Dal Richards is sitting on a leather couch in his three-storey loft in Gastown. While his wife Muriel slips downstairs to answer an email about one of his upcoming gigs and the photographer sets up his equipment, Richards is talking to Dawn Chubai about what its like to perform together on stage.
"You make me feel so young," the bandleader says to Chubai, the Breakfast TV host who moonlights as one of Dals Gals.
Chubai smiles, channels her inner Frank Sinatra and sings, "You make me feel so young you make me feel there are songs to be sung."
The notes trail off but the smile stays. "We should do that song," she says to Richards.
Thats when the transformation takes place. I swear that when you look in Richards eyes you can see that his brain is working out an arrangement for the song which instrument will play what, what bar the singers will come in on. He can hear the song, he can feel it, and chances are that his fans will one day hear it exactly the way its playing out in his head right now.
There, in that moment, is the answer to the question that he's lived long enough to be asked more than any other: How do you stay so youthful? What's the secret to being about to turn 95 and knowing that the Orpheum will be packed with people wanting to help you celebrate?
Its the music, yes, but not just the music. It's the communion that takes place between him on the stage and the audience on the dance floor. One can't live without the other: a performer needs a listener and a listener needs to be entertained. Every time he picks up his baton, or his saxophone, he lets the audience know that in appreciation for their presence, he's going to do his best to make sure they have a good time.
At home, Muriel says, Dal is quite a quiet, private person. But as soon as he goes on stage, the connection with the audience is right there. He's never tired after a gig because he's so happy.
Chubai loves to watch the people in the audience respond to Richards and the music. People of all ages come to his performances but it's the ones who heard the Dal Richards Orchestra in their youth, and perhaps danced while he played at the Panaroma Roof at the Hotel Vancouver, that catch her eye. You can almost see them revert to their youth, because thats what Dal's doing. He seems to be ageless.
Richards will give you a scientific reason why he truly is a super senior. It has something to do with telomeres that prevent his DNA from fraying as quickly as it does in most people. It doesn't hurt that by living in Gastown, he and Muriel can walk almost everywhere. And when the photographer asks if its too much to ask Richards to go down one of the swirling staircases for the photo shoot – it's an automatic reflex to treat a 94-year-old with gentle deference – Richards points out that going up and down those stairs helps keep him fit, too.
Richards is the last person to make age an excuse for not doing something. He's booked for his 78th consecutive New Year's Eve dance party, playing at the River Rock Casino on December 31 till one in the morning. "Hes booked for an event next October," Muriel adds. "Forget about the joke about being so old he doesnt want to buy unripe bananas. When I said to Dal, Do you want to commit?, he says Sure, what the hell."
It won't be surprising if he's already starting to think of where he'll celebrate his 100th birthday.
Early days
The Marpole where Dallas Richards was born in 1918 seems worlds away from todays modern Vancouver. The family had a radio but it picked up local stations only. Young Dal had an adventurous spirit so he created his own crystal set so he could listen to stations from as far away as Cincinnati to Mexico City. In his autobiography, One More Time, he writes that it was magic to dangle a long wire out the window as an antenna, poking a cats whisker wire into a chunk of galena crystal and moving it around until faint sounds came through the static in his earphones. iPods as revolutionary devices? This was 1927.
Were it not for a slingshot accident that caused the removal of his left eye that same year, young Dal might not have dreamed about being one of the musicians he listened to on his crystal set. The future seemed bleak during the long hours he had to stay in bed. Looking for something to take his mind off the loss of his eye, his doctor noted that since Dal's mother was a good piano player, could Dal have the makings of a good musician, too?
"That was my salvation," Richards says. "It took me out of my depression."
His first big break was a trip to Chicago in 1933 with the Kitsilano Boys Band, which also managed to make enough money for a trans-Atlantic crossing to London. Dal and his teenaged friends followed the don't ask, don't tell approach to getting into nightclubs where theyd sip soft drinks and listen to the bands. If he wasn't hooked before, there was no way he'd give up the dream of being a professional musician now.
It would be wrong to look at big band music through a nostalgic prism. You've got to remember that in Richards days, this was the popular music. The music had energy and verve, the bands were hot commodities. Richards' autobiography is filled with stories about lively, and sometimes raucous, club nights when the who's who of jazz and big band music came to Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»to play.
In the 1950s, big band musics popularity was weakened by the arrival of the Elvis Presleys, but the two styles of music had enough of a fan base to co-exist. It was the Beatles who sounded big bands death knell by creating the music that now filled the concert halls. Bookings dried up and so, for the first time, Richards, had to go looking outside of music for work. He enrolled in BCIT's hospitality program and started a successful hotel career filling the rooms of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»hotels. Of course, he never stopped playing – when he was 90 he had 125 gigs – and if he could fill some of those rooms with musicians and the fans who wanted to hear them play, double bonus.
Over the years, he's been given every accolade possible, from the Order of Canada and the Order of BC to keys to the city of Vancouver. Despite the applause, the number of people who ask to shake his hand or have their picture taken with him, he's still the excited teenager eager to please with his music. He just doesn't have ego in his DNA, his wife Muriel says.
He was thrilled and deeply honoured to be ask to carry the Olympic torch in 2010. He writes, researches and hosts a weekly radio show on AM 650, plays every summer at the PNE (where theres a bench with his name on it) and draws in the crowds every at the River Rock. On January 13, youre invited to help him celebrate his 95th birthday with a music-filled bash with the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Symphony Orchestra at the Orpheum. (Tickets are $30 and are available at )
"I dont think about my age," he says. "I don't think, Oh, God, Im 94. Im just grateful."
At the end of One More Time, Richards writes, Quit? No, I couldnt handle that. Retirement is not an option. Besides, it would fly in the face of medical advice. Dont stop blowing your horn, Dal, my doctor says. You may drop dead.
Please, Mr. Richards, follow your doctors advice!
Tickets for the Dal Richard's 95th birthday party with the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, January 13 start at $30 and are available .
After the concert, the Fairmont Hotel Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»is hosting a birthday cocktail on the Panorama Roof. Tickets are $95.95with proceeds to the Dal Richards' Foundation. There will be music, dancing, food and refreshments. You get a tax receipt for the donation portion of the ticket price (approximately $50. The event runs from 6:30 to 9pm. Buy tickets .
