Dusty Road
Drummer Brian John Callan had lived in Durham, ON, beginning in 1959, at the age of eight. Durham is about 15 KM east of Hanover, ON, the home of the Mercey Brothers.
In 1965 Brian became the drummer for a local band. He then played on Alfie Fromager’s TV show while it still aired, and played many one nighters with Clare Adlam. Clare owned the music store in Durham. Brian also played with an Irish themed band with some gigs in the USA.
John Kenneth Gulley was born in Stayner, ON, the son of Ken & Marie Gulley. He began to play the guitar at the age of fourteen as most of his cousins could play some kind of instrument with a bluegrass twinge. Between school, hockey and working on his father’s dairy farm, JK played records and practiced mimicking the different playing styles.
JK’s musical career began about 1970 in Collingwood with a house band gig in the old Arlington Tavern with the Top 40 group “Gulley, Smith, & Brewer.” JK was a country guitarist who played in the style of Chet Atkins, and performed a lot of his own original material. Andy Smith was the drummer and Bob Brewer played the keyboards.
Bassist Leslie Roy Childs and guitarist John Gulley played with Alfie Fromager who liked the sound of a drum machine. They knew of drummer Brian Callan from his work with Clare Adlam and wanted him in Alfie’s band, but Alf wouldn’t have it.
After eighteen months with Alfie, JK happily accepted an offer to play with Rick Travis & California Country, another client of London booking agent Marilynne Caswell. Rick was one of Marilynne’s favourite people in the world with his thick southern accent and genuine love for country music. JK worked with Travis for a few years, until he moved to Nashville in 1973 to work as a studio bass player.
JK decided to form a country trio with former band-mate Les Childs on bass and new player Brian Callan on the drums. The trio called themselves Dusty Road and had an edge over other bands as all three members could sing lead vocals. JK kept Marilynne Caswell up to date as his career moved forward. Apparently the drum kit that Brian played came from the Mercey Brothers studio. Larry Mercey had asked Brian to do some voice work for commercials, but nothing came out that.
When the band played on their own, they were we were known as Dusty Road, and when they backed other artists they billed as Orville Prophet & Dusty Road or Honey West & Dusty Road. Les and Brian weren’t big on backing other artists, but John was. On one occasion, MC Talent agency had a rough time adding Tim Daniels to their set in a club in Thunder Bay where they had previously played on their own. Apparently the club didn’t think they should have to pay for the backing band too, or maybe Dusty Road were good enough on their own.
Violinist Carl Keyes asked Brian to join the Good Brothers, while RCA recording artist Roy Payne also wanted him to join his act. Brian stayed true to Dusty Road.
In November of ’74 Marilynne got a call from Jim Allison of Thunderbird Recordings, asking her if she knew of any Nashville artists he could record to earn his label some respectability. She automatically thought of Charlie Louvin, who’d she known for twenty years, and who was currently between record labels. Charlie was excited about recording in Canada using Canadian songs, and so she immediately called JK and asked for demos of all of his original songs for Charlie to pick through. Charlie scaled the songs 1 to 5 and then sent the list back to Marilynne on January 19th 1975.
By this time Dusty Road was ready to head out on the road and Marilynne became their booking agent, getting them into her familiar haunts. Six months later Jim Allison heard of the list of songs and wondered who exactly Dusty Road were. Marilynne told him about this exciting new trio and so Jim drove up to the Manor Hotel in Guelph to check them out. Upon hearing them, he immediately offered them a record contract, and they were beside themselves, moving down to the area to play gigs and rehearse their original songs. They were the eighth act signed to the label.
Meanwhile Charlie Louvin was working on the twelve songs that would make-up his Thunderbird album, and demoed them out. He told Jim that after Christmas of ’75 he’d be ready to record. Not only did Charlie love JK’s ‘A World of Give and Take,’ deciding to make it his first Canadian single, but also the title of the album.
One highlight was that Dusty Road was featured on the George Hamilton IV show, and afterwards Jim suggested Fred McKenna’s song, ‘Country Pickin’ Man’, as well as John Denver’s ‘Sweet Surrender’ for JK to sing. Charlie’s album was recorded in January of 1976 and Dusty Road’s next project was to act as Don Oatman’s back-up band for his debut album. Don informed Jim Allison that he required a drummer for his project. Brian got the call for that but Jim really wanted all three members of the band to get studio experience together. Don allowed John and Les on the album, but would only pay for one person at the union scale rate, because that was all he really needed. They were credited as ‘Dusty Roads’ like a single name, and split the fee three ways between them.
The Oatman record was recorded over the weekend of May 7th 1976 at Thunder Sound in Toronto. This was Dusty Road’s first time in a studio, and everything went flawlessly. Over the summer of ’76 they also backed up the Muir Family and Jan Stevens on their respective singles.
Finally, Dusty Road hit Thunder Sound in August 1976 to record their own debut album. JK decided not to record his song ‘A World of Give and Take’ himself because it was the lead single from Charlie Louvin’s album, and he didn’t want to over-saturate the song.
The debut Dusty Road single was launched In November 1976 by Don Bird who was now a DJ for CKGL AM 570 in Kitchener, ON, giving the boys a very auspicious start to their recording career.
Jim borrowed a good chunk of money to finance the Dusty Road album and the band co-signed the loan. They were paying a set amount back to Jim from record sales, but when John left for Whiskey River the week of August 16th 1977, Jim was left with this loan that he took full responsibility for. He was extremely troubled by this and his efforts to keep the group together were futile. At the time the band were well on their way and it was indicated that there was a Juno nod coming. RCA was also showing great interest in signing the band. However John was set on leaving so that really changed things.
In September of 1977 Brian actually thought the label had been sold because they each got their original Thunderbird contracts back in the mail.
MC Talent left the band not knowing until Friday or Saturday where they were going to work the following Monday. Many times it turned out to be 500 plus miles away, for little money and she’d say there was nothing else available.
Brian went to the Town and Country in London and they booked the band for awhile with very little travel between gigs and for much more money. He then contacted a Vancouver agent, who had previously booked them with Tim Daniels. Brian set up a tour from Ontario to Vancouver and round about. Eventually Brian took charge of all the bookings and found that the western venues paid more than triple the Ontario venues.
Les promoted the 4th Dusty Road single more as a solo single for himself as John was gone by this point. They added two guitarists and a female singer named May, which made the band sound much better according to Orville Prophet. They went on to work with Myrna Lorrie for a bit. In 1978 they had contemplated going back into the studio on their dime with Jim, but nothing ever came of it.
About 1981, with changes in members being anywhere from a trio to a five piece, they moved to Calgary, Alberta. In time, Les and Brian separated but were soon reunited working with various players and as a duo with the occasional pick-up drummer. At that time, Brian was playing the guitar. They played some country but more of the top 40 rock. They played under the Dusty Road banner or as The Moostachio Bros.
Although they continued to play live music, the band didn’t release any new material. These days Brian is still living in Calgary while Les resided just outside of Owen Sound, ON.
Les Childs passed away in his 69th year on February 13th 2020 in Owen Sound, ON, as a result of heart failure.
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