GraemeBoyce
In 1985 I had returned from Bermuda and, not wanting to re-enter the hospitality trade, was working in Toronto as a courier. One day in the summer, I was delivering a package to A&M Records. While walking down their lengthy hallway lined with Juno Awards and approaching the receptionist, I recalled - in that peculiar instance - I had once known the founders of the Juno Awards. A long time ago when I worked at the Holiday Inn in Oshawa, as a waiter, and just prior to leaving the hotel to go to university in 1978, a customer, Stan Klees, handed me his business card. It seems the pair had actually created the star system in Canada. I had faithfully served both Stan and Walt Grealis while at the restaurant and, at that moment, he said to me: "If ever you want a job in the music business, just call." Flash forward to 1985 and I was asking the receptionist at A&M whether she knew Stan and Walt and she replied she did not... but the chap standing behind her, who turned out to be Jim Monaco, said he did and that I should visit them to say hello. The next morning as the sun was rising I dropped by the offices of RPM Weekly to say hello and walked through the front doors which were open, up the one flight of stairs and bumped into Walt who said: "You're the waiter from the Holiday Inn." He asked what I had been doing and I said I had just returned from Bermuda and was basically between gigs. As luck would have it, a few weeks later the National News Editor left their employ and Stan called to ask if I could write. Well, I thought to myself, who can't write and replied: "Of course." The next day, at Stan's invitation, I went again to their offices and was welcomed by Walt with open arms and simply shown my desk - apparently I had been hired as a writer - which had a stack of albums on it, adjacent to my (soon-to-be) trusty IBM Selectric, long before the introduction of computers or the internet, and away I went on my next journey and the rest is history.