Column: Disney was right...it is a small world after all!

Debbie Lori Kaye…

SooToday readers of a certain vintage will probably experience a tug of nostalgia in reading that name. I know I do. On my stargazing chart, of all the talented singers who call Sault Ste. Marie home, Deb Kaye – the handle she goes by these days – gets top billing.

So imagine my amazement in learning recently that Deb and the operations manager of our apartment building here in Oakville once shared the stage at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition and they were in pretty good company, with the 1965 headliners being Victor Borge and Bob Hope.

My connection to Deb goes back almost as far.

During a brief stint with the Soo’s erstwhile radio station CKCY, I became friends with fellow staffer Dave Carter – the station’s popular country-and-western deejay. A frequent visitor to the facility to visit her daddy was a pint-sized dynamo destined for stardom.

The next – and only – time I saw Deb was at a performance in Vancouver several decades later where her unique, energetic singing style brought the house down, but our paths would cross again earlier this year when some complimentary words were posted on the blog promoting my published books.

The poster signed her “fan letter” Deb Kaye and when I responded I learned to my delight that the writer was in fact Debbie Lori Kaye. She had returned to the city she feels most at home in – Sault Ste. Marie - and had read an earlier column of mine that mentioned my D-Day book and provided a link to the blog.

We exchanged emails and Deb included a link to some of her musical tracks. I shared these treasures with “the usual suspects” on my email list, including Kent Daubney – who oversees several Oakville apartment buildings, including the one I live in.

Within minutes of my hitting “send," Kent telephoned and knocked me for a loop by saying: “You do know that Debbie and I were in the same CNE show back in the 1960s, right?” Wrong! What were the odds?

The story got even better. Kent revealed that as a 16-year-old drummer with a Beatles-style band called The Liverpool Set, he was only dimly aware of the 15-year-old singer from northern Ontario. There was a good reason - he had just lost his heart to one of the CNE’s chorus-line dancers, Hillary Ross from Toronto, whom he would eventually marry, and there was another coincidence – both Hillary (who passed away recently) and Kent had been born in England but their families had relocated to Toronto, where destiny would bring them together at the CNE.

As it happened, Deb had needed a place to stay while performing at The Ex and someone had contacted Doris Ross, a dance instructor, to ask if she would look after Deb during her time in Toronto. Hillary was Doris’s daughter.

Here’s how Deb described the situation: “My first record, Picking Up My Hat, had moved to number one on the Billboard charts and my agent thought the CNE would be a great launch for me with Canadian audiences. He called Jack Arthur, producer of the CNE Grandstand Show, and Jack decided to take a chance on me.

“One of the staff found me a billet with Doris Ross and she took me under her wing. She taught me the dance that I was expected to do with a male troupe of dancers, I was scared silly because I had never danced before and this would be a big number in the show. Hillary was a lovely girl and her mom had all the patience I needed. They treated me like one of the family.”

Deb remembers The Liverpool Set as “young, sexy mopheads”. Promotional literature for the 1965 Grandstand show describes the group this way: “Canada’s own Toronto-based ‘Beatles’ captured that vital Liverpool sound, that Mersey beat, and started on their road to the top in the dim cave and cellar clubs of Manchester, Leeds and London. Now the six – who have written many of the songs in their repertoire – have settled in Toronto and have won a recording contract with Columbia Records.”

Another coincidence since Deb had also signed a six-year contact with that major recording enterprise. The two performers went their separate ways after the CNE gig and would not run across each other again until my email got the ball rolling. However, in another twist of fate, Deb and Hillary Ross would again share a stage when Hillary’s dancing talents landed her a spot on CBC-TV’s The Tommy Hunter Show where Deb was a regular.

As for Deb’s background – she was born in the State of New York and moved with her family to Bermuda when she was seven.

At age 11, she was singing with her dad’s country and western band. Three years later, Dave landed the deejay job in the Soo with CKCY and Deb enrolled at Bawating Collegiate, but her high school education was cut short when the recording contract with Columbia came through, thanks to CKCY’s station manager at the time, Al Bestall, who sent a tape of her songs to a contact there. A couple of the songs on her first hit record, the aforementioned Picking Up My Hat, were written by Bestall’s son Pat.

Deb’s career took off like a rocket. The success of her recording career and the CNE appearance led to her signing with Tommy Hunter at age 17. A variety special on CBC-TV followed and, eventually, she moved back to the U.S. where live performances were mixed with guest-shots on such big-name TV series as Music City USA, Rollin’ On The River with Kenny Rogers and The Everly Brothers Show. She was on her way!

However, they say that man makes plans and the gods laugh. As happens with so many young performers out on the road, the predators began to circle and would eventually be part of a downward spiral described in a poignant 1993 interview with Vancouver’s Province newspaper:

“I was a child within an adult world, with adult responsibilities and an adult contract and time schedule,” she said. “But I was a kid. And there was a lot of trash going on, and I had nowhere to take the trash. Basically, I learned to play cards and drink scotch with the adults, and be an adult. And the child died.”

A series of unfortunate incidents culminated in a devastating turn of events when Deb was struck by a pickup truck in 2006 in a mall parking lot. After considerable legal wrangling, a settlement was made but the money went to pay legal fees and medical expenses.

Showing the pluck that had endeared her to myriad fans over the years, Deb overcame her adversities – getting her high school diploma and taking college courses that allowed her to professionally counsel others with similar problems.

Writer Brian Brennan’s 2015 interview with Deb is posted on the CanadianJournalist.ca site and his admiration for how she coped with adversity shines through.

As for Kent, one of the interesting blips in his musical career was that at one point he was asked to substitute for the drummer during a recording session for one of John Lennon’s albums after The Beatles broke up. John wasn’t happy with the next day’s playback of the one song Kent had sat in on but liked Kent’s drumming. Unfortunately, Kent had left the city right after the session and wasn’t available for the re-do.

Like many entertainers, Kent’s hectic life on the road eventually lost its lustre. He remained behind the scenes for a time – as co-producer of an album by the still-popular Canadian rock band Harlequin that went gold, and serving as Audio Engineer for Global TV for 12 years. In time, a talent for carpentry led to a housebuilding career, which segued into his current position.

With Deb’s recent return to the Soo – where she has family – she is hoping for some good news on the reinstatement of her permanent resident status that lapsed while she was pursuing her singing career in the States. In the meantime, she keeps busy doing volunteer work in the community where she hopes to finally put down roots.

As an ex-pat Sooite who is an unabashed fan of “Mighty Mite”, my thoughts in that regard can be summed up in the three little words of one of her many hits: Come On Home!

You can view both Deb and The Liverpool Set on YouTube here and here