ADVENTURES WITH BILL

BEHIND THE SCENES STORIES

This is a collection of stories submitted by Bill Murphy - sound man for the Ryan's Fancy television series.


Getting Started
By Bill Murphy

We set out from St John's in June 1975 to do a pilot of nine shows, all shot in Nfld. to see if we could do a Network series. The head of Network Programs, Jack McAndrew, a PEI boy, believed in us but he had to convince the blockheads in Toronto.

We left St John's right in the midst of a strike at the Nfld Liquor Commission. To go on the road in Nfld without a few bottles of rum was unheard of, Land & Sea had set a tradition right from its first show in 1964, take along a bottle.

All was not lost, the Ryan's boys were doing beer commercials for Molson's so we had lots of free beer. After our first show on the Newfie Bullet on the Bonavista branch line we headed for Gander to overnight. In Gander a kind soul, I suspect Harry Steele, managed to find us a half dozen bottles of rum.

Then we headed off to Baie D'espoir to do a program on Rum-Running, not realizing until afterwards, that our show guest had been caught rum-running for the very first time by the RCMP just days before.

We ended up our trip in Placentia Bay where we did a program on Pius Power with a very moving scene of about a dozen old fishermen holding hands and dancing around in a circle.

We crossed Placentia Bay the next day with the entire deck covered with "empties" while I played Celtic music to the whales!



An Evening With Stan
By Bill Murphy

We met up with Stan Rogers and his group to film a program at his uncle's cottage on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Producer Jack Kellum had not been able to get Ryans and Stan's group together in the studio to record Barrett's Privateers so we had to record it live to tape mixing the two groups on the spot. We set up in the tiny kitchen of the cottage on a steaming hot night and of course our TV lights only made it hotter. Because we shot the series with a just one camera we had to shoot the song over and over again to get the different camera angles.

As the evening went on tempers got a little short in the tiny kitchen which by now was like a sauna. I had the speaker placed by Stan's feet under the kitchen table and at one point I inadvertently left the speaker on while I rewound the tape causing a sound like a gunshot which gave Stan quite a scare. Stan, who had a bit of a temper, yelled at me to turn the speaker off, Denis immediately jumped to my defense which only heightened the tension. To his credit as soon as we finished the song Stan got up, poured me a pop...... and came over and shook my hand, we all got along famously after that incident.

Adrienne Clarkson repeated that Ryans program ,with Stan, three or four times on her series "Adrienne Clarkson Presents" she told me it was one of the most popular episodes on her series.We met up with Stan Rogers and his group to film a program at his uncle's cottage on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Producer Jack Kellum had not been able to get Ryans and Stan's group together in the studio to record Barrett's Privateers so we had to record it live to tape mixing the two groups on the spot. We set up in the tiny kitchen of the cottage on a steaming hot night and of course our TV lights only made it hotter. Because we shot the series with a just one camera we had to shoot the song over and over again to get the different camera angles.

As the evening went on tempers got a little short in the tiny kitchen which by now was like a sauna. I had the speaker placed by Stan's feet under the kitchen table and at one point I inadvertently left the speaker on while I rewound the tape causing a sound like a gunshot which gave Stan quite a scare. Stan, who had a bit of a temper, yelled at me to turn the speaker off, Denis immediately jumped to my defense which only heightened the tension. To his credit as soon as we finished the song Stan got up, poured me a pop...... and came over and shook my hand, we all got along famously after that incident.

Adrienne Clarkson repeated that Ryans program ,with Stan, three or four times on her series "Adrienne Clarkson Presents" she told me it was one of the most popular episodes on her series.



Adventures in the Labrador Wild
By Bill Murphy

We did an episode of Ryan's Fancy at the Govt fishing camp near Nain, Labrador. It took quite a roundabout trip to get to the camp, first by the coastal boat "Bonavista" from Goose Bay to Nain. Then by a 30 ft fishing boat from Nain to the mouth of the river and then by canoe up this very shallow river. We carried about 30 - 2 ft x 4 ft cases of equipment on the road with us in those days, so it was quite the task to get to the camp.

Horace Gaudie was our host at the camp, which was rustic but quite comfortable. We had a fine cook, a woman out of Goose Bay. We ate fish and game all through the ten days; Artic char, the finest fish in the ocean to my mind, grilled, baked and pan fried, caribou of course, and wonderful pies made from wild berries.

We did the show in September and the weather was just beautiful. But of course that also brought out the black flies and a Labrador pest called a "stout" that looked and stung like a large wasp. We were all black and blue from inset bites when we finally left the camp.

It was a challenge to film Ryan's songs in such a wild setting. We did not want to limit ourselves to the lodge electricity to run the camera and sound equipment in such with such beautiful scenery around us. So we had one of our innovative maintenance technicians at CBNT make up some adaptors so we could run the equipment off skidoo size batteries. Dermot sang one song with a beautiful waterfall behind him, something we would not have been able to film had we been tied to the lodge.

Getting out of the camp was even more of a challenge. We had arranged for two bush planes, Dehavilland Otters, to pick us up to take us back to Goose Bay. The first arrived around noon and took the band and crew while I waited with the equipment for the second Otter. I waited on the shore all afternoon, happily swatting flies and stouts, in the meantime Horace and his guests left to go hunting overnight and the cook had gone to bed with the flu. The second Otter did not show up until about 5 pm, the pilot and I hurriedly loaded the equipment aboard and we made it back to Goose and landed on the Bay just as the sun was setting.

We had a rousing night at the RAF Bulldog club in Goose Bay and flew home the next day.



A Christmas Tale
By Bill Murphy

In 1980 we were asked to do a Christmas Special with Ryans Fancy, a period piece. Producer Jack Kellum decided to do the show at King's Landing Historic Village near Fredericton, N.B.

We had done a Summer Special there a few years before, well known New Brunswick author Alden Knowlan wrote the scripts.

We set the shoot date for late March expecting lots of snow and clear sunny, days. Lighting Director Les Button and I set off across Nfld by truck with all the equipment and had a smooth ride to Fredericton without running into any winter storms.

We got to Fredericton and met up with Jack, Sylvia Odom our script assistant, Ryans Fancy, Lee Cremo a Micmac fiddler from Cape Breton and fellow Nflder Beth Harrington. I believe Beth played Dermot's wife, he was the village merchant. Sadly Lee Cremo, who played a guide to Denis the trapper, died just a few years ago he was only in his fifties!

We went out to the site to check things out and found everything covered with a lovely blanket of nice, clean snow, we returned to our motel, anxious to start shooting the next day. But things went downhill right from that point! Overnight we had a heavy rainstorm that took away most of our lovely snow! Being used to working outdoors we simply moved indoors to do some scenes and waited for the next snowfall, Fredericton gets a lot of snow. It never snowed again for the entire shoot so we wound up bringing in truck loads of snow from a nearby hockey rink and spreading it carefully around areas where we had outdoor scenes. It had to be tramped down by foot and with horse and cart of course, we couldn't have tire tracks in a show set in the 1850! There were other little problems as well, someones wig caught fire when they backed into a light and the transmission failed in our rental truck.

Despite these minor setbacks the show went well, we had great meals provided for us at Kings Landing everyday and the motel owners hosted a couple of great parties for us!

The special went over really well, I believe I still have a copy of it today !



Congratulations
From Bill Murphy

It's great to see Ryan's Fancy get recognition for their huge contribution to Nfld and Maritime music and culture.

Few people know that Dermot, Fergus and Denis gave up much wider fame and fortune to concentrate on East Coast and Celtic music. They started a revolution that continues to this day and in fact East Coast music is more popular than ever.

Now the ECMA needs to recognize Jack Kellum - CBC TV Producer who was instrumental in getting Ryan's Fancy and many other Atlantic Canada singers and groups on the CBC Network.

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