Juno Awards provide few surprises but leave some unanswered questions

by Peter Goddard
Toronto Star
March 16, 1976

It was a conservative, home-spun, and ultimately irrational, Juno Awards show held last night at Ryerson Theatre and shown live over CBC-TV that saw Joni Mitchell chosen as the best female artist of the year and Gino Vannelli as best male vocalist.

There were few surprises in 110-minute-long spectacle which gave the Vancouver-based Bachman-Turner Overdrive three awards for their Four Wheel Drive album, for their single, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet and as group of the year.

The only newcomer to the 12th annual ceremony was vibraphonist Hagood Hardy, who was named composer of the year, and instrumental artist of the year.

CAUTIOUS CHOICES

Peter Anastasoff was named producer of the year for his work on Hardy’s lushly orchestrated tune, The Homecoming.

Obviously the some 570 members of the Canadian Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences were being cautious in their choices.

Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, the Mercey Brothers, as well as Joni Mitchell and Murray McLauchlan, all previous winners, were selected again last night.

Two of the awards pointed up the increasingly blurry distinctions between country and folk music.

Murray McLauchlan, darling of the urban folkniks, was named Best Country Male Artist – and Gordon Lightfoot, who recently was wowing the jet setters at Lake Tahoe, won as Best Folksinger.

Anne Murrray’s win as Best Country Female Artist served mainly to underscore the fact that the Junos are selected by the record industry at large, most of which doesn’t listen to country music.

Murray is a household word but she has lacked a solid country hit this year, while the less widely known Carroll Baker, whom she beat out for the award, has piled up a string of number-one singles on the country charts.

Ironically, Baker earlier received the most enthusiastic audience response of the evening when she performed her hit song I’ve Never Been This Far Before – the first time many industry members had seen or heard her.

HEAVY PROMOTION

In the Best Country Group category, the Mercey Brothers, of Elmira, Ont., beat last year’s winners, the Carlton Showband.

Dan Hill, the new young singer-songwriter in the adolescent-folkie vein, was voted Best New Male Artist. It was one of the least surprising selections of the evening, coming on the heels of heavy promotion in Canada and the States for his first album and current single Growing Up In the Shade Of The U.S.A.

Best New Female Artist was Patricia Dahlquist, whose win over her better-known competitor, Sylvia Tyson, may have indicated the industry felt uneasy about accepting Tyson as a “new” artist, although her act as a solo qualifies her.

Also in the running were soul-singer Shawne Jackson, and pop artists Lisa Hartt and Robin Moir.

Best new group was the Toronto duo Myles and Lenny, who beat two hot Quebec bands, Aut’Chose and Maneige, as well as rock groups Bond and Heart.

NOT PRESENT

Early in the evening, before any winners were announced, Bruce Allen, Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s manager, was worried that there were so many French acts included.

“They should have their own ceremonies,” he said.

They’ll have to. The closest Quebec came to having an award-winner was Montreal’s Gino Vannelli, who sings entirely in English.

To add further edge of disappointment to the evening was the fact that many of the winners, including Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Gino Vannelli, Murray McLauchlan, The Mercy Brothers, were not present to pick up their pyramid-shaped Junos.

“So this was a bit of a rip-off,” said one recording executive. “What we had was most of the losers who were there, presenting awards to the winners, most of whom weren’t there.”

True, there was at least one truly emotional moment when Randy Bachman, of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, presented what he called his “peoples’ award” to the Junos’ founder, Walt Grealls.

And the evening’s host, John Allan Cameron, tried to keep it all on a casual basis by doing everything from quoting an old Latin proverb (he was a former high school teacher and his old occupation apparently hasn’t worn off yet) to attempting to turn the entire show into a Cape Breton dance.

Yet, despite Cameron’s charm and his obvious ease, the show lacked shape and, at times, sense.

NEW FACES

For before the night, Mel Shaw, president of the academy said it was the academy’s intention to highlight new faces in the Canadian recording scene.

So why then were so many of the veteran winners chosen? And why, after including so many French acts, did the academy choose to ignore them?

This, then, was the show’s ultimate bit of irrationality. In attempting to offer answers to who is best, it only brought up more questions.