more like a law firm than a musical group and changed it to Bearfoot who continued recording well into the mid-70s on Columbia/CBS. (source)

The second album I found is Bearfoot – Friends With…

“Bearfoot” released three albums and five singles through the label. Their first, 1972 album was released under the name “Atkinson, Danko and Ford (with Brockie and Hilton)”. Danko and Atkinson left in 1973 to pursue work as musicians in California. In 1974 Bearfoot (now a different band altogether) was nominated for the 1974 Juno Awards “Most Promising Group of the Year”, which “Bachman-Turner Overdrive” would win.
The group continued to evolve with players coming and going, releasing their final album in 1975 as “Dwayne Ford and Bearfoot”. Danko and Atkinson returned to Canada in 1985 and reformed the band for a time with Jerry Baird. The group is now presumably defunct. . (source)

It’s a shame that these albums aren’t available on CD.
Dwayne commented: Those records are impossible to find. Sony, which bought Columbia Records a few years ago, have not re-released them and in fact, they claim they cannot find the masters. Rather a poor performance from a company that claims to be the best in the world. They have refused to return them to me. I have some old copies of Bearfoot but I can’t give them away. They are the only ones I have. Bearfoot was started by me, Jim Atkinson and Terry Danko. Our band was called “Atkinson, Danko and Ford”. Later, Hugh Brockie and Brian Hilton joined our band which then became Bearfoot. There have been several versions of Bearfoot. The only constant was me. After the last Bearfoot broke up, Jim Atkinson and Terry Danko revived the name and played gigs using the name Bearfoot but it was never the same after we broke up.

You might want to add Malcolm Tomlinson, Gary Holt, Marty Cordray, and Chris Vickery to the lineup. All these guys were part of Bearfoot after the original band with Jim and Terry broke up. Malcolm, Gary and Chris all performed on the album “Passing Time”. Marty was our drummer for quite a while and toured with us. Malcolm Tomlinson was a great drummer and terrific singer. He is performing on the song “Passing Time” in the choruses. He is singing the high harmonies and is really responsible in part for making that song popular.

If you read the liner notes on “Passing Time” you will find a long list of both Canadian first call session guys and some of Nashville’s best.

Here is the complete list:

Hugh Brockie, Jim Atkinson, Danny McBride, Gary Holt, Prakash John, Chris Vickery, Dwayne Ford, Bob Gallo (Producer), Bruce Pennycook (horns), Dave McMurdow (horns), Malcolm Tomlinson (Vocals and drums), Whitey Glan (Drums), Larry London (Drums), Rick Capreol (audio engineer), Gary Gray (audio engineer), Sy Potma (assistant engineer), Julian Rice (Album cover design). Recorded at Manta Sound in Toronto.

In 1981 Dwayne Ford started to record his first solo album Needless Freaking. A great (classic) westcoast album.

This is an excerpt from his book that can be bought on Amazon: In the early 1980’s, I began production on my album, “Needless Freaking”. I had phoned David to ask if he could help and to my great delight he agreed. I arrived at his home near Topanga Canyon just outside of Hollywood and we got to work, writing out charts, checking arrangements, discussing instrumentation and genres and generally mapping out the project. I didn’t ask him to write the charts, he just did. Then, strangely, he complained to me that he didn’t ‘dig’ having to do it. I suggested that he stop and that I would do them, but he continued anyway, and I didn’t hear anything else about it.

On the morning of the first recording session, David was on the phone, lining up the players and the studio. Jeff Porcaro, Mike Porcaro, Steve Lukather, (all from the band TOTO) Jay Graydon, Neil Stubenhous, every one of them top players and first call recording musicians. David had one of those phones with several lines, and a hold button. He had all the musicians on the line at the same time while he lined up the studio, all the numbers dialed with impressive speed from memory. He didn’t use one finger to dial. He used all four fingers at lightening speed like he was playing the piano. Within 3 or 4 minutes the whole deal was done. It was like watching a movie on fast-forward, and as if I didn’t have enough already, it gave me another level of respect for the man’s abilities.

The sessions went as you might expect. One or two takes and it was done. I was more than happy; I was filled with visions of greatness and knew it was just a matter of time before I would be a member of the rich and famous club. Then it struck. (Used by permission)