Ralph Carlson


photo courtesy of Larry Delaney Country Music News	I was lucky enough to call Ralph Carlson a friend. While I had not been in touch with Ralph for many years, I thought of him often. My thoughts and prayers are with Elayne, Ralph's wife of 30 some years.

Ralph Carlson - Member of the Ottawa Valley Country Music Hall of Fame 1988. Following his own schedule and determined to the end, Ralph left us at the Ottawa Hospital - General Campus on Thursday, October 10, 2002 in his 62nd year after a hard-fought battle with leukemia. Beloved husband and best friend for over 30 years of Elayne (Evans). Dear son of the late Eldon and Dorothy Carlson, and loved and admired son-in-law of the late Clifford and Marjorie Evans. Ralph's career as a country and blue grass singer, songwriter, recording artist and entertainer was his enduring and all-consuming passion, and he has been one of the mainstays of the Ottawa Country Music Community for over 40 years. Sincere thanks to the Bone Marrow Transplant Team, the nurses of 5 West (most especially Fay), and the ICU staff at both the Civic and the General, for their wonderful and compassionate care. Heartfelt thanks, also, to our "Family" of friends whose love and support sustained us through this most difficult time. Friends are invited to celebrate Ralph's life at the Central Chapel of Hulse, Playfair & McGarry, 315 McLeod Street on Sunday, October 13, from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Funeral service will be held in the chapel on Monday, October 14 at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers donations to the Ottawa Valley Country Music Hall of Fame in Ralph's memory would be most appreciated.

Walking encyclopedia of country music
Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, October 11, 2002

Ralph Carlson died yesterday afternoon at the General campus of the Ottawa Hospital after a brief battle with leukemia. He was 61.

Most of us have enough trouble with one job. Try seven jobs. That's just about how many Ralph Carlson held, usually simultaneously, over his 40-year career as a major Ottawa Valley country and bluegrass artist.

Songwriter, guitarist, singer, bandleader, recording artist, broadcaster and record producer -- Mr. Carlson did them all. Oh yeah, he also co-ordinated bus tours to Nashville for a few years.

Born in Montreal and raised in Shediac Cape, N.B., Mr. Carlson arrived in Ottawa as a teenager with his parents in 1953. At the time, the Valley's love affair with country music was hotter than a cheap motel room in July. Area artists such as Mac Beattie, Orval Prophet and The Happy Wanderers were household names on the Valley's entertainment roster, and both CFRA and CKOY hosted country music programs.

Eatons supplied Mr. Carlson's first guitar, while The Jive Rockets, a high school rock 'n' roll band, supplied his first real taste of stage work when the group landed a two-year gig at Aylmer's Chamberlain Hotel in 1959 (Bob Anka, Paul's cousin, and Dewey Midkiff, later known as Dewey Martin and part of the original Buffalo Springfield, were fellow Jive Rockets).

By 1961, The Jive Rockets were history and Mr. Carlson had signed on with Ron McMunn and His Country Cousins. Fast forward to 1966 and Mr. Carlson had already recorded his first solo album, The Game Is Love, and was heading up his own band, Ralph Carlson and Country Mile.

Nine years later, he packed in his day job as a purchasing agent with the Carleton School Board, where his wife Elayne continued to work, and the band became regulars on the cross-Canada club, rodeo and fair circuit.

Mr. Carlson recalled that frantic road life, and two Ottawa country hotspots, during an interview with the Citizen last year: "You could just make it back from the west for a Tuesday start at the Silver Dollar, and if you were in the Maritimes you could make it back for a Monday start at the (Golden) Rail. Very often we pulled in with just enough time to grab a quick shower and hit the stage."

During its 30-plus year life span, Ralph Carlson and Country Mile released such Canadian hit singles as Lights of Denver, The General Store of Silas McVie, Mr. Carlson's signature song Thanks for the Dance, and the Barry Brown composition Don's Barber Shop, a toast to small-town life and impromptu musical afternoons at Don O'Neill's barber shop in Kemptville.

Big country awards, television and radio appearances, and overseas tours rounded out the group's profile.

Ottawa Valley country musician Howard Hayes, who first met Mr. Carlson in the mid-1960s, remembers his friend and frequent concert mate's work ethic: "People used to say Ralph had a problem with his timing. 'Well,' said Ralph, 'I worked at that to fix it and I think it's on the money now.' That's the way he was -- if there was something that needed fixing, 'Let's fix it'."

Mr. Hayes also recalls his buddy's prodigious musical memory. "He was a walking encyclopedia of country music. When we were doing shows, someone would ask Ralph, 'Who sang that song?' And bingo! He'd know it."

Mr. Carlson -- intense, focused, a veteran chain-smoker -- was always delighted to share his memories, along with his bottomless cache of names and phone numbers, with anyone interested in Ottawa Valley country music.

Those contacts stood the performer in good stead in the early 1970s. That's when, in partnership with Family Brown member Dave Dennison, he built a full-scale recording operation, Snocan Recording Studios, along with a record label, to give Canadian artists the promotional and distribution opportunities that were missing in a Nashville-dominated marketplace. Musicians from Hugh Scott to Anita Perras recorded in the Holly Lane studio.

Although Mr. Carlson co-hosted country music shows on CJET in Smiths Falls and CHIP-FM in Fort-Coulonge during his career, it was as host of The Fifth String, a weekly bluegrass show on CKBY-FM (now Y-105) in the 1970s and '80s, that Mr. Carlson the broadcaster shone. Spotlighting both international and area bluegrass artists, Mr. Carlson gave the kind of thoughtful commentary on music now considered passé by hyperactive DJs.

The Fifth String was unceremoniously dumped in 1989 to make way for a more contemporary format.

Mr. Carlson never forgot that bit of callousness, nor the way Y-105 steadfastly ignored the Valley's country music heritage once it switched to New Country programming in the mid-'90s. Larry Delaney, publisher of the Canadian country music monthly, Country Music News, notes that when the station invited prominent Valley musicians to its 30th-anniversary celebrations in 2002, Mr. Carlson "refused to go on air and say nice things about them."

Until diagnosed with leukemia in mid-2002, Mr. Carlson continued to play regularly at Canadian Legion dances, clubs and special events in the Ottawa Valley, either solo or as part of the trio WRD.

His last of 12 albums, two of which were with his bluegrass band, Bytown Bluegrass, was released in 1996, but Mr. Carlson was a featured artist and guest musician on many other Valley-based disks. Inducted into the Ottawa Valley Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988, Mr. Carlson also was curator of the Hall's collection of memorabilia and served as president.

"A lot of people really looked up to Ralph for his diversity," says Larry Delaney. "He was the guy who was able to do it all."