Maybe the place to start with John Smale's recollections of his legendary downtown London folk club and coffeehouse is with the missing apostrophe.
"That's excess verbiage. Who cares about apostrophes? Just exclamation marks," Smale says of Smales Pace.
"We never used an apostrophe," Smale says of the club he founded -- along with his brothers Jim and Bob -- in the winter of 1970. John Smale, who had arrived in London from Sault Ste. Marie to study law at UWO, stayed on after his brothers moved on and his desire to be a lawyer departed.
The Free Press has almost always called the club Smale's Pace.
For My London purposes, let it be Smales Pace. Exclamation mark. The club's name was a brilliant play on words from a Toronto copywriter friend of Smale's. The owner had wanted to call his club something like "Etcetera." The copywriter knew better.
By any name, the converted Bell Canada garage at 436 Clarence St. (now home to Nooner's deli) was the place where those who would become names played early in the careers. Among them was a teen from the St. Thomas area, Mae Moore. (Moore's connection with Smales Pace is detailed in a story on Page C1 in the Today section.) The Smales Pace hall of fame includes Murray McLauchlan, Stan Rogers, Garnet Rogers, Bruce Cockburn, Valdy, Willie P. Bennett, Laura (Suzie) Smith, Colleen Peterson, Delaware's Marianne Girard, Lazarus, Ray Materick, Perth County Conspiracy, The Original Sloth Band, The Good Brothers, Dave Essig and scores more.
Smale has been writing all those names down. His hand became too tired to write on.
The stars didn't all come to play. Canadian icon Joni Mitchell showed up one night, just looking for a quiet space where she could recover from an unfriendly profile about her life in Rolling Stone magazine.
Who was the first to hit the stage? UWO-and London-tied Paul Mills, likely on a February night in 1970.
Fittingly, Mills is among the heroes playing Friday night's Smales Pace reunion at Aeolian Hall.
Well, maybe Mills was the second act.
It appears Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were the first. A film -- obtained from the old National Film Board office or possibly the London public library -- starring the immortal British comics was screened by Smale before Mills hit the stage.
The one song among so many? There's not just one for Smale, of course. How about this moment? "I remember Stan Rogers singing 45 Years From Now for the first time on stage because he was in love and had just written the song. That was a poignant moment, because that song has just resonated so much with so many Canadians," Smale says.
An offbeat memory? That would be the night -- David Bradstreet might have been playing -- two police officers, instantly identifiable as narcs in their too-cool attire, were quietly questioned by Smale at intermission in his office. The club was drug-free, they had concluded, and they would report that, but they had to follow up on a tip, they told him.
"We've had one of the best times of our lives and can we stay?" an officer begged an amused Smale.
Inevitably, he's asked for a Bennett story. Smale would come in on a morning and find Bennett asleep under the stage. He knew the brilliant young singer-songwriter would be there. Bennett had happily settled in at Smales Pace the night before. "He didn't really live at the club. That's folklore. He used to get locked in at night so he could practise," Smale says.
Speaking of practice, McLauchlan and Cockburn loved to practise on the club's piano. Brought over from a London church, it became one of the most influential pianos in Canadian music history.
Those good times came to an end. Smale decided to sell. An Aug. 3, 1974, Free Press story by Joe Matyas, a fine reporter and folk-music champion, provides the details. Smale sold the club to Diane Fair of Kitchener. She, in turn, sold it to a London couple. The club changed locations, moving to Talbot St., where it lived on as Change of Pace.
"Everything has legs. Your passions change. Your ambitions change," Smale says of leaving the club to work on the late Peter Ivey's Ben Miller inn project in the Goderich area. He now owns a Belleville interior design and planning firm.
Looking back on the years when he kept Pace, Smale figures he put in 80-hour weeks and earned, oh, $4 an hour.
The bottom line for the marvellous era is provided in a wry comment Smale heard from McArthur as they talked about Friday's reunion gig. Summing it all up, McArthur reflected: "There are hundreds of dollars to be made in this folk-music business."
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IF YOU GO
What: Smales Pace folk reunion concert. John Smale is MC. Performers are Paul Mills, Doug McArthur, David Bradstreet, Brent Titcomb, David Woodhead, Bob Burchill and Rick Taylor. An Acoustic Muse series concert.
When: Friday, 8 p.m.
Where: Aeolian Hall, 795 Dundas St. (at Rectory)
Details: $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Visit Ticketscene.ca or aeolianhall.ca or call 519-672-7950
E-mail james.reaney@sunmedia.ca, read James's blog or follow Jamesatlfpress on Twitter.