Musical Luminaries

Musical

Luminaries

Written by Michael Krapovicky

A night at the PAL Hop 12 LA METRO MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2018

Perspectives on the history of music in LA

D

ocumenting the history of music in Lewiston Auburn is a daunting task. Impressions of the Twin Cities music scene are as varied as the sounds created in the dancehalls, taverns, clubs, churches, and homes of the citizenry. Throughout the next few issues, LA Metro Magazine will touch on a few of LA’s celebrated musicians and music advocates over the decades.

Fathers of the modern music scene

Ed Boucher is an LA legend, and no story of music in the Twin Cities is complete without counting his influence. He and countless others were inspired by Maurice Fournier. Serendipity brought Fournier and the Boucher brothers together; the LA music scene would have been much different without their presence.

“My mother wanted my brother Paul and I to play music,” Boucher related. “We didn’t have any interest in that, but she wanted us to learn. So finally we gave in; she set us up for lessons at Maurice’s Music Mart in the late 50s.”

Maurice Fournier was a steel guitar player, and a “clown” in country music variety shows. Like many, Fournier eschewed a music career for family concerns, and established Maurice’s Music Mart in the 1950s. The Facebook page “Maurice’s Music Mart, LA’s Jump Start” is rife with stories of Maurice’s generosity, allowing young musicians to borrow instruments overnight with money still owed, always encouraging talent wherever it manifested. Many of the premier LA musicians, such as Arlo West, have posted extensive testimonials there.

“He had that musical passion,” Boucher mused. “He was a mentor figure, and he put a lot of trust in us, and in his customers. He truly exemplified what it means to have a ‘heart of gold.’”

Ed Boucher

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Maurice Fournier, Maurice’s Music Mart “...the father of Maine’s modern music scene.”

The Boucher brothers and Fournier formed a strong bond. “We’d help Maurice with the store, watching the counter, helping him move locations,” said Boucher. “Paul got a job there, cleaning the store. He was a real artist, decorating the windows, which became a real attraction to Maurice’s. Maurice’s Music Mart had the best lines of equipment, and it was hard to get those brands in those days. So there were people, groups, coming from New Hampshire, Rumford, Waterville, to get these guitars and things. Although at the time there weren’t many groups in LA, Maurice’s Music Mart became ‘the music headquarters.’ The musicians just hung around; it became a real haven.”

After several lessons, Boucher felt learning guitar on his own was more efficient. And so the Bouchers learned their craft by emulating the musicians that would congregate and rehearse in the store.

“We’d hang around the back of the store to see the guys who would come in and practice, guys like Shep Spinney and Willie Ouellette,” Boucher recounted. “Shep was a talented guitarist, but quite guarded with his technique. We’d have to watch and make notes while he wasn’t aware of us. Willie had a great voice. If he sang Roy Orbison or Elvis, you couldn’t tell the difference. Willie would sing the song and tell us the chords to play as he sang them. We’d hang out in the back and watch these guys practice, learning as we could.”

Paul and Ed Boucher formed a band called the Royal Knights, with rhythm guitarist Guy Mathieu and Ronnie Morin on bass. “We had the keys to the store; we rehearsed there. We made a record in the store, covers of ‘Chief Whoopin-Koff’ backed with ‘Long, Long Ponytail,’ by the Fireballs. We got the balance fairly good, pressed it ourselves on plastic discs, and it sold like hot cakes.” This first experience was the seed of Boucher’s dream of his own recording studio.

Pre-Beatles culture

Let’s put these developments in cultural context. Lewiston Auburn fomented a vibrant music scene well before the British Invasion and the Royal Knights. Ed Boucher provided his recollections. “A lot of things started in Lewiston. Unbelievable, if you think about it. The population here was mostly Irish and French Canadians, and music was a big part of their culture. When they moved to Lewiston Auburn, they brought with them so much musical talent. The Catholic Church didn’t allow dancing, so playing instruments and singing was their only means of expression and entertainment. Saturday nights, folks would gather at one farmhouse and play music, with a lot of call-and-response. The French music was embedded in their roots.”

Boucher described the acts he remembers from his childhood. “You had people that played live on the radio, and hosted local live events- folks like Hal Lone Pine and

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Betty Cody. The upper floors of many downtown Lisbon Street buildings were large dancehalls. The conventional marching bands- big 60 to100-piece bands- spawned many smaller projects that played in the dance clubs. Louis Philippe Gagne had a radio show on WCOU, and he brought to air that tradition of the snowshoe club from Canada. Lewiston Auburn had a lot of those snowshoe clubs, each one with a house band, like Gordon Howe and his Orchestra and the Fenton Brothers.” Boucher continued, “Bands like The Javalans and Little Willie and the Rumbles came about in the late fifties. They played Roy Orbison, Elvis, whatever was hot at that time. All these musicians were here, and their children were musically inclined, coming into the rock ‘n’ roll era.”

PAL Hop days

With matching elegant suits, finely tuned musical chops, records to sell, plus cutting-edge sound equipment and instruments supplied by Maurice’s Music Mart, The Royal Knights became hugely successful in the LA area.

“The Rollodrome had live music on Saturday nights,” Boucher said. “We eventually became the Rollodrome’s house band. We’d see 30 or 40 people in front of the stage. We just thought they were there to see us, but some were there to learn from us, to create their own bands.”

“Then, the Beatles happened,” Boucher said, reverently recalling the momentous event. “The world changed, overnight. Everyone wanted to start a band. They were coming out of the woodwork. Before you knew it there were all these little startup groups, playing wherever they could get work.”

Business at Maurice’s Music Mart increased substantially, supplying these fledgling acts with their tools of the trade.

Another seminal shift in LA musical history was the PAL Hops. Boucher unfolded the origin of the story.

“The competition between bands was fairly fierce,” said Boucher. “Herve Gendron, the police chief, came into the store to buy guitar strings. It was Paul’s idea to have the Police Athletic League rent the Lewiston City Hall, to have a battle of the bands. All these LA bands were pumped about it. Paul decorated the stage with cardboard and crepe paper, and made it really creative. The event packed the place: 1,200 people or so.”

The Royal Knights were the chief organizers of the event, and staked their reputation on winning. “We got our Beatles suits, wigs, and boots in Boston, and when we were backstage, the people in the balconies thought it was the actual Beatles! When we came on, the people rushed the stage; it was one of those moments you can’t describe.”

The Royal Knights were the winners of the event, and the aftermath of their success was a run of PAL Hop dances that drew crowds from all over Maine. “The PAL Hop really left its mark on Lewiston Auburn,” said Boucher. “It gave the idea that anyone could get into it, and started a new crop of bands coming out. These young bands were auditioning for the PAL Hop. Parents would co-sign for guitars and amplifiers. Talk about a garage band era; it was everywhere!”

From garage to stardom

Maurice’s Music Mart was a chief supplier of new instruments for the hopeful Maine musicians, and became even more of a place where musicians would assemble. “Where are musicians going to hang around during the week? A music store!” Boucher laughed. “There would be hundreds there, congregating. Maurice would ask us to move people to the basement to clear the entrance.”

Boucher began diversifying, as opportunities to play grew too extensive for one band.

Royal Knights

“The music industry flourished with the advent of the Beatles. There was a lot of employment, not just in Lewiston Auburn but all over,” Boucher affirmed. “The Royal Knights couldn’t play everywhere there was a need, so I started a booking agency. I took on Terry and the Telstars, our young neighbors, as their exclusive

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“All these factors- the visibility, the professionalism- led to the reputation of LA having the best bands at that time,” Boucher avowed. “When people thought about music, they thought about LA. Bands from Boston used to come to play for our crowds. There was nothing like that before, and except for national concerts, hasn’t been anything like it since.”

From the days of the PAL Hops, bands such as the Moon Dawgs, The Rockin’ Recons, and Boucher’s premiere proteges, Terry and the Telstars, rose to prominence. Though their namesake was Terry McCarthy on lead guitar, the Telstars’ locus was Nick Knowlton. Beginning his career in music as the voice of the Telstars, Knowlton became a well-loved entertainer and songwriter, performing until shortly before he died in 2017. With Boucher as their manager, Terry and the Telstars opened for national acts in Maine, notably the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Lewiston Armory, on March 16, 1968. They also recorded several original songs.

agent. As the scene grew, I took on some other bands as well. I was booking acts into Vermont, and New Brunswick, Canada. It gave them a lot of exposure.”

The Royal Knights were invited to play on Club Thirteen, a television show out of WGAN in Portland, similar to American Bandstand. Eventually they became a featured act on the show.

“We were the official Club Thirteen band; we could go on any time we had an event to promote,” said Boucher. The exposure on television opened a lot of doors for the Royal Knights, and for the other bands that Boucher was representing.

The Innkeepers, another band from the PAL Hop era, garnered comparisons to the Rolling Stones with their antics.

“They had the frontman, Mike Goff, who was a wild man!” Boucher exclaimed. “He would dance across the stage, swinging from the rafters! They always had the crowd in the palm of their hands, and folks would follow them across the state. They were in such demand, schools would hold dances during the week, because they were booked every weekend!”

Present day, there have been several reunions with the PAL Hop bands that attracted crowds in the thousands. The PAL Hop era and the reunions are documented thoroughly in historian Bob Maroldo’s film, PAL Hop Days.

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Royal Knights with some of their fans

“When I wanted to start a studio here in LA, a lot of folks said, ‘If building a studio in Lewiston was a good idea, someone would have done it a long time ago.’“Boucher said. “Maurice said to me, ‘Don’t listen to them, Eddie; if anyone can do it, you can.’ He was much like a father to me.”

EAB Studio recorded ubiquitous jingles for Mardens, VIP, Sam’s Italian Sandwich Shop, and many more, as well as a myriad of musical artists in LA and regions far beyond. Boucher still records acts to this day, and has a huge archive of music on digital formats and analog tape. He remains hopeful for a hit record, and for a musical revolution for today’s youth like he saw in the 1960s.

Dreams with direction

After a recording session in Boston, Ed Boucher had a new goal for his life: to open a recording studio in Lewiston. His main encouragement came from his friend and mentor, Maurice Fournier.

Maurice Fournier closed Maurice’s Music

Mart in the early 1970s, and died Feb. 22, 1987. Ed Boucher calls him ‘the father of Maine’s modern music scene.’ Fournier leaves behind a legacy of kindness and largesse that is reflected by both his family and the artists he fostered over his lifetime.

Special thank you to Gini Haines Photography for providing us with remastered photos for this piece.

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