Oh, Pretty Woman b/w Let Me Love You

John David Redmond is a singer, songwriter and keyboard player from Guelph, Ontario whose career began in Canadian rock bands of the 1960s and later took him into Nashville recording and senior positions in music publishing.

Redmond started out as a classically trained pianist, and by 1977 he counted 16 years in the music business. In 1967 he was playing bass in Chapter V, the group Brian Ahern had first put together in Halifax as The Badd Cedes. With Jamie Piers singing, Brian and Michael Ahern on guitars and Ken Tobias on drums, Chapter V made its American debut on Verve Forecast with ‘Headshrinker’ b/w ‘Dolly’s Magic’, which Ahern wrote, arranged and produced.

By August 1971 Redmond was back on keyboards and singing lead in Young, an eight-piece Hamilton horn band recording for Ampex with producer John Driscoll. Bassist Brian Kirkwood was in that lineup too, and both men soon turned up in Sea Dog, the boogie and blues rock band that had come down to Toronto from Sudbury as Taxi and then The Tote Family. Redmond played organ and piano and sang, sharing the keyboards with Doug Varty in a lineup completed by guitarist Paul Weston and drummer Jim Norris. Sea Dog released its self-titled album on MUCH Records in 1972.

On Justin Paige’s 1974 Capitol album, produced by Lee DeCarlo, Redmond played keyboards under the name John David Redmond, alongside Rik Emmett, Dick Wagner, Prakash John, Gene Martynec and Peter Rochon.

His songs took him to Nashville and Acuff-Rose, the publishing house built by Roy Acuff and Fred Rose, where he signed as a writer. There he began working with David Kastle of Acuff-Rose, a producer whose credits included Roy Orbison and Ray Stevens.

Redmond was recording for London Records of Canada by 1976. In October that year his London single ‘(You) Can’t Stop Me Dancin’’ b/w ‘Life Of A Friend’ was being added at CKGM in Montreal and CJME in Regina, and ‘Let The Music Move Me’ b/w ‘Gimme The Strength’ came next.

‘You Satisfy’ b/w ‘Will I Ever Find Peace Of Mind’ arrived in the spring of 1977, and within six weeks RPM found it drawing solid airplay and chart action across Canada. The response brought a personal management deal with Artist Management Associates, a division of the Toronto firm Dixon-Propas. Robbie Lane of AMA began building a touring act around Redmond, describing his music as “a mixture of rhythm & blues and rock with gospel influence.” The band was to be ready by mid-July, in time for a new single and his debut album. The single was his version of the Roy Orbison and Bill Dees song ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’, and the album was still being cut in Nashville with Kastle producing.

The finished record, John David Redmond, was produced by Kastle for Hickory Records, the Acuff-Rose label, and issued in Canada by London as DL 3020. Redmond wrote nine of its ten songs, arranged the album, and played keyboards and bass synthesizer as well as singing backing vocals. Buddy Skipper arranged the horns, and Redmond and Lea Jane Berinati arranged the background vocals. The Nashville players were guitarists Carl Thomason and Jerry McCoy, Terry McMillan on harmonica and percussion, Larrie Londin on percussion, a horn section of Billy Puett, Buddy Skipper, Denis Solee, Dennis Good, Don Sheffield and George Tidwell, and singers Ginger Holladay, Lea Jane Berinati and Yvonne Hodges. Alongside the London singles, the album carried ‘Beautiful Day’, ‘Let Me Love You’ and ‘I Thank The Lord For My Friends’.

In 1986 Irving/Almo Music of Canada, the publishing arm of A&M, hired Redmond as professional manager. Reporting to Gerry Lacoursiere and Lance Freed, he worked with a roster of writers that included Paul Janz, Stan Meissner and The Arrows.

He went on to PolyGram Music Publishing, where he became Vice President in charge of the Canadian company, and later held the same rank at Universal Music Publishing. He also served as Managing Director of Rondor Music International in Canada. The work covered signing and developing writers, negotiating contracts, supervising copyrights, and handling royalties and song licensing, and the Canadian writers he worked with in those years included Alanis Morissette, Avril Lavigne, Bryan Adams, Finger Eleven, Jann Arden, k.d. lang and Shania Twain.

Redmond also served on the boards of Canadian music organizations including FACTOR, the Canadian Music Publishers Association and the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency. In June 2000 SOCAN elected him to its board as a publisher member representing Universal Music Publishing.

He now lives in Miami, where he teaches as Assistant Professor of Practice in the Music Business and Entertainment Industries program at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and serves as faculty advisor to the student-run ’Cane Records and Cat 5 Music. He also founded Publish This Inc., a Miami company specializing in music publishing, royalty recovery and copyright management.

-Robert Williston