Dal Richards is a busy man.
The Courier caught up with the 94-year-old King of Swing, as he is affectionately known, Wednesday afternoon not long after he returned home from performing at the PNE and just prior to him entering the studio to work on his one-hour radio show. That show airs on 650 AM Sunday nights, during which he "tells the tales behind the music and brings the enchantment of the big band sound of the 1930s, 40s and 50s to Vancouver's airwaves."
Bringing enchantment to music lovers at the PNE has been a specialty of Richards, who's been performing his big band sound at the annual fair for 73 years. Richards has an explanation for how his orchestra can still draw crowds, even after seven decades.
"We're a big band with female singers and this is the only fair where you'll see that," said Richards. "I think big bands have been popular for many years, but our emphasis isn't on the band, it's on our soloists."
Those female soloists include Diane Lines, Jennifer Hayes and Dawn Chubai, from Citytv's Breakfast Television. Singer Bria Skonberg has also joined Richards on stage. This year, the Dal Richards Orchestra plays each day at the PNE from 11: 30 a.m. to 12: 45 p.m. on the WestJet Concert Stage. The PNE is just one of the more than 100 musical and speaking engagements Richards typically books each year, including playing for graduation ceremonies.
Richards said the WestJet Concert stage is centrally located on the PNE's grounds so most visitors pass by upon their arrival. Fairgoers have told him they enjoy starting their day with the Dal Richards Orchestra. He also gets great pleasure when audience members purchase his latest CD, Musically Yours: Dal Richards.
"If they have their camera with them they'll come behind my table full of CDs and get their picture taken with me," said Richards. "Then I have a chance to talk to them."
Richards said his fans are multigenerational and he's approached by everyone from young swing dancers to grandparents who tell him how much they've enjoyed his music.
In a 2010 Courier article about the 100th anniversary of the PNE, Richards explained how he began playing at the fair in 1935 in a marching band as part of the then-annual street parade. Richards wasn't yet a bandleader, but a musician waiting to make his mark. He played in various locations on the midway for $6 a day, first dressed as a country bumpkin with a group called the Rube Band.
His next gig at the PNE was in a Dixieland band, complete with a striped shirt and straw hat, followed by performances in what he earlier described as an "oompah-pah band," playing music reminiscent of a German beer garden. Richards was also a regular performer at what was once called the Happyland Ballroom. In 1926, the PNE smartly changed the name of its midway from Skid Row to Happyland.
Richards has no plans to retire as he enters his 95th year.
"Not in the foreseeable future," said Richards. "I have a concert planned with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for next January called Dal at 95."
Besides the Dal Richards Orchestra, there are many other musical acts to enjoy before the PNE ends Sept. 3, including Trooper, Aug. 31, Prism, Sept. 1, Lifehouse, Sept. 2 and Olivia Newton-John, Sept. 3. As well, the Tribute Beer Garden is closing out the Fair with Luisa Marshall as Tina Turner. For a complete schedule of remaining events and attractions at the PNE, visit pne.ca.
