OUR OWN JANIS JOPLIN
When the drinking age was lowered, Dianne
Heatherington set out to conquer the
Winnipeg pub scene
By 1971, Fort Rouge-born singer
extraordinaire Dianne Heatherington was
the undisputed queen of the Winnipeg pub
scene — our very own Janis Joplin. A
dynamic performer with few peers, she was
a larger-than-life personality equally
capable of gut-wrenching emotion or joyous
rapture.
In September 1970, the drinking age was
lowered to 18 and the entire social scene
shifted from the community clubs to the
pubs transforming once staid beverage
rooms into wild party scenes. Bands like
Katerpillar, Black Cat, The Tweedle Band,
Vicious Circle (with Blair & Gary
MacLean), Out To Lunch (featuring Al
Simmons), Persecution, Granny, Fabulous
George & the Zodiacs and Next had the
Plaza, City Centre, Voyageur, Maryland,
St. Vital Hotel, Windsorian and other
popular pubs jumping night after night.
But the kingpins were always Dianne
Heatherington and the Merry-Go-Round.
Encouraged by her church choir master to
pursue professional work, Dianne began
singing for the CBC in the mid ’60s,
appearing on several local productions
including Let’s Go.
“We didn’t have a colour TV so we had to
go out and rent a hotel room to watch it
in colour,” recalls her brother Ken. She
caught her first break with The Electric
Banana before recruiting some of the
city’s top players to form the
Merry-Go-Round. Together they set out to
conquer the pubs.
Dianne Heatherington and the
Merry-Go-Round were renowned for their
eclectic repertoire. “I remember tackling
tunes that no one else would dare
attempt,” states keyboard player Hermann
Frühm. “We used to do Richard Harris’s
MacArthur Park with all the parts in it.
Here we were, a bunch of young musicians
trying to get all these complex parts
right. And I think we succeeded quite
nicely, too.”
“Dianne’s arrangement ideas were
brilliant,” notes later band member
Leonard Shaw. “She wasn’t a studied
musician and couldn’t always communicate
them well but once we got her ideas, they
were amazing. She was so talented in many
ways. She had the ability to really touch
an audience, to move them emotionally. She
was someone who could really deliver the
goods in so many different musical
genres.”
Few may know that it was Dianne who
confronted a recalcitrant Led Zeppelin in
an International Inn hotel room and shamed
them into playing their set at the hastily
relocated ManPop 70 concert in the
Winnipeg Arena. As Hermann remembers, “She
was in one of her flamboyant rages. She
spoke to them like they were her little
brothers or something. No fear
whatsoever.”
CBC offered Dianne her own national TV
show in 1971. Dianne became a hit right
across the country. By that point the band
had undergone several personnel changes
and were focusing on writing and recording
their own material. At a gig in Saskatoon,
they were spotted by Kenny “The Gambler”
Rogers of The First Edition. He booked
them to appear on his CTV television
series Rolling On The River and later
invited them to Los Angeles to record for
him. In January 1972, Dianne and the band
spent a week in L.A. laying down five or
six tracks. “We recorded all our own
stuff,” recalls Hermann. Rogers offered
them a contract for an album but wanted
the band to take on a new name, Catweazel,
and Guess Who manager Don Hunter expressed
an interest in managing the band.
Unfortunately nothing came of either
situation and in June, after bass player
Bill Wallace was invited to join the Guess
Who, the Merry-Go-Round folded.
Dianne moved to Toronto later that year
(inspiring the Guess Who song Bye Bye
Babe) where she continued to wow
audiences. In 1980 she recorded an album,
Heatherington Rocks, backed by
former Winnipeg musicians. She was
nominated for a 1981 Juno award as Most
Promising Female Vocalist, losing out to
Rough Trade’s Carole Pope. Two years later
she headed to New York but still failed to
make the crossover into the big time.
“We did a weekly gig at Joe’s Bar on 6th
Street in New York,” recalls drummer and
husband Gary Taylor. “On Friday nights we
did country music. Dianne did the show in
a Patsy Cline-style dress introducing the
songs with a Texas accent. People believed
she was from Nashville.”
Returning to Toronto, she pursued an
acting career in the latter ’80s,
appearing in Cocktail and The Liberace
Story. Dianne later formed her own movie
security company and employed many of her
musician friends.
She returned to Winnipeg to reunite with
the Merry-Go-Round for a gala fundraiser
on behalf of the Manitoba Museum’s Get
Back exhibit in February 1994. Only close
friends knew she had been diagnosed with
ovarian cancer. She fought a courageous
two-year battle involving chemotherapy
treatments but succumbed on Oct. 22, 1996.
“Everyone that knew Dianne or worked with
her was touched by her,” states Hermann.
“Her memory remains so strong for all of
us.”
John Einarson
As
published in the Winnipeg Free Press
April 28, 2013
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