Dal Richards

Dal Richards
Dal Richards in March 2009
Richards in March 2009
Background information
Birth nameDallas Murray Richards
Born(1918-01-05)5 January 1918
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Died31 December 2015(2015-12-31) (aged 97)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
GenresSwing
Occupation(s)Conductor, bandleader, musician
Instrument(s)Saxophone, clarinet
Years active1940–2015

Dallas Murray Richards,[1] CM, OBC (5 January 1918 – 31 December 2015) was a Canadian big band leader.[2]

Richards and his band performed in the Lower Mainland, at PNE bandstand and the annual New Year celebration at the Bayshore Hotel. The band played 79 consecutive New Year's Eve concerts until his death[3] on 31 December 2015.[2]

Richards led his band for many years in a weekly CBC Radio show broadcast nationally from the Panorama Roof Ballroom of the Hotel Vancouver.[4] He hosted a weekly one-hour show on radio station CISL.[5]

Richards was commonly thought to be the lyricist of "Roar You Lions Roar", the fight song of the BC Lions football club set to the music of "I Love the Sunshine of Your Smile". However, Peggy Miller of CJCA, an Edmonton radio station, wrote the lyrics in 1953, and Richards arranged and popularized the song with his band's performance at games. His 1968 album CFL Songs popularized "Roar You Lions Roar", "Go Argos Go", "On Roughriders" and many other songs still heard to this day in CFL stadiums.[6]

A documentary film on Dal was produced for Bravo and The National Film Board of Canada in 1997. BIG BAND BOOM! was produced and directed by Mark Glover Masterson and was nominated for a Hot Docs International Documentary Award in 1998 and ultimately won Best Arts Documentary at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival in Chicago in '98.

Awards and honours

References

  1. ^ "Dal Richards". Vancouver Foundation. 14 December 2008. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  2. ^ a b Mackie, John (1 January 2016). "Dal Richards, Vancouver's King of Swing, dies at 97". Vancouver Sun. Archived from the original on 11 October 2018. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  3. ^ Mackie, John. "Dal Richards, Vancouver's King of Swing, dies at 97". Vancouver Sun. Archived from the original on 11 October 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  4. ^ Davis, Chuck, ed. (1997). Greater Vancouver Book. Linkman Press. ISBN 978-1-896846-00-2.
  5. ^ "Dal Richards". CISL. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
  6. ^ Beamish, Mike (14 September 2012). "B.C. Football Hall of Fame welcomes a new leader of the band". Vancouver Sun. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  7. ^ "Dal Murray Richards, C.M., O.B.C." Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
  8. ^ Baker, Paula (4 January 2016). "WATCH: Looking back at legendary big band leader Dal Richards". Global News. Retrieved 15 September 2018.