Creemore’s first band played on
This month we continue the story of Creemore’s first band written by Joe Leonard whose father ran the Leonard House, now known as the Sovereign. Joe sent his story to the Creemore Star where it was printed in 1946:
Well, after the first year of the band some of the players were quitting, as they were leaving town, and some did not make a success of it, so naturally others had a chance. The band kept getting better and the musical boys got in and the band was rounding out to play real well. Bandmaster McClure got a position in Toronto and introduced Herb Chance of Alliston. Shortly after he moved to Creemore he bought out Joe Broley’s barber shop and with our headmaster in town the band went ahead very fast.
Joe Spurr, the second editor and proprietor of the Star, and some other good players came to town and when we stepped on the street the people heard something that no other small town was producing. The home town would pack up and follow the band to any other town we were going to play in. We played at all nearby towns and garden parties and were the attraction at Collingwood Fair for many years.
My dad bought a cornet for $5 and several boys tried to play it but their noses would bleed as it was terribly hard to blow, I was still on snare drum and one day I got a chance to ditch it for a slide trombone, and did I have a time with this instrument as no one knew the first thing about it. I overcame the task and soon was able to play cornet parts on it. It was a big filling part in the band, and a novelty to everyone, as at that time very few slide trombones were used.
And did I practice in the old barn with closed doors and march around for hours until I could just burn it up. Well, one winter we were serenading the council, and Simon Plewes who owned the flour mill, would go in and get the money for the band as we played outside in the snow. It was often way below zero and the valves of the instruments would freeze up. Naturally the slide on the trombone froze up and I forced the slide and it doubled up in three or four places and that finished the trombone.
But JB Spurr had started a boys’ band and tried me on cornet with Leslie Banner. We supplied the cornet section for the kids’s band. Our first engagement was a garden party in Dunedin. Dan Mitchell gave us each a bag of candy for playing in front of his store. Then they loaded us in a wagon rack full of straw for Creemore. But the kids’ band didn’t last long as the big band was afraid we might steal their jobs at less money.
About this time Herb Chance, who had won prizes with the Creemore band, took leadership of the Penetanguishene band and opened up business there, but I kept practising on the cornet. Our next leader was Joe Young from around Fergus, and shortly after he came to town, one of our old councilmen, David Little, died and the band was asked to play for his funeral.
The Star paper printed these small items which gave me confidence in myself. One was, “If Joe Leonard remains to play wholly by note, we predict for him a bright future as a soloist.” One Twelfth of July I was playing in Barrie and the Advance wrote up that “Joe Leonard, the cornet player of Creemore, was like a gramophone, a complete band in one instrument. His playing was the leading feature of the band.”
