PAGE 16, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25,1976, WHITBY FREE PRESS Ted Crouch Whitby singer is popular entertainer in A Iberta By BRIAN WINTER Staff Writer At the age of 24, Ted Crouch, son of Whitby's Fire Chief, is well on his way to becoming a profession- al entertainer. - Eleven months ago he resigned from the Whitby Fire Department and headed for Vancouver to work for a newspaper, but a stop on the way in Edmonton changed his life. Ted, who has always been interested in music, stopped in Edmonton, to visit five Whitby friends who haa formed a rock band called Truax, one of the leading bands in that city. He was invited to sing at an Edmonton Hotel, and was perssuaded by people in the Edmonton music scene to stay on. But it was not that easy to break into the music business. The first time he-.visited a music agency to obtain a job, he was told he had to polish up his act, but the next agency he visited gave Ted a job the following Monday. On Oct. 27, 1975, Ted made his singing debut at a hotel in Dawson Creek B.C., and started to learn what the music business was all about. He soon found out that people in the Canadian west like a different style of music 1%~ than in the east. Ted. was giving them folk music by Gordon Lightfoot and Donovan, "but they wanted country, beer-drinking music." Until last Christmas Ted was playing one night stands' in little towns in Northern and central Alberta for "pretty raunchy crowds", made up of oil riggers and lumberjacks "in there for a good time at anybody's expense". At first Ted's eastern style music met with rather negative response. In Penoka, Alberta, he had been playing only 20 minutes when a lady came up to him and demanded that he play country and western music or she would have him fired. "Some of-the girls got all the people at the bar on my side", he said, "but the lady said if I did not play country and western music she'd run me out of town with the RCMP". Ted lost the job, but issued a challenge that he would play at a neighbouring hotel in the sarne town, and came back for a successful three-week session. Ted soon found that hotel owners had unusual ideas about music. In Peace River a hotel owner asked him to play country music instead of what he was playing "All I did was play my songs in a different order and he said it was great", says Ted. On another occasion, Ted. said he was threatened by lawyers, doctors and dentists in one lounge that if he did not play what they wanted they would get him fired", they would get him fired, "but I lasted two weeks". Ted feels that he wants to play music "with a little more to it", rather than what he calls the "juke box music", which the western crowds seem to like. After eight months of hard work, Ted was able to get into the higher , class Edmonton hotels, and one night 120 people who had heard about him came out to the hotel where lie was performing. "It wasjust like a concert" says Ted. Even in the small towns, Ted and his style of music is 'being accepted. One night he played in a hotel that was nothing but a tarpaper shack in a town of 140 people, and after the show the people invited him into their homes. Since last September Ted has performed in towns from Peace River in the north to Lethbridge in the south, and "all points east and west". In British Coludiibia lie lias played from Cranbrook to Dawson Creek, and has appeared at Jasper, Banff and Medicine Hat. At the present time Ted is rated .among the top five singers on the Edmonton hotel circuit, and has .plans for recording an album of his songs in the fall. Since January he has written 15 of his own songs, and has already received an offer to make a recording at a studio in Fort Ken t. On June 26, with Truax as his backup band, Ted had a tape made of one of his per- formances at an Edmonton hotel, and uses this tape fi- promotion. "The time was getting right to consider music as a way of living", says Ted. Within a year he expects to be out of the hotels and bars and into the university cir- cuit, "where I can play my own stuff". At 24, Ted is younger than most of the other performers on the hotel circuit, and has learned a lot from many who have been at it for 10 years or more. Ted is a completely self- taught singer, who started singing at the age of 16 at YMCA camps at Bancroft. While out west he tried singing in a trio for two weeks, but "my music was boyond their capabilities and THE DI RECTORY COMING!I A "Yellow Page" Classified Business Directory THE MOST COMPLETE BUYING GUIDE IN SOUTHERN DURHAM REGION Your Yellow1 delivered to you Yellow Directory 9 Complete list of busine e Comprehensive listing * Complet list of postal codes e Plus many more time1 features Directory will be soon. See what your can do for you ... esses s saving IT DIRE(JORY HEAD OFFICE -382 KINGST.OSHAWA.ONT. 579-1668 AT LAST- The alternative you've been wating for. Yellow Directory here soon. Ted Crouch, a resident of Whitby since 1969, has hit the big time as a singer in hotels in Alberta, and has plans for recording his songs in the fut-are. Here he relaxes with his guitar on the doorstep of his parents' home in Whitby before returning to the west to continue his career. Free Press Photo Ted's singing career include the time he sang on a float in a parade for a rodeo at Rocky Mountain house, and getting into the higher class Edmonton hotels "where people come just to see the entertainer, and not get drunk". Ted finds the character of Alberta "really easy-going" where the .people have "got lots of money and they love to throw it around". He intends to make singing his career for some time to come. "The challenge is in the originality and being able to express it to the people", he says. "I just use an easy manner. I don't push any- thing on the people". For his first two months Ted lived in a truck, and then moved into hotels. In May he get himself an apartment in Edmonton. He returns to Whitby at Christmas and at County Town Carnival time, but for the immediate future his home and his career are in the Canadian west. I became more aware that I could handle the music on my own". Ted's daily routine con- sists of practicing in the day- time, and playing three-and- ahalf-hour sets every night for six nights a week. In an average week he makes S250, aind is making a living entirely on his earnings from his singing. Ted came back to Whitby a few weeks ago for the County Town Carnival ahd performed at the Whitby Arts Games Night, the Talent Showcase, and for four days at the fire fighters'convention in Brooklin. "The response was fantas- tic", says Ted. "They say the hardest people to please are in your own home town, but they were fantastic". Ted describes his music as a new style; "bit of folk and country, with light traces of rock--good Canadian music. I don't think of it as work or a job. 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