Come Together - The Story Of Goody Two Shoes

 

    Goody Two Shoes is an album with an unforgettable face—a pair of raggedy conjoined shoes atop a sterile white background. Though the album cover is striking for all the wrong reasons, the music inside is the opposite. It's a stellar mix of rock, funk, psych, and country—a 50/50 blend of original Canadian compositions by the band and (mostly) international covers. Like many of Canada's country music-focused labels, Paragon Records (who released the album) had a semi-frequent tendency to sign local acts of other genres, record and release their material with little to no promotion, and call it a day. With the advent of the internet and DJs/tastemakers working tirelessly over the intervening decades, small pockets of music fans have discovered these albums, and many are very good. This is essentially the fate of The Goody Two Shoes album, and below is the untold story of its history. But first, we must briefly touch on the history of the band that preceded Goody Two Shoes: A Passing Fancy. They were one of Toronto's earliest garage band success stories. Along with "Nothin" by The Ugly Ducklings, A Passing Fancy's "I'm Losin' Tonight" is considered one of Toronto's finest garage slabs. 

    A Passing Fancy began in Toronto as The Dimensions. They performed early on in the Yorkville neighborhood, at various clubs during July of 1965. The original line-up consisted of Ian Telfer (bass), Brian Price (organ/vocals), Jay Telfer (rhythm guitar/lad vocals), Phil Seon (lead guitar), and Greg Hershoff (drums). Bernie Finkelstein, a young and ambitious music promoter who recognized some of the members from Downsview High School, caught their set at El Patio, where he was working as a coffee maker. He offered to be their manager, which in turn got them a regular spot performing at El Patio through the end of the year.

    1966 saw Bernie Finkelstein move on to managing The Paupers, as well as some line-up changes for A Passing Fancy. The beginning of 1966 saw the group officially change their name from The Dimensions to A Passing Fancy. They began playing regularly at high schools across Ontario, started a fan club, and managed to get noticed by friends of their fan club manager, Barb Young. The Wal-Den Management Company was formed and within no time helped A Passing Fancy garner the attention of Columbia Records, who signed them to a three-single deal. 

    

    Early 1967 saw A Passing Fancy's popularity skyrocket. They embarked on tours (Eastern Canada, New York, etc.) and played regularly at some of Toronto's most popular clubs (The Night Owl, Gogue Inn, Club 888, etc.). The timing was perfect for the release of their debut single, "I'm Losing Tonight/A Passing Fancy." It managed to reach #22 on the RPM Singles charts in March. The second single "You're Going Out Of Your Mind/Sounds Silly" also charted in June, but at a lower position (#37). The third release was "I Believe In Sunshine/She Phoned," and it managed to get to #28 on RPM, almost directly between the first and second singles' chart positions. Of the three singles released by A Passing Fancy thus far, Jay Telfer wrote five of the six sides ("I Believe In Sunshine" was by Greg Hambleton). He was showing exceptional talent as a songwriter, and talent would only grow in the coming years. 

      A Passing Fancy saw a fourth single release in November 1967, mostly spurred on by Columbia Records. Though the group was popular at the time, "People In Me/Spread Out" only managed to reach #89 on the RPM charts. Columbia Records also expected an album from the band, but at this time, the group was in turmoil due to scheduling issues. Brian Price (Organ/Vocals) quit the band in March 1968 and was replaced by Fergus Hambleton. After shooting an episode of CBC's "Let's Go" (the first one in color) and doing a few scattered performances, Jay Telfer was fired from the band. That was a catalyst for a mass exodus in May of 1968; A Passing Fancy had broken up. 

 

    The Wal-Dan management company asked Fergus Hambleton to put together a new version of A Passing Fancy, and within a short frame he managed to do so. The lineup was: Glenn Brown (vocals), Ron Forster (guitar), Fergus Hambleton (organ/vocals), Dan Troutman (bass), and Wally Cameron (drums). The new group recorded four sides and pitched them to John Irvine's Boo Records. He signed the group to a one-sided, one-album deal and managed to buy their tapes from Columbia Records. The single "Your Trip/Island" was released in June 1968 and barely managed to scrape RPM's singles chart at #92. 

    November 1968 saw the release of A Passing Fancy's self-titled debut album. Though it was packed full of their previous hits, the album didn't sell particularly well. Interestingly, the album version of "I'm Losing Tonight" is missing the lead guitar solo. The story goes that when recording the song, the guitar solo was recorded afterwards on a separate piece of tape and spliced in. Fun fact: Phil Seon was taught the solo by Robbie Robertson. "When John Irvine bought the tapes, he was unaware of the separate solo and released the song as is," says Fergus Hambleton. "So any subsequent releases with the solo included were dubbed from 45." 

 

    The band tried their best to promote it during their residency at Yorkville's famous El Patio club, but it was for not. 1969 mostly spelled the end for the band. With their recent sales blunders and diminishing creative opportunities, they decided to go their separate ways by March or April of that year. 

 

    During their time together in A Passing Fancy, Fergus Hambleton and Jay Telfer became close. So naturally, Fergus had been spending a lot of time hanging out with Jay after he was fired. "Jay and Fergus were very good friends and in fact used to get together almost weekly to have songwriting jam sessions," says Kevan Staples (former roadie for A Passing Fancy—later of Rough Trade). "Goody Two Shoes grew out of that friendship and those jam sessions." 

 

    Post-A Passing Fancy, Jay Telfer became a machine, writing and recording over a dozen songs with Fergus' brother Greg Hambleton at Sound Canada Studios. Jay pitched two of the songs to Ottawa's Sir John A Records, one of Canada's finest psych/garage labels of the era, which fostered a lot of young, mostly Ottawa-based talent. During November 1968, Jay Telfer's debut solo single "Life, Love, And The Pursuit Of Happiness (A Hippy Philosophy)/Watch The Birdie" was released in a limited run of 250 copies (as most of Sir John A's Records were, driving up their value in later years, when even fewer copies remained). The B-side, "Watch the Birdie," is the title track of a self-penned play that Jay Telfer wrote and debuted at Toronto's "Old Angelos' Theatre" a month or two prior to the release of the single. 

    After the release of Jay's debut single, he began work on his debut album, "Perch." Greg Hambleton assisted Jay in recording the demos during the winter of 1969, which Jay presented to Bernie Finkelstein over lunch one day. Bernie enjoyed what he heard and expressed an interest in producing an album. 

 

    The recording of Perch is one of Toronto music's most fascinating mysteries, mostly because the album was never released and the master tapes narrowly escaped the trash compactor. Pair Jay's unique "psyched" out writing style with a roster of Yorkville's finest musicians, many of whom were currently undergoing their own psychedelic music awakening, and you have a match made in heaven. Ten original songs were recorded in the spring of 1969 at Sound Canada Studios, featuring performances by Murray McLauchlan (then twenty years old), Danny McBride (then nineteen years old), Fergus Hambelton (on saxophone and clarinet), Kensington Market (featuring John Mills Cockell on Moog synth), Milkwood (featuring Malcolm Tomlinson), Cathy Young, Donna Warner, and more. As Telfer recalls, the musicians had a ton of fun doing the album, but when it came to selling it, Finkelstein asked the late Felix Pappalardi, who’d produced Kensington Market, but was turned down.

    

    After the demise of A Passing Fancy, Fergus Hambleton went back to school and played music on the side. He became acquainted with fellow schoolmates who had their own band called "The Ginger Group." Fergus was invited to join, which he graciously accepted. The line-up consisted of Eric Canning (lead vocals/lead guitar), Scott Lowell Mollison (rhythm guitar/backing vocals), Jack Merrick (drums/backing vocals), Peter Lye (bass), and Fergus (piano/backing vocals). After some time rehearsing, they recorded a handful of original songs at Sound Canada Studios in the summer of 1969. Two of the songs were pressed onto singles to be released by an early version of Greg Hambleton's Tuesday Records, but they were never put out. It is currently unknown how many copies were pressed. 

 

    During summer 1969, Jay Telfer began apprenticing as an engineer at Art Snider's Sound Canada Studios. Jay and Fergus had been discussing teaming up to record some songs, and with a little persuasion from Art Snider, the pair made the switch. "Art Snider was operating a bunch of different labels out of his Sound Canada studio at the time and looking for product for some of them," says Fergus Hambleton. "He offered me and Jay 50$ each for every album we recorded." The only caveat Art had regarding the proposition was that one side of the record (or a sides-worth of material) needed to be "current" charting songs. 

    The recording of the Goody Two Shoes album (done during October of 1969) was a fairly laid-back process. Jay Telfer spent weekdays in the studio experimenting, while Fergus was in school during the day. "I learned some production and engineering while working at Sound Canada, so I would hang out while Fergus was away, set up the tape, run in to perform the parts, then run back out to rewind and listen to them," says Jay. Through this process, Jay recorded all the drums, rhythm guitar, bass, and organ, plus most of the vocals. Fergus came in on weekends to record piano, clarinet, vocals, and saxophone parts. 

 

    Jay and Fergus both sang on the record, contributing some of their originals. Jay contributed four songs ("High Falootin'," "I'm Losing Tonight," "Sounds Silly," and "Ten Pound Note," and Fergus contributed one ("Without You"). Two of Jay's contributions were previously recorded by A Passing Fancy ("I'm Losing Tonight" and "Sounds Silly"), while Fergus' contribution ("Without You") was previously recorded earlier that summer by him and The Magic Cycle for a "shadow" production that Greg Hambleton was working on [See my Birchmount Records Story for more info on that]. The covers were a mix of The Beatles ("Come Together"), Harry Nilsson ("One"), The Band ("Up On Cripple Creek"), Larry Williams ("Slow Down"), and The Everly Brothers ("Dream").

 

    Interestingly, The Goody Two Shoes album features the first recording of Jay Telfer's "Ten Pound Note," which would become a hit for Toronto's Steel River when they covered it in July 1970 (going Top 10 on Canada's RPM charts). Jay Telfer wrote, recorded, and produced "Ten Pound Note" solo, specifically for and at the Goody Two Shoes sessions, all in one day. Additionally, this album features one of the earliest known publicly released covers of The Beatles "Come Together" (which the album is named after). 

 

    Speaking of "Come Together," the only extra musician used on the Goody Two Shoes album was Kevan Staples (later of Rough Trade). Kevan was close to A Passing Fancy and was their roadie during 1968/1969. "At the time I was sharing an apartment with Jay, and he asked if I wanted to play guitar on a couple of songs," says Kevan. "The challenge was to recreate George Harrison‘s solo for "Come Together," which, although not terribly difficult, I’d only been playing guitar for two years. The other song they had me play on was “I’m Losing Tonight." I must’ve been asked to play the guitar solo that Phil Seon had played on the original song. In fact, I believe it was the same guitar." 

 

    After the album's release in November of 1969, Jay, Fergus, and Kevan remained friends, collaborating multiple times over the years. Kevan Staples got into session work during the 70's, doing a few transcription sessions for the CBC (Dianne Brooks and Jodie Drake) before co-founding Rough Trade in the late 1970's. Jay Telfer was bit by the theater bug again and managed to land the guitar part in the Toronto production of "Hair." In addition to this, he got back to writing songs in his free time, with one crucial change: he began shopping them around for local artists. This decision proved vital to his legacy, as some of his compositions would go on to be hits in the hands of others. Fergus continued working at Sound Canada Studios with his brother Greg in the aftermath of Goody Two Shoes. During 1971, Fergus Hambleton was signed to Capitol Records, where he began his solo career.