(photo
by Kasey Cox)
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THE BEGINNINGS
On August 15th I was born Norbert Theodore Wyatt in the
town of Swft Current on the Saskatchewan prairies in 1955,
the year Rock 'n' Roll was born (according to some).
Apparently the number one song on the charts that day was
"Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his
Comets. In
my younger years my nickname was "Nob",... a shortened
dissection of the name Norbert. (note: in 1980 I legally
changed my name to Jefferson,... or Jeff for short).
When I was still young my family moved to Regina where my
first musical training was on piano, thanks to the support
of my parents providing me with lessons from a neighborhood
piano teacher named Valerie Juorski. This being the
early sixties, I quickly grew bored with the music I was
playing on the keys as my attention was being drawn to the
interesting guitar sounds that were coming out of
Britain. After falling for the music of The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Dave Clark Five it
was quite evident that guitar was the instrument that I
wanted to explore.
My
parents, Jack and Marianne Wyatt, bought me my first
acoustic guitar from the late National Music in Regina. My
very first 3 chord introduction to guitar playing came from
our parish priest, Father Ralph Fry. After mastering
those 3 chords I was like a dry sponge soaking up new
chords and techniques wherever and whenever I could by
listening to music on records and watching guitarists live
and on TV.
MY
FIRST ELECTRIC GUITAR
I was seriousy craving owning an electric guitar, so I
saved $35.00 to purchase a second hand Silvertone guitar
from Randy Beller, a friend of my brother Bernie.
Shorty thereafter my parents bought me a small Gibson
amplifier from Arcade Music (note: Arcade Music has since
bought out by St John's Music).
This old Gibson guitar amp was one of those old vintage
tube amps that would be a collectors item today had I
kept it and not traded it in on a Winnipeg made Garnet
Pro amp. But jeeze,... that brand new Garnet amp smelled
and sounded so damned good,... plus it had the
rock'n'roll volume I needed to keep up with my band
mates in the early bands I played with. Any old Garnet
amp that is still around and in good working condition
would also be considered a collectors item (especially
to a Canadian collector).
STARTED
PLAYING IN BANDS
In the late 60's (in my early teens) I had the pleasure of
playing lead guitar in some of those early Regina bands. I
wholeheartedly worked at learning how to bend and strum
those 6 electric strings, trying to sound like what I was
hearing on the radio. These early bands I belonged to
included
The Wildsmen,
The Unwritten Document,
and
The Sound of One Hand Clapping. The
memberships of the first two bands consisted of my
childhood friends Vern Wild (guitar & vocals), Curtis
Wild (drums & vocals), Jerry Baumgartner (bass &
vocals), Preston McDade (keyboards) and me (lead guitar
& vocals). The membership of
The Sound of One Hand Clapping were my
friends Brian Malloy (drums & vocals), Jerry
Baumgartner (bass & vocals), Greg Kurtz (bass vocals),
Ray Silzer (keyboards & vocals), Bernice Braumberger
(lead vocals) and me (lead guitar & vocals). There may
have been other members in there as well, but I'm a little
foggy on it after all this time.
Often I would go and watch some of my early local
guitar heroes which included
Bob Deutscher,
Steve Hegyi,
Richard Lautsch,
Doug Rusu,
Terry McKenna and a
few others. (For
an interesting and extensive look at Canadian-prairie
rock music history, check out the site put together
by
Bob Deutscher).
Steve Hegyi and I
became friends. He taught me how to do a proper
"whole step bend + vibrato" on electric guitar; a
technique that takes a lot of practice to perfect.
Usually he would show me stuff but I remember teaching
him a particular Jimmy Page riff
that he rather liked when he heard me play it. It
was Steve who invited me to come and see
Pink Floyd at
the Regina
Center of the Arts (now
called the Conexus Arts Center) on
October 11th, 1970. The warm up act was the
popular Regina band Charlotte. I had no idea who Pink
Floyd were at the time but the intense musical
performance left a permanent impression on me. I
still remember Roger Waters'
blood curdling screams in Careful With That Ax
Eugene.
And although the intensity of their stage presence and
music was quite evident, they still lightened things up
with some funning around on stage. I chuckled when
I saw Roger Waters sneaking
up with a mallet behind the unawares drummer
Nick Mason to
hit the large gong (actually it was a tam tam) that was
directly behind Nick's head. This large tam tam
was commonplace in any photo you can find of
Nick Mason on
stage with
Pink Floyd.
ALWAYS
LIKED LIVE MUSIC BEST
Even prior to this live concert I always had an
appreciation for live music. My parents took me as a
little kid to see
Marty Robbins in
concert. From then on I was hooked on the live
stuff. In addition to
Pink Floyd (with
and without Roger Waters) as
well as
Marty Robbins,
over the past 40 years I've had the privilege of seeing,
and being influenced by, the following Canadian and
international talent, live in concert:
Five Man Electrical
Band,
Streetheart,
Payola$,
Tom Cochrane and Red
Ryder,
Kilowatt,
Valdy,
Roy Forbes,
Chilliwack,
UHF,
Crowbar,
Gary Pucket and the Union
Gap,
The Stampeders,
Painter,
Heart,
Trooper,
Dr. Music,
Chad and Jeremy,
Sugar 'N Spice,
Ian Tyson,
Slvia Tyson,
Gainsborough
Gallery,
Little Richard,
Dire Straits,
Mark Knopfler,
Dave Van Ronk,
Garnet Rogers,
John MacLaughlan,
Jean Luc-Ponty,
Jack Dejohnette,
Duke Ellington,
Jeff Beck,
Jan Hammer,
Pete Seeger,
James Levine conducting
the Three Tenors (Luciano Pavarotti,
Jose Carreras,
Placido Domingo),
Arcadi Volodos,
Jean- Philippe
Collard,
Elvin Bishop,
John Cephas & Phil
Wiggins,
Neil Diamond,
R.L. Burnside,
Junior Kimbrough,
Lonnie Pitchford,
Little Village,
Ry Cooder,
John Hiatt,
David Lindley,
Blood Sweat and
Tears,
David
Clayton-Thomas,
Kris Kristofferson,
Jason Bonham,
Emerson Lake and
Palmer,
April Wine,
Edgar Winter,
Johnny Winter,
Stevie Ray Vaughn,
Colin James,
Dr. Hook,
Adrian Legg,
Don Ross,
Liona Boyd,
Ray Davies,
Paul McCartney,
The Fixx,
Supertramp,
Roger Hodgson,
Split Enz,
The Proclaimers,
Michael White and the
White,
John Mayer,
John Mayall,
Foreigner,
David Wilcox,
Big Sugar,
Smokey Robinson,
Wide Mouth Mason,
Gordon Lightfoot,
John Mellencamp,
Roger Waters - The Wall Tour
2012,
America,
Doobie Brothers,
Tommy Castro & The
Painkillers,
Bob Seger,
Tommy Emmanuel,
Van Morrison, ...
and I'm sure I've forgotten to mention some.
THE
'EDEN'
BAND YEARS
As stated earlier, during the late 60's and 70's I
performed extensively as lead guitarist with Regina based
rock bands. The most popular of which was the 1970’s
band
Eden.
The original band members included
Jim Folk (keys/vocals),
Stan Dorsett (bass/vocals), Van Lautsch (drums/vocals)
and myself (guitar/vocals). The membership was in
a state of flux for some of the middle years, which
brought to the band other such members as Doug Zurowski
(bass/vocals), Brian Morgan (fretless
bass/vocals),
Ken Sinnaeve (bass/sax/vocals),
Keith Soehn (synth/tape
sounds/vocals) and Dale Sauer (guitar/vocals). It
seems to me there were one or two others that passed
through as well but the names presently escape me.
For the final years of the bands existence, the original
4 members once again took the stage together.
As
Eden, we
toured in our 48-passenger school bus performing at a
barrage of one-night stands. For more info and
pictures of the
Eden years
refer to the
Eden - the band
page
on this website.
The
Eden years
were creative, challenging and fun days. It was an
education in music, life and long distance driving.
We were more than friends,... we were family. During
this era, thanks to the musical influences of my friends
Keith Soehn and
Eden drummer
Van Lautsch, I became intrigued by the sounds of electronic
music, which led me to study it’s possibilities for my own
musical compositions at the University of Regina under the
tutelage of professor and composer
Dr. Thomas
Schudel.
EXPERIMENTS
WITH RECORDING
In the early 80’s, after
Eden had
disbanded, I assembled (from some analog and early digital
gear) a small project studio in Regina I called
Concrete
Studios.
Yah,… it was in a concrete basement. Numerous
experimental recording projects came out of that facility,…
most of which were “tossed”. Some of the results I
would never want anyone to hear. But in that old
musical laboratory the journey of education, exploration
and discovery was more important than any polished or
useable outcome. It was a time of research and
development, so to speak, and a time of discovering new
possibilities. The gear at my disposal was limited,
but my imagination ran rampant throughout the available
circuits, stretching them to the limits. In that
concrete cocoon I spent countless hours listening to
recording techniques used on my favorite albums, and tried
to reproduce what I heard. There were times that my
available equipment was not capable of reproducing some of
the techniques, although I did understand in theory how
these tricks were accomplished.
COMMERCIAL
FOR THE FOOD BANK
Although Concrete
Studios was
mainly a personal playground, I did use it to write and
produce a jingle for the Regina food bank. An old
friend and fellow guitarist (Will Putz), who was very
active with Regina service clubs, approached me with a
commission to write and record the jingle. After I
had written the lyrics for the jingle I submitted them to
the committee. The original words I submitted were quite
simply:
"THE
FOOD BANK GIVES
SO LET'S ALL GIVE
COME HELP THE HUNGRY PEOPLE OF
REGINA"
Apparently a government official involved (providing much
needed funding) disapproved of my using the word
"
HUNGRY". That
flabbergasted me. Although angered by that political veto I
also found it somewhat amusing. That heavy handed
"bitch-slap" suggested to me that the Provincial Government
didn't want to suggest or even admit that we actually had
some "HUNGRY"
people
on the streets of Regina during their administration. God
forbid,.... what was I thinking to even suggest such a
possibility! But wait,... if we didn't have
"HUNGRY"
people
in our community,.... what the hell did we need a food bank
for anyway? Hmmm?? Politics can be so silly sometimes. But
I needed to think past this temporary distraction and put
my attention back on what this was all about in the first
place,.... CHARITY. So to comply (and soften the truth that
everyone already knew anyway), I swallowed my pride and
substituted the word "HUNGRY"
with
"NEEDY"
and the
OK was given for me to proceed.
I was fortunate to enlist my old friend and
Eden
band
mate
Jim Folk to
perform the lead vocal as well as a local singing
quintet called The
Sunshine Company to do
the layered backup vocals. The
Sunshine Company included
Melanie Jacobs, Don Monk, Ron Huber, Cheryl Schwarts and
Barb Hillworth. It was producer Doug Russell of
CKCK TV who used my finished audio recording as the
soundtrack to record a promotional video at Taylor Field
on July 12th, 1985.
There
were a whole host of local celebrities, politicians, etc.
present for the videotaping, although my personal favorites
were the Saskatchewan
Roughrider Cheerleaders and
Gainer
the Gopher. If my
memory is correct, I was standing next to Johnny Sanderson
(popular CKCK TV host) and
Ned Shillington
(attorney
and NDP MLA) and between takes Ned said to
Johnny,
“This
song was written by Jeff Wyatt. I wonder which one is
Jeff Wyatt?”.
Johnny
pointed out front, toward
Jim Folk and
responded with,
“That
must be him doing the singing out front by the camera,…
he’s good.”
I
just bit my tongue and laughed silently to myself,
feeling like the invisible man. I didn’t wish to
speak up and embarrass them or myself, but I could
hardly wait to tell Jim after it was all over. The
final video was aired for a special food bank week from
June 23rd
to
28th
in
1985. It highlighted with a CFL football game at
Taylor Field between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and
the BC Lions on June 28th. (note: the Lions won
that contest 21 to 3, although it was only an exhibition
game). The jingle I produced was played regularly
for a couple of weeks on Z-99 FM Radio and CJME AM
Radio. On the
Autobiography pics link on
the upper right of this page are a couple of newspaper
clippings about the Taylor Field video taping.
DELVED
DEEPER INTO SONGWRITING
The 1980’s were a period of intense songwriting for me and
I worked hard exploring guitar sounds, alternate tunings,
playing techniques and styles. During this time I
also did much in the way of acoustic performing at various
restaurants and clubs, including performances for
the Regina
Guild of Folk Arts (which is
the group that sponsors the annual Regina Folk
Festival).
At these intimate Guild performances at Regina's
Copper Kettle Restaurant
I had
the honor and privilege of warming up on separate
occasions for such Canadian greats as
Don Ross,
Stephen Fearing
and
Lynn Miles.
Another fun Regina place I regularly performed at was a
quaint, family owned restaurant/pub called
Michaels
On Hamilton,
which had a warm, entertaining staff and
clientele. The atmosphere and bar room activities
bore much in the way of similarities to that of the
infamous Boston pub in the TV series CHEERS.
RECEIVED
'FACTOR' NEW TALENT DEMO AWARD
In 1990 I was fortunate to be the recipient of a
FACTOR New
Talent Demo Award. This provided me financial
assistance toward the recording of a 4 song demo of
original tunes in a professional recording
facility. This demo was recorded in 1990 at the
late Inner City Sound Studios in Regina with engineering
and production provided by Warren St Onge.
RECORDED 1st SOLO ALBUM
This same year brought me in the studio to record my first
solo album
FLIGHT OF THE HAWK, which
I released later that year. CBC 540 AM Radio invited
me into their Regina studios to be interviewed by producer
Lori Regare for the program Daybreak,
which included the airing of 3 songs from the
album. (Note:
Once I've had the chance to convert these songs to digital
format I plan to post the it as a free mp3 album download
on my site).
MOVED
TO VANCOUVER - CANADA'S WEST COAST
In 1991 I relocated to British Columbia to explore the west
coast music scene. When I finally made that
inevitable westerly trek to Vancouver area I felt quite
intimidated for a year or more about the talent to be
encountered there. I thought of myself as being this
inferior guitarist, musician and songwriter from the
Saskatchewan prairies moving to the “big city”. A
kind of "new kid on the block" mentality. However, it
was not long before I discovered that the musicians and
songwriters on the west coast weren’t any MORE talented
than those I grew up with on the prairies,… there was just
MORE OF THEM in Vancouver. Because of that I could
see it was easy to get lost in the crowd. Along with
that realization though, I was able to relax, meet other
musicians and indulge in an honest mutual appreciation of
each others work and abilities. In order to prevent
myself from occasionally slipping into a
homeland-inferiority-complex I had to remind myself that
Saskatchewan was known for giving birth to some amazing
unknown as well as known talent. Some of the later
include guitar giants
Jack Semple and
Colin James,…
“kick ass” bands which include
Kick Axe and
Streetheart,…the
ultra-bass player
Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve
who
supplied ample interesting bottom end for
Streetheart before
moving on to
Tom Cochrane,
Loverboy and
others,…and who could forget about the legendary
names
Joni Mitchell and
Buffy
Sainte-Marie?
The preceding is just a very small list of the various
musical talents that arose from the Saskatchewan prairie
lands, and I apologize for any obvious names that I
failed to mention in this condensed musical cross
section.
STUDIED
RECORDING ENGINEERING
It was in Vancouver where I studied the Digital
Analog Automated Recording Arts program
at
Columbia
Academy
in Vancouver. As a student in class #39DA7 I
formally studied recording engineering under gifted
instructors/engineers (and musicians)
Jim Meyer and
Kevin Williams.
This stint at recording engineering studies was indulged
in more for my own personal use as a songwriter and
arranger than it was for a possible career in recording
engineering. It was an expensive indulgence, but
worth the time and money required.
MUSIC
WEST
1992 held for me some interesting events.
Attending
Music West that
year I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with a
number of interesting local and international music biz
people which included
Corky Laing (drummer
for the raw power trio
Mountain)
and
Bob Clearmountain
(recording
engineer extraordinaire who’s worked with many of the
biggest musical names you can think of over the last 3
decades).
Corky Laing was
working for Polygram Records at the time, signing and
developing new acts. Having recognizing his name
from an open panel discussion I approached him afterward
and asked,
“With
a name like Corky Laing you must be the drummer
from
Mountain?”
He
seemed flattered to be recognized. We chatted briefly
amidst the noisy surroundings after which he shook my hand
and wished me good luck in my music endeavors.
Bob Clearmountain
was
not advertised as being in attendance, but I recognized
him at a booth which he was hosting as an assistant to
his lovely wife. She had a table and display
representing a certain brand of digital to analog and
analog to digital converters,...
Apogee, I
believe. Both Bob and his wife were very
amiable, pleasant people and Bob was not at all awkward
about being recognized. On the contrary, he seemed
flattered and possibly somewhat surprised that I did
recognize him. It just so happened that I knew
what he looked like from a picture with an article that
I had read in a recent
Mix magazine,...
or maybe it was an add,... I forget. Almost
immediately I initiated a conversation with him about
the first reel to reel digital muli-track tape recorder
that I had read about in a
Mix magazine,
wanting to know more about it and whether Bob was
familiar with it. It was a 32-track digital
recorder built by the 3M company (ie. Scotch) in the
1970’s. The development of this early machine was
undertaken in collaboration with the BBC. It was
used to record
Ry Cooder’s
'Bop Till You Drop'
album
at Amigo studios in North Hollywood, California.
This classic 70's Cooder album wears the crown of being
known as the first digitally recorded pop album.
Bob shared memories with me about working in a
studio with one of these very machines. He said it
was a little strange looking with,..”exposed wires
dangling”. However, the recording quality was
amazing. One of my recording engineer
instructors from Columbia Academy (Kevin Williams)
also just happened to be present. He came up to
the booth as I was there and had recognized Bob as
well. Kevin looked at me and said,
“That’s
Bob Clear…”
I
smiled and interrupted with
“Yah.”
While
Kevin chatted with Bob, I asked Bob’s wife what it was like
being married to such a busy, sought after pro recording
engineer/mixer. She smiled and stated that sometimes
many hours and days would go by before his face resurfaced
for her to see. I laughed because I could relate to
Bob’s engineering passion and musical work ethic.
RECORDED
2nd SOLO ALBUM
A second solo album project ensued in 1994 which I recorded
at the late Bullfrog Studios in Vancouver. The album
was appropriately titled
THE BULLFROG SESSION,
and was
produced by Ian Tarasoff and myself. It was a year or
2 after this that a series of events in my personal life
brought me to the point of taking an 8-year break from
making music of any kind. After selling my guitars I
even thought that I would never return to making music.
This album has been digitally re-mastered and re-released
as of November 2011. You can hear the album in it's
entirety on the
Recordings page.
WROTE,
RECORDED & PERFORMED IN DUO KNOWN AS
'greenfield wyatt'
In 2004, while recovering from a hand injury, I ended up
buying a guitar again as I was killing time waiting for a
hand physiotherapy appointment. A few weeks later I
also bought another guitar from my friend Lance. It
was not long after that my friend
Mike Freda invited
me to a warehouse jam session in October of 2004.
Being disgustingly out of practice, I only very
reluctantly agreed, after much prodding on his
part. It was at this jam that I met drummer Ken
Dahl who days later introduced me to songwriter
Barry
Greenfield.
When
Barry and I met in November 2004, we got along well right
from the start, and thus decided to work together. In
the meantime (since I was “ampless”), my good friend
Mike Freda built
me an awesome 18 watt tube guitar amp in the style of
Jimmy Marshall’s 1960’s vintage circuitry, however, with
improved grounding modifications. It has that
awesome, vintage early Marshall sound, although with
improved grounding. On the
Bio Pics link
(on the navigation links of this page) is a photo of my
amp (with Mike's Tele) just after it was completed.
Barry and I co-wrote, rehearsed, performed and recorded
together, improving, inspiring and challenging each other’s
creativity. In 2005 we recorded an album
entitled
songs from the rothstein under
the name
greenfield and wyatt.
Later we started billing our live act simply as
greenfield wyatt.
It was while working with Barry that I had the pleasure of
meeting and working with some veteran Vancouver musicians,
whow included the late
Gaye Delorme,
Tom keenlyside, the
late
Roge Belanger, Ken
Dahl,
Jack Duncan,
Nick Apivor and
Richard St Onge.
We performed together in various lineup combinations for
a number of Vancouver concerts. 3 concerts were
booked at the
Norman Rothstein Theatre
and 2
at
The Cellar Jazz
Club.
There were performances at other lesser known venues as
well. All were well received. Although
the
greenfield wyatt partnership
was a richly rewarding and creative time for both Barry and
I, after a change of management and the realization of
differing musical visions, Barry and I chose to stop
working together in July of 2006. A follow up
CD project to
songs from the rothstein,
which
was almost complete, was abandoned in the process due to
our decision to dissolve the musical partnership.
WORKING
WITH LYRIC AND SCRIPT WRITER MICHAEL B.
REILLY
Mike and I have teamed up on a number of
projects where I provided the music. There's much more
I need to write on this productive and creative
partnership,... and will do so soon.
MY
INFLUENCES
It's
quite evident that my musical tastes are wide, and those
influences obviously and sometimes obscurely come out in my
music. I love rock, acoustic and electric blues,
soul, R&B, symphonic orchestrations, opera, ethnic
music, etc.
My work has been described to me as an interesting mix of
styles resembling that of artists like Ry Cooder,
David Wilcox,
Mark Knopfler,
Neil Diamond,
Johnny Cash,
Gordon Lightfoot,
Jeff Beck and
others. Now that sounds like a spicy musical
recipe. Well,...I'm
truly humbled at the mere thought of any such remote
comparisons to these musical giants. Personally I just
think I sound like me,... whatever that is,... however,
all those personalities have certainly influenced my
playing and writing. They
are some of the all time greatest.
STILL
LIKE TO EXPERIMENT
Although I am mostly a guitarist, I do like to dabble and
bang on the keys. Besides, as a kid I did study piano
for a number of years, although playing guitar is easily my
main musical obsession.
2017 had
been a busy year with the following album releases:
Life in the Woodshed,
Off the Floor (with
Jeff Wyatt & the Wreckn' Crew) and
Privy to the Blues.
LIVE
MUSIC IS STILL BEST,... AND THE MOST
FUN
I appreciate and am a sucker for a great musical recording,
but nothing beats the live experience and performance of
music in my mind. As much as I love cool recording
techniques and layers of tonal textures and colorful
percussive backdrops, nothing is more stunning and
captivating to me than simply watching and hearing a
musician play an instrument with his or her whole heart and
soul. Recording for me is fun, but I find more fun in
playing live shows. You can catch me performing regularly
in and around the Vancouver area along with a host of
talented musical friends, who have included Kevin Rintoul
(bass & vocals), Brian Dierks (drums & vocals),
Clyde Griffith (congas), Phil Howell (bass & vocals),
Stephen Berne (drums), Vince Iormetti (drums), Al Fauteux
(bass), Dave Fauteux (drums)... in various band
combinations. I last performed in the blues trio
Jeff Wyatt & the Wreckin'
Crew,
with a solid rhythmn section consisting of Phil Howell
(bass & vocals) and Vince Iormetti (drums).
THANKS
FOR VISITING !!
