The Wages, An Illustrated Story | 11. Masterstroke | Signing In The Seventies
I swapped the opening rhyme, and one thing led to another in a bewildering blur of lawyers and account personnel. Crystal and I found our own lawyer, but the label were the ones with their hand on the tap in any negotiating. We had to concede some points or lose the deal. We signed, and I became a Genuine Oak recording artist. I wasn’t sure if Genuine Oak could fire our live manager Glenn and I stayed out of it. But Glenn acted like he had known Ben forever and everything got moving.
Genuine Oak was started by Ben and his partner Harold to make folk records in Toronto in the ‘60s. Times had changed, and they were now picking up some hot Canadian rock acts. Ben was making inroads into country, and I was excited to be at the centre of that.
Harold gave me the creeps, but Ben wasn’t so handsy, and the stuff he said didn’t give me worms as much, although he never stopped Harold. Crystal was able to glare Harold away from me—most times, anyway. I was primarily Ben’s find and project, and Ben was still wrapped up in the honeymoon phase with his second wife. Rhonda was a knock-out redhead with an endless collection of platform shoes and vibrant knee-socks. She was with Ben when we first met him at the boat show, and often seemed to appear from nowhere. I always said, “Hi, Rhonda!” but she never said one word to me. When Ben and I emerged from meetings at various offices, Ben would greet Rhonda warmly in waiting rooms where she had arrived to slip off one of her fur coats and stride around in her velvet hot pants.
Harold had reached the dark end of the fading phase of his first marriage, and was free from interaction with his own wife. He was always coming and going with the willowy folk hopefuls, who were still attracted by Genuine Oak’s back catalogue. I don’t recall any of their songs of justice and peace being published at that time, and none of these girls had looming big sisters watching their backs during whatever fruitless bargaining they were involved in.