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Keelan's Chameleon: a showcase of styles

From Hamilton Spectator August 26, 1998 -- Bruce Mowat
The twists and turns of Richard Keelan's career over the past four decades could fill a book. Starting in the late '50s with his first teenage rock band, the Swinging Shepherds, the 57-year-old musician has undergone more stylistic changes than you can shake a snake at.

He was a Greenwich Village folkie in the mid-60s, performing on the same circuit of clubs that spawned Bob Dylan. He recorded and released singles in the psychedelic era with the Spikedrivers and its spin-off duo, Misty Wizard. And while he's best known for his work with the folk group the Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist) in the first half of the '70s, he's also delved into the worlds of both traditional and fusion-jazz, having worked with both the Washingtons and Brian Griffith respectively.

It's not surprising then, that the first solo CD release from Keelan, who has called Hamilton home for nearly 20 years, is called Chameleon. He unveils the CD with a live, acoustic solo show next Tuesday at the Bar On Locke, 178 Locke St. S., Hamilton. Like its reptilian namesake, the CD's nine songs adopt different colourings from song to song, going from the Appalachian-flavoured lament of ... And Her Mother's Name is Rose, to the eerie instrumental, Smoke Break. "It's a convoluted, personal history of my life," says the Kalamazoo, Michigan, native. "The only aspect of it that isn't fully represented on it is my jazz background."

Indeed, the material on Chameleon was written over 26 years, starting with the song Who Cares?, a piece that dates back to Keelan's tenure with the Perth County Conspiracy.

Lyrics

"That was written during the oil crisis," says Keelan of the song, which takes a lyrical stab at apathetic attitudes. "But you know, I didn't have to change the lyrics when I recorded it. I still feel the way now as I did then." Keelan's own musical path led him on a long, strange trip during the first half of his career. Initially baptized into the rock 'n' roll sounds of Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, Keelan would find inspiration at the dawn of the '60s through the sounds of American folksinger Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly. Like any number of aspiring American folk singers, he gravitated towards New York City's Greenwich Village in 1963, the centre of the folk music universe at the time. "I can remember going to an open stage jam at the Gaslight Cafe on Bleeker Street and seeing John Hammond Jr., up on stage with Jimi Hendrix," recalls Keelan. "There weren't that many people in the club at the time, but Bob Dylan showed up. And everybody's jaws in the club were hanging open."
After immigrating to Canada in 1970, Keelan settled in Stratford, Ont., where he would hook up with future television thespian Cedric Smith to form Perth County Conspiracy. And while the group wasn't a best seller, it garnered a lot of media attention at the time, with its notorious commune outside of Stratford and its multidisciplinary stage presentations that incorporated music, drama and dance.

Chicago Seven

"We took our name from the Chicago Seven trial, where Abbie Hoffman said 'there are no conspiracies, just conspirators,'" recalls Keelan. "That's why the group 'does not exist.'" The Conspiracy started out as a duo, but its membership was virtually open-ended, with a succession of players going through the ranks over its five-year existence, leaving a recorded legacy of four albums, the first two released on Columbia.

One of the people who passed through the Conspiracy was songwriter Bob Burchill. It was at one of Burchill's solo recording sessions that Keelan would meet Hamilton guitarist Brian Griffith. After the Conspiracy dissolved in 1976, Griffith and Keelan would form the Spiral Band, a musically ambitious yet short-lived outfit. The association with Griffith, though, continued through the years following Keelan's 1978 move to Hamilton. "He is simply the best guitarist in the city," says Keelan of Griffith, whose playing is prominently featured on Chameleon. "And he's come a long way since the Spiral Band. He's learned the value of space, of the importance of the notes not played."
In 1984, Keelan signed on as bassist for Hamilton's first family of jazz -- and a group that Griffith occasionally played guitar with -- the Washingtons. "That was like learning to walk for me," says Keelan, who was pallbearer for Doc Washington's (the one non-musician in the family) funeral on Monday. "I really value that time spent with them."

In the early part of this decade, both Keelan and Griffith would become integral parts of the Hess Village music scene, performing shows in living room sized venues. During that time, Keelan also played with fellow Village veteran Mike Daley in the rock band, Uncle Violet. "You could walk into these tiny places and hear all different sorts of world-class talent," he recalls. "Unfortunately, like a lot of things, the greed of the club owners killed off that scene."

In the here and now, Keelan plans to put together a web site on the Internet and a touring band. But the one constant that won't change is Keelan's desire for further changes. "I have [explored] and always will explore any direction I wanted to," says Keelan.