I first met Robbie at the Collingwood Elvis Festival in 2016 when I was 11 years old. I had never heard of Robbie at the time but I do remember that my parents were very excited to find out on our arrival that Robbie was going to be one of the judges for the competition. They were excited for two reasons. First, he was not only a musician and performer, he is a Toronto legend. Secondly, he was a Toronto legend that my family knew well.
My mother grew up hearing repeatedly about Robbie Lane and The Disciples from my papa. Back in in the ’60s, my papa was a regular at the live music bars in Toronto and Le Coq D’Or was his favourite – at least that’s the one my mom heard about the most. My papa was a pretty cool guy back in the day (he’s still a pretty cool guy). From the stories, he rode motorcycles, most of which he modified himself, with some pretty interesting characters, and spent the majority of his evenings on Yonge Street which was know nationwide as the hot spot for Canadian music. When he started dating my nanny, she joined him and they spent many nights at The Hawks Nest and Le Coq D’Or watching Ronnie Hawkins and Robbie Lane and The Disciples.
So my parents and my grandparents were hugely excited that I would be judged by Robbie in the Collingwood competition. None of us were allowed to communicate with Robbie throughout the weekend due to the rules of the competition. However, after the competition had concluded, we
were free to introduce ourselves. Robbie beat us to it though. After the Grand Finals had come to an end, I was still busy taking photographs with Festival goers when Robbie approached me to have a photo taken. We took some photos and my parents and grandparents introduced themselves and filled him in on what huge fans my grandparents have been over the past 50 years. Unfortunately, the weekend and the night were over, the clean up crew was urging us to leave and we were all pretty tired from a very long weekend so we weren’t able to talk for very long.
A couple of days after returning home from Collingwood, we turned the car radio on to Zoomer Radio AM 740 to catch Robbie’s show. We were about 5 minutes into listening when Robbie mentioned that he had just come back from the Collingwood Elvis Festival and went on to describe my performance in great detail before introducing Elvis singing Suspicious Minds (that was my winning song in Collingwood).
Five months later, Robbie contacted us and had me down to the Zoomer studio one morning to do a live interview. It was so much fun. By now I had done my research and had begun to understand the legend that he is so I did not take the interview lightly. That following weekend, Robbie brought me out to Club Seven44 (the former Chick N’ Deli) to perform with him and his band. It was a big deal for me but I can’t tell you what a highlight it was for my grandparents and particularly my papa who attended the show. Never did my papa imagine back in the ’60s when watching Robbie perform that one day he would watch his grandson perform alongside him. Without question, it was a very special time for our family.
Since then, Robbie and I have kept in touch and check in with each other from time to time through Instagram and I’ve had the opportunity to do a few more shows with him both at Club Seven44 and at The Duke, a legendary bar in its own right on Queen St. East. We’ve also met up several times at the CNE to see The Dreamboats perform at the Midway Stage. The Dreamboats are an incredible young Mississauga based band aimed at bringing back good ol’ rock n’ roll, who travel extensively throughout North America. Acting as a mentor to both The Dreamboats and myself, Robbie put us in touch with each other and I was excited to work with them for the first time this past December when they invited me to be their special guest at one of their Christmas concerts at the Living Arts Centre. It was such a fun night and a fantastic, sold out show. I had been looking forward to possibly doing the same again this December but with live shows still being up in the air – I will cross my fingers.
More recently, I had the opportunity to perform again with Robbie at Timothy’s Pub in Etobicoke. Unfortunately, many people who wanted to come to the show were not able to because reservations were full months prior. It was a standing room only night and it was great to see a number of friends there including Johnny G. Wiz (Dreamboats drummer) and his family as well as some of my hockey and Elvis families. I only wish I could have spent more of the night at the actual show – a chemistry test the next morning kept me studying until and hour before my set. It was also great to have Tony Busseri (Niagara Falls Elvis Festival) out. My family had talked quite a bit about Robbie to Tony and we were really happy to hear that Robbie would be coming to Niagara this year to judge. We were looking forward to being able to hang out with Robbie at one of our favourite events of the year. We will still be able to do that – hopefully in September.
Just last week as we all remain safely at home, patiently waiting and eagerly anticipating the time when we can get back to live performances, I received a message on Instagram from Robbie to see how I was doing and to say he was disappointed that we missed Niagara Falls a few weeks ago due to the pandemic. It reminded me how fortunate I am to have made so many great connections because of performing. More importantly, it reminded me how fortunate I am to have Robbie as a mentor and as a friend.