MISSISSAUGA MUSIC WALK OF FAME

When Rik Emmett’s grandfather gave him an acoustic guitar as a child — one of the ones you ordered out of the catalogue — it wasn’t the hula girl and the palm trees stencilled on the front that enthralled his grandson. It was the sound it produced and the possibility of creating something that was unique and personal.

He’d barely learned to play two chords when the pre-teen wrote his first song. It was undoubtedly heavily influenced by those Beatles tunes he and his buddies lip-synced to as they strummed their tennis racquets and listened to Twist and Shout on an old Seabreeze record player.

That was the start of a musical journey that has taken Emmett from school auditoriums to some of the world’s biggest outdoor concert venues and back to the human-scaled concerts that his fans can now order up in their own local communities by going to his website and requesting his presence in their community.

And while the world may still want to measure him by the keening vocals, smoking lead guitar licks and driving rock and roll anthems he wrote with a Mississauga hard rock trio that went viral before viral was invented, Emmett has shown over and over throughout his long and enduring musical career that it is his own muse that he continues to chase — not anyone else’s pre-conceived idea of who he is or what he should play.

Under the spandex and makeup and that shock of blond hair in the 1970s was one very serious musician. This we have all learned — to our delight — as his eclectic tastes in guitar and musical styles have unfolded before our eyes in so many memorable musical releases over the years.

This is a thinking, inquisitive WORKING musician who has never stopped perfecting his craft. After the early Triumphant years, Emmett found himself on Middle Ground, you might say, between a rock band and a hard place.

Unlike so many contemporaries — long since forgotten — who put their imaginations on “repeat” by perfecting endless variations on the riff that made them famous, Emmett has always moved restlessly into new and adventurous directions. He founded a record label and the first thing he issued on it featured classical guitar, with the finger style guitar pieces he’d always wanted to highlight in that format.

When he hooked up with Dave Dunlop to explore the sound of dual guitars in the group called Stringed Troubadours, the powers that be determined that the result was “smooth jazz.”

So, since another new “demographic pigeonhole,” — as he terms labels given to various musical genres — had been created to stick him in, he went with the flow, at least for a while.

He hired an expert rhythm section for a new CD, chiselled off the harder edges and sailed his way to a bunch more “Smooth Jazz” awards. But no category can hold Emmett for long. “I’m very uncomfortable listening to old recordings I’ve made,” he once said. “I am always interested in the NEXT song I’m working on, the next project coming down the pipe.” I’m sure he agrees with the wise assessment of American bandleader Duke Ellington who said there are only two kinds of music – good and bad. It’s quite clear the kind of music he has made, no matter what the label, and it is all good.

The thrill of sitting down with a guitar and his imagination and making some musical magic hasn’t lost any of its charm, all these years after he received his first guitar.

As he told one interviewer, “The thing that is still the most satisfying aspect of self-expression is to sit down with an acoustic, create, write, then sing & play something that I wrote myself. Even the anthems that filled arenas for Triumph can be boiled down to simple acoustic folk songs, which is how they started life anyway. I know that my career ‘reputation’ is probably more one of ‘guitarist’ – but the truth is, I’m one of those dreaded multiple-slash kinds of people – guitarist/singer/songwriter (add producer/arranger/recording artist into that mix), and it’s all just one big ball of wax.” And what a wondrous big ball of wax it has been.

You could say that Rik Emmett started his career in Triumph and worked his way back to Respect — one solid record at a time. He may have described himself best in a couple of lines from one his best-known songs, Ordinary Man, when he wrote:

“I will not be a puppet. I cannot play it safe. I’ll give myself away, with a blind and simple faith.” Emmett hasn’t played it safe and he has paid simple faith to the music be believes in.

And we are all very grateful that he has given so much of himself away to us, in so many lovely and different forms, through the years.

Trust and the music business are too often mutually exclusive things. Many bitter artists would say that the concept of “ trust in the music business” is an oxymoron — like truth in advertising. Yet a man we honour here today built a long and fruitful career based on that enduring concept.

Charlie Camilleri was a pivotal figure in the Canadian music business during his exemplary 30-year career at CBS Records. Rejecting a chance to manage American pop star Gene Pitney in the 1960s, Camilleri stayed home with his young family in Mississauga and, instead, paved the way for several generations of performers to make their marks in this country.

From Mississauga Music Walk of Fame inaugural inductee Ronnie Hawkins, to Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, rock group Chicago, Tom Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Springsteen and Wynton Marsalis — on to Celine Dion who he helped introduce to an English Canadian audience through one of the many Variety Club telethons he helped organize — Charlie Camilleri was a key go-to guy if you wanted a musical career in this country.

He knew everyone in the business and he respected and worked with them to foster their careers. Larry LeBlanc, the veteran music writer who won an honourary Juno last year, says Camilleri was a musical “Everyman” in the 60s and 70s when the industry was relatively small. He did print and radio promotion for artists, visited retailers, picked up the acts at the airport and got them safely to the hotel.

He was also the artist’s surrogate family when they were in town. Camilleri’s gregarious personality and his common touch meant he became very close to the artists. “Charlie seemed to know everybody,” says LeBlanc. “Other people showboated. Charlie did things quietly, but he did things.”

When the extraordinarily talented and extraordinarily eccentric Glenn Gould was on CBS, there was only one man at the record company he would regularly talk to. As as happened with so many of the artists he handled, Charlie’s business relationship turned into a personal one. Every Christmas, a call would come into the Camilleri household in Lakeview from Gould and there would be a long conversation about everything under the sun.

Many of the artists dropped into the Camilleri household to have supper, often before they worked the CNE summer shows. And Camilleri’s personal service often included hitting the road with the artists. He travelled the Canadian circuit with Johnny Cash, one of many who became a close friend.

But it wasn’t just the big name international stars Camilleri promoted. He helped build homegrown careers for artists like Kelly Jay and Crowbar, Larry Gowan and Burton Cummings.

When he retired, CBS named a major internal award for Charlie. CBS Nashville honoured him. Legendary promoter Michael Cohl gave him a lifetime backstage pass for any Concert Productions international show. The founders of the Juno Awards Walt Grealis and Stan Klees of RPM Magazine made Camilleri the first inductee into their planned Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.

At the same time he built his legendary professional career, Camilleri was creating a volunteer profile that was almost as impressive. A lifetime supporter of local sports and community projects, Camilleri coached Cawthra baseball and hockey and partnered with Eve Petrescue to build the local human infrastructure in Lakeview that made them work.

His charity of choice was Variety Club. He personally sponsored Tony Bennett into the local chapter and he raised millions of dollars in more than 25 years of involvement with Variety Village. Camilleri made Variety Club the charity of choice for the music industry for many years.

His work earned him the highest honour he could receive from the International Club and the highest he could receive from the Canadian organization, its Heart Award. On the inscription, the group said the award proved that contrary to Leo Durocher’s belief, nice guys can finish first.

Along the way, he also won Grey Cups in 1946 and 47 with The Toronto Argonauts and won the 1950 Canadian softball championship. After his retirement, he was a pivotal figure in keeping the Argo alumni club active.

When you think about the giants of the Canadian music business, Charlie Camilleri’s name won’t be the first you come up with. Or the second or the third.

But his name belongs among the elite. He used his talent for promotion and friendship to foster a fledgling industry and help build it into the powerhouse it became in his time. And he did it all with charm and grace that belied the reputation of the industry he worked in.

It is our pleasure today to add his name to the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame.

Before Eleanor Calbes, the role of Liat in Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific was a minor speaking part. But when the producers of the 1965 show, overseen by Richard Rodgers himself, heard Eleanor sing as they rehearsed it for the New York City Centre, they came up with an idea.

Why not unleash that amazing vocal instrument on a reprise of Bali H’ai — the song of mystery and enticement that promises that place on the horizon where you can find, “your own special hopes/ your own special dreams.” That way the beautiful song could be reintroduced again later in the show. So the great man himself, Richard Rodgers, was summoned to hear Eleanor sing.

After listening to that sensational young voice sing just a few bars of the tune, Rodgers gave the thumbs up and the role of Liat was now a singing one — with a signature song.

Eleanor Calbes became the first soloist to perform Bali H’ai — and Liat’s longing for that magical place has resonated through every subsequent production of South Pacific. Such is the power of a special voice, and the influence of a special person.

Eleanor Calbes was born in the Philippines in 1940 and began singing in the church in the small town of Aparri where she was born. Blessed with the talent to dance and act as well as sing, Calbes was heard by conductor Nicholas Goldschmidt while on tour. She was riding a bus in Hawaii with the company when it was announced that there was a telegram from Goldschmidt. The bus fell silent as it was revealed that Calbes was being offered a scholarship at the Royal Conservatory Opera School in Toronto. Then the loud cheering began.

Without the means to get to Canada or to live here once she arrived, a determined Calbes set to work. She enlisted the aid of the Philippines Chamber of Commerce in Hawaii, which offered her money for the flight to Canada in return for three free concerts on the islands.

While on that concert tour, her story became public. Once people heard the magnificent voice that was being given an opportunity of a lifetime, perfect strangers helped send her on her way with the spending money she needed.

In Canada she made her mark with the Canadian Opera Company before moving on to Broadway where she performed in The King and I and Lovely Ladies and Gentlemen. She sang the part of Liat in Toronto productions of South Pacific, at the Lincoln Centre and made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Her resumé includes performances of Maria in West Side Story in Germany, a command performance for Prince Philip with pianist Victor Borge and concerts in the Great Hall of China. She has performed in The Philippines numerous times, including the premiere of the opera The Black Wolf and a final concert in 2005 with President Gloria Arroyo on hand.

After moving to Mississauga, Eleanor Calbes wasted no time immersing herself in the local artistic community. She became a one-woman building crew for musical theatre in this city and environs. In fact, she really introduced the city to opera, founding the Mississauga City Centre Opera in 1985. Opera thrived here under her watch.

She staged Fiddler on the Roof soon after Meadowvale Theatre opened in the late 1980s and sang the lead role in Madama Butterfly in 1991. Mississauga’s Musician of the Year in 1986, Calbes opened her renowned voice studio four years later.

Her impeccable professional credentials aside, Calbes’ greatest gift to music in Mississauga may be her talent for teaching. “She has a real ability to draw people in and challenge them,” her friend Paul Fletcher says. “She expects more of people than they expect of themselves.”

Example — she put Fletcher’s then 14-year-old daughter Kelly in charge of choreographing a production of Oklahoma at Meadowvale — much to her surprise. Something must have worked as Kelly is now associate choreographer of We Will Rock You in New York.

As Calbes’ own career wound down, she has helped numerous others launch theirs. Her students have worked, and are working, at Stratford, Charlottetown, the Shaw Festival, on Broadway and in London’s West End. They returned en masse to pay tribute to Calbes at her farewell concert last September and the genuine outpouring of love and gratitude on that stage was unmistakable.

Her public voice may be retired but Eleanor’s personal and professional influence reverberates throughout the cultural life of Mississauga – Ontario – Canada – and the Philippines.

When she left her native land for Canada, Eleanor Calbes had $20 in her pocket and a dream in her heart. Through God-given talent, relentless determination and plain hard work, she’s fulfilled that dream and brought her voice, and her passion, to the music she loves.

She meets all of the criteria for induction into the Music Walk of Fame, for she has gained renown on the national and international stage and spent much of the last part of her life enriching the cultural life of Mississauga and passing her gifts on to its future stars.