Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 30

ENTERTAINMENT PAGE 30 Canadian singer has no desire to move down south permanently The Calgary Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1976 "That was a great experience," he said in ah. interview between sets at Sancious Thursday night. "We played for 60,000 people in a soccer stadium, with a 30-piece orchestra behind us." At that point, his music was a mixture of funky folk-rock, rock 'n' roll and contemporary balladry and he was backed by a group of musicians who are now establishing themselves independently as CBS recording artists Jackson Hawke. They opened concerts for the Beach Boys, Eric Carmen and the Guess Who and played clubs on both sides of the Canada-US. border.

However, "it was costing me thousands of dollars to keep a band on the road and, as a songwriter, I wanted to do acoustically what I was then doing electrically, so I gave up the band situation to go solo." He also severed his connection with Capitol Records, where he felt he was being pressurized to move into a commercial, Top Forty type of musical vein and took the gamble of embarking on a less commercial musical direction, singing his songs in "listening rooms" such as Toronto's Riverboat, Edmonton's The Hovel, Boston's The Bitter End and The Troubadour in Los Angeles. Thursday night, he performed for a couple of dozen people at Sancious, demonstrating the confident playing and comfortable rapport with his listeners which comes of having worked in front of tougher crowds. (Also appearing with Kearney was one Ray Van Nes, who ought not to take his guitar out in public until he learns how to play it. His warm-up set was atrocious.) Kearney offered a fairly laid back selection of self-penned songs, generally serious in theme, introspective and somewhat bluesy. He favors the darker chordings on his guitar, minor sevenths, sixths and ninths (such as one hears in songs like Carole King's You've Got a Friend or Bruce Cockburn's Goin' To The Country, if one listens that closely), which give his music a wistful, solitary and rather lonely His lyrics indicate a growing self-awareness although they are still clothed with self-conscious reticence in spots and even his lighter songs tend to have a pervading seriousness about them.

A number entitled It's A Dog's Life, for example, indicates an underlying disenchantment with the human condition while celebrating the bliss of what it must be like to be a house pet. A song called The Ghost of Harry Ford deals with the spirit of a dead man that Kearney encountered in an old house in Marin County. And a number called It's All Behind You deals with the essential rootlessness of the contemporary urban folk singer. Kearney said that he doesn't consider himself a folkie, although he is now playing quite a bit in folk clubs and coffeehouses. "The acoustic guitar is the vehicle for presenting my songs right now, but I would like to get into a band situation again in the future.

I'm a singer-song-writef and in no hurry to get anywhere fast. I would like to make one or two albums a year, like Eric Anderson and Tom Rush, and continue developing my own style." Currently negotiating an American recording deal, with assistance from singer-songwriter and producer Ian Thomas, Kearney said he wants to remain in Canada, although it's hard to make a good living out of music here. "I feel very Canadian, so I want to stay here for as long as I can. I don't see any reason why a person can't work elsewhere from time to time and come home again to live." His engagement at the Sancious concludes tonight. By Brian Brennan (Herald staff writer) In some respects, it's a familiar story.

Like many emerging Canadian performers, singer-songwriter Christopher Kearney has paid much of his musical 1 dues in the United States. Unlike many of them, however, the left-handed guitar picker has no desire to move south permanently. He is currently performing for three nights at Sancious Coffeehouse. Born Dec. 6, 1947 in Toronto, Kearney moved to the U.S.

at 16, finished high school in California, "busked" as he calls it) in every closet folk club in the San Francisco Bay area, served a hitch in Vietnam, returned to Canada with his parents, studied at Memorial University in St. John's, was encouraged in his music by singer-composer Gordon Light-foot, and in 1968 returned to San Francisco to play the better clubs under the tutelage of ex-Kingston Trio member David Stewart. In 1969, the tall, curly-haired performer was back in Toronto again, this time to stay. He signed with Lightfoot's Early Morning Productions, recorded three albums for Capitol Records of Canada, appeared on the Ian Tyson CTV show and had his songs recorded by such artists as Mary Travers, Valdy and Pierre Lalonde. A couple of years later, Kearney performed In the Maple Music Junket at Toronto's Massey Hall a government-sponsored concert designed to expose the best of Canadian talent to journalists, dee-jays and TV interviewers flown in from the U.S.

and Europe. On the strength of the Maple Music appearance, Kearney was invited to represent Canada at the International Song Festival in Rio de Janeiro, an annual music celebration involving 16 countries. ''f i ft I 17" i in i inn mi i i CHRISTOPHER KEARNEY I feel very Canadian' 'Great White Father' to the rescue and an unfunny lady hunt oooooooooooa Carol Hogg movie has a hopelessly inane plot involving three simultaneous attempts to kidnap one woman. Her uncle hires thugs to kidnap her in order to receive ransom to pay his debts to the gang. Her opera teacher kidnaps her to prevent her debut which promises to be bad enough to ruin his rep utation.

And she stages her own kidnapping because she doesn't want to be an opera-singer, but a nightclub dancer. 1 Adding to this stupidity are a pair of detectives with the mentality of eight-year-olds. They make the Keystone Kops look like members of Mensa. Played by Lawrence Dane and John Candy, they repeatedly bump into each other, knock things over, and smash up cars. Financially supported by the Canadian Film Development Corporation, Find the Lady was written by David Main and John Trent, who also directed it.

as funny as a slice of pizza in a hat. In fact, one of the film's more "riotous" moments concerns exactly that a slice of pizza in a hat. A British-Canadian co-production. Find the Lady stumbles from one worn-out comedy chestnut to another. There is the off-key opera-singer, the transves- at the movies 1 i JOQODOOmDQQ! tite who complains that life He finds them, decimated and broken in spirit, vanquished from their sacred burial grounds and their hunting territory.

Here on in, it's Great White Father to the rescue. (First, however, he has to undergo more pectoral piercing, and what not.) Good white father that he is, Morgan decides his people, have to get their spirit back. He teaches them to shoot the guns and rifles he has brought (triumphant music here). In a most peculiar scene, he instructs the "squaws" in the use of bolas an Argentinian weapon consisting of three rocks whirled around on the end of tongs. For good measure, he creates the is a lots of dumb blonds, and even dumber cops.

Not even Mickey Rooney can save this one. He plays In particular, Morgan's vision is well done. After fasting four days and nights in a sweat lodge, he dreams he is a young man in English clothing who meets himself, as an old man in Indian garb. It's a brief but brilliant symbolic moment that skilfully unites past, present and future. Unfunny lady Find the Lady is a numbskull number about er of the Indians look like fugitives from a spaghetti western.

Director Irvin Kershncr, who did not direct the original, seems to have concentrated on recreating the sensational parts of the first. Certain scenes succeed well enough to indicate he could have done something quite well had he resisted the temptation to make a spin-off. a twitchy criminal named Trigger, with a double passion for wasting people and eating pizza. Filmed in Toronto, the ififiw I 1 Cirrentlv Calwrv's A. THE RETURN OF A MAN CALLED HORSE, starring Richard Harris.

Palace. Adult. FIND THE LADY, with Mickey Rooney, Uptown 2 and Plaza, Adult. What a shame the Man Called Horse decided to return. The sequel is a travesty of the original.

A Man Called Horse appeared in 1970 (the same year as Little Big Man) and, although it had weaknesses, its treatment of the Indians seemed remarkably fresh on the screen. The plot concerned an English adventurer who was captured by the Yellow Hands, and held slave. Eventually they permitted him to advance to the rank of brother by undergoing self-torture, hanging by his pierced pectorals until his flesh tore away. A Man Called Horse was commercially successful, which no doubt influenced the decision for a "return." The sequel starts out with promise. Parallel scenes show the Yellow Hands being slaughtered by white fur-trappers and their Indian colleagues while in England, John Morgan sulkily refuses to chase the foxes.

He languishes around the mansion, grieving for the good old days when he was hanging by the pectorals. The inter-cutting of these scenes is well done. But once Morgan hits the American plains in search of his long-lost Indian friends, the movie begins 1 aw. i. I nan iiu ffj Longest Running Film! vll LUjiuiJULufasaB m-'-rt si first grenades ever hurled by Indians, an occasion for more triumphant music.

One wonders why he didn't think of karate Bruce Lee versus Red Cloud would have made a good sequence. There are perplexing discrepancies all the way through, and unlikely vignettes such as the Indians practising- weaponry on their own scarce horses. (By the, way, this movie appears to be quite hard on animals for those who care about that sort of thing.) Morgan is again played by Richard Harris, who did the original. He is much the same in this one. Other than that, the cast has changed for the worse Judith Anderson, who was excellent as the Indian matriarch in the original, is not around, and a numb- I GIRLS" mi 1 ftufc lmu SW "1 (TM8ES jfyeuNS to I tnriiTtiiir'iipiw-'Mi fni vrmir iiMriii It IMt MOST 1 contovesia Srf I woKof I THE Df CAM I -i FRIDAY, Nov.

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"TWO WABMIMS asostrnno AND (and all NEW) mfmm SIM. fcM.fcNML I nr WKJft rhRKV- RAIAS'AKTHIR ltVt WILLIAM MfcRVYN'MKJW MfcLVIN 1Amjl SMITH CERMDINF. McBWNJltKfcM LLtW MAHTIM BALSAM BEAU BRIDGES MARILYN KASSETT DAYSO JAMSSEN JACK KL08HAII WALTER PiQSEGN 6EMA RQWLAXOS vmnim-tim ERCri-wrrHOKT davis JOE KfA FILMWAYS PRODUCTIONA LARRY PEERCE -EDWARD FELDMAN FILM Screenplay by EDWARD HUME -Based on the novel by GEORGE LaFOUNTAINE Music by CHARLES FOX Directed by LARRY PEERCE Produced by EDWARD FELDMAN I RESTRICTED ADULT COPENHAGEN I FAIR I TmTahc h9 ltml Ciww I mi Ten Tons of Inimal I jpi in 11 ivm ivw vi muihm I Ul I ADULT eJ Leaps from the Screw 1 4 i I CHILDREN Firry Leaps front the Screei Restricted Adult Dnly at 7:00 and 9:00 Adult, not auttable tor children Daily at 70 and 9:30 Also Saturday and Sunday Alto Saturday and Sunday mm-1 afternoon at 1:40 and 3:40 BaVaaaikiolBBfcaa- a fie moons at 1:30 and 3:30 rl Vancouver, Kelewno, awtsw Miim I Toronto "JAWS OF DEATH" BBVBJJJBHK.