It’s forty-five years and counting. A collection of Royalty Records favourite B-sides from the last 45 years.
Looking back to 1974 it doesn’t really seem all that long ago, but the dream of starting both a western Canadian based record label and music publishing company had been top of mind for R. Harlan Smith. After years of touring across Canada, Smith would always return to the prairies wondering why there did not seem to be much attention of any kind given to the vast amount of incredible and mostly unheard of great musicians, songwriters and artists from the prairies that just maybe, with a little helping hand could help build a more complete national Canadian country music industry.
ABOVE (back row L to R): Tracy Lynn, George Hauser, Jimmy Arthur Ordge, Glory-Anne Carriere, R. Harlan Smith, Larry Gustafson, Danny Hooper, Joyce Smith, Wilf Ingersoll; (front row L to R) Fred Larose, Frank Walls, Chris Nielsen, Laura Vinson.
Incidentally, Helping Hand Music was the original name of Royalty Music Publishing Inc. which had actually been up and running a couple of years before Royalty Records became a reality. In an era of plucky upstart indie labels, Royalty remains true to its roots as one of the original Canadian country labels. The songs, the artists, recalling the times in the studio, this collection is a joyous trip down a historical memory lane.
Royalty Records has developed decades of Canada’s great country artists and continues to do so to this day.
ABOVE: (back row L to R) Neil MacDonald, Darren Gusnowsky, Mitch Smith, Rob Smith, Kham Yawnghwe;(front row L to R) Christie Armstrong, Kathryn Hummel, Stacie Roper, Ryan Langlois, Melissa Langlois,Andreas Wegner, Kasha Anne, Ben Shillabeer, Rob Shapiro, Teddy Michaylaow, Paul Biro.