From:  "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Jan 27, 2005  11:30 am 
Subject:  This Is My Story: Harold Kudlets
 
HAROLD KUDLETS : THE MAN WHO BROUGHT ROCK-A-BILLY TO CANADA

(By Bo Berglind)

One of the unsung heros of rockabilly is Harold Kudlets as without him this
vibrant form of music would have had a much tougher time getting established
north of the American border. It is open to speculation but the career of
quite a few of those who we regard to today as originators may well have taken
a different course without the business courage and backing of Harold. One
wonders if Conway Twitty would have written "It's Only Make Believe". But of
course this is academic as it did happen and here's the story of how and why.

Glasgow-born Kudlets has lived in Hamilton, Ontario, since he was eight and
schooldays bring back memories of the old Cannon and Hess Street School and
Westdale Collegiate. Then came a number of jobs, mostly in his own, in the
promotion business. In fact, the only time he has worked for anyone else was
after Second World War when he went to Stelco for a spell, a job about which he
commented:

-I think I was more a hindrance there thenn a help.

Steloc was otherwise known as The Steel Company of Canada and was one of the
nartion's major employers. However like allsteel manufactuers the world over,
it has now contracted in size.

Anyway, he got his start in 1946 as a manager of the Forum, the old Hamilton,
Ontario ice palace on Barton Street between Sanford Avenue and Wentworth Street
when it was a summer rolling rink. The Forum had an audience capacity of
between 3,500 and 4,000 but was demolished in the mid seventies.

In July 1947 Harold booked the original Glenn Miller Orchestra with Tex Beneke.
Kudlets also had his own act, a colored piano team known as "Mr. And Mrs. 88".
That was the time when the issuing of liquor licenses to restaurants heralded
the start of the bar industry:

-I think The Grange on King Street West waas our first. You could only buy a
drink if you ordered a meal. Beers cost 75 cents and an all-you-could-eat
smorgasbord cost you 99 cents.

Kudlets went on to book acts like Tommy Dorsey, Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington,
Jack Teagarden, Bobby Hackett and The Jack Benny Show in places like the
Flamingo Lounge, the Golden Bell, the Armouries and the Forum.

-I remember when Louis Armstrong opened thhe Dundas Arena for me in May 1951. I
though I was going to be a good promoter, and limit the crowd to about 3,500. Of
course, by 8 oíclock, the tickets were all sold out, and there were thousands of
people outside. Well, hell, they got in anyway.

Dundas was a town near Hamilton and had a population in excess of 20,000 people.

Harold Kudlets was the man to find work for starving musicians, he had them
working for 40 to 50 weeks a year. Over 125 musicians have cause to be grateful
to Harold. When interviewed in 1965 he said:

-There ís only a handful of agents who aree honourable in this business. The
business is built on honesty. A crook may gain some profit in the short run, but
an honest man will make more profit for himself and others in the long run.

In the late 1950s Kudlets got the chance to book Conway Twitty (aka Harold
Jenkins) a southern boy who patterned his tyle after Elvis Presley. Twitty
wrote his song "It's Only Make Believe" at the long-gone Flamingo Lounge in
downtown Hamilton, although some other sources have the location as Fischer
Hotel in the same town. Conway was so impressed that he painted a picture of
Canada as the promised land to another Arkansas rockabilly wildman, Ronnie
Hawkins:

-Conway was booked into a hotel in Washinggton and after the third day, the club
threw him out. He was not right for the room. Don Seat asked if I could keep
Conway working for a few weeks until they got the contract sorted out. He stayed
with me for two years and never had a day off.

-He never counted the money he made. Heíd  just point to the pile and said: "Take
your share". To be honest, I donít know whether to could or not

-Conway's group was entirely different to  that of Levon (Helms) and The Hawks.
Conway's group were all typical country boys. They were gentlemen all the way,
particularly with women. Whereas Levon and his boys just give them a party.

Kudlets first brought Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks to Canada via Hamilton. Hawkins
made the pilgrimage to Canada with his backup band the Hawks to the Golden Rail
Tavern in 1958 and found a new home. In return, Hawkins and his Hawks nicknamed
Kudlets The Colonel.

But there is one accomplishment of which Kudlets is more proud and this is his
help in establishing Levon And The Hawks.. This is course the legenday Canadian
outfit although initailly fronted by Levon Helm from Arkanas, who went from
backing Ronnie Hawkins to backing Bob Dylan and then onto ensconcing
themselves as one of the premier rock groups known as The Band.

-Says Kudlets at his Robinson Avenue bungaalow: I was the one who started them,
and I was the one who was there when it ended for a while.

Harold ws the guy who Levon Helm and Rick Danko approached when they became
disenchanted with Hawkins:

-I had my office those days at the Royal CConnaught Hotel. One day, Levon and the
boys were sitting in the lobby waiting for me at 9 o'clock in the morning. And I
thought, what gives? These guys did not usually go to bed until 9 a.m. in the
morning.

During the course of their meeting, Kudlets agreed to take on Levon And The
Hawks as a client. About a year later, he booked them for a New Jersey gig and
someone from Bob Dylan's office heard them. Dylan gave Helm a call and hired the
group as his backing band as he moved from acoustic to electric music.

In his heyday as a booking agent he had his office on the eighth floor of the
Royal Connaught Hotel in downtown Hamilton. Behind the door bearing the
lettering "Harold Kudlets Agency" was a room stacked with piles of promotion
material, newspaper clippings and a desk full of contracts. This was the heart
and nerve centre of Kudlets business empire. In the office were photos of the
stars of the day along with busts of Chopin and Beethoveen. He was constantly on
the look out for new acts with the end result that he had several that were the
equal to any others on the Canadian entertainment scene. Among them were Ray
Smith & His Rockin' Little Angels (ex-Sun/Judd artist) and Matt Lucas, both from
the mid south of the USA.

In the mid sixties, Kudlet had a ready market for Canadian groups in the USA
but getting them there was another thing. This was a source of constant
irritation to him. Despite this,the majority of his acts in the sixties were
Canadian, a fact about which he was and ishe was very proud:

-We can get an American group over here att almost ten minutesí notice. Canadian
immigration bends over backwards to help. But it takes from three to ten weeks
to get a Canadian group into the US. There are mountains of red tape.

Any group than can make it in Canada can make it anywhere. Stateside, most of
the clubs have dancing and audiences only want to hear the beat. But here, here,
there is very little dancing. Entertainment is the thing. As a result, the
groups have to work very hard. They have to entertain.

Kudlets later had his business tentacles stretching throughout the United
States and he became the booker for the Freemont Hotel in Las Vegas, the Golden
Club in Reno, the Trophy Room in Sacramento, the A-Go-Go Room in Seattle and the
chain of Peppermint Lounges in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Miami
and Honolulu. He said the key to being a successful agent was putting the right
group in the right room.

These New York agents, they could not care less. If the room called for
classical music, they would send a rock band. Finally, the owners got so burned
that when an agent came along whom they could trust, they would stick with him.

At one time, I was the one of the largest independent agents world wide. I am
very proud of that. And about 95 per cent of the acts I booked were Canadian. It
was a feather in my cap of being a little Canadian agent, and being with the big
boys.

When disco became the rage in the mid-sevties, Kudlets found his livelihood
diminishing as clubs looked for dick jockeys instead of musicians ans o went
into a period of semi hibernation. However he came back into business in 1983
to help book the reformed Band, but retired again when his wife Pauline fell
ill. Sadly, she passed away in April 1994.

Today, Harold wistfully says:

I am old enough to collect my pension - but if I had the opportunity to go back
to the entertainment scene, I would jump at it. To leave the business cold, you
just cannot do it.

If that is not possible, perhaps Harold will set about writing his memoirs, it
will be a fascinating tale that is for sure. For now, thanks are due to Harold
for his share in the founding of the music we all know and love, rock 'n' roll.


(Supplied to TIMS by Tony Wilkinson)