Drumroll please… Now celebrating his 75th birthday, Winnipeg percussionist was instrumental in city’s nascent rock ’n’ roll scene By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Saturday, Sep. 9, 2023

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Drummer Len Fidkalo, often hailed as an architect of Winnipeg’s music scene in the 1960s, turned 75 years old in July.

The list of people that reached out to the five-time grandfather to offer congratulations was a who’s who of local rock ’n’ roll. Juno Award winner Graham Shaw, who was in a group with Fidkalo 55 years ago, sent a message reading, “I hope we can play some time… I’m already compiling the set list.” Music historian John Einarson, recently named to the province’s Order of the Buffalo Hunt, called Fidkalo a “Winnipeg music legend,” when he introduced him ahead of a birthday show at the West Kildonan Legion.

Even a certain member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame got into the act. Burton Cummings, who personally invited Fidkalo to his own 75th birthday bash this past New Year’s Eve, posed in a black T-shirt bearing the name of his longtime pal’s present group, Five Shades of Grey.

Fidkalo was touched by all the accolades, only if you’re asking him, it’s completely misplaced.

“I look around and see all these wonderful people in my life and wonder, what did I ever do to deserve any of it?” says Fidkalo, who will mark another milestone in December: 50 years without a drop of alcohol. “There are things I did early on that I’m not proud of. A while ago, I mentioned to a friend that I probably shouldn’t have lived to see 25, let alone 75, and that there had to be an explanation why I made it, in spite of myself.”

His chum said perhaps it’s because Fidkalo has always had a way of making people happy, when he’s parked behind a drum kit.

“I don’t know if the reason is that simple or not,” Fidkalo says, seated in the North Kildonan home he shares with Pat, his wife of 26 years, “but if it is, I’m grateful for it.”

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Fidkalo grew up on Manitoba Avenue, the older of two brothers. He was six years old when he attended a wedding reception with his parents, during which he spent the entire evening standing next to the drummer, completely mesmerized by what he was seeing and hearing.

Weeks later he convinced his father to buy him a four-piece drum kit, which he learned how to play by accompanying songs on the radio. By age 10 he was so adept at the instrument that he was approached by a group of neighbourhood teenagers who wanted him to join their band, the Untouchables.

Following a number of practices, he made his Untouchables debut at a freshie dance held at Tec Voc High School. He was on top of the world afterwards and despite his youthful age, he didn’t say no when a bandmate handed him a beer, then another, post-gig, to toast their performance.

“From then on, I was always hanging around guys who were five or six years older than me, and because I wanted to be just like them… let’s just say it led to a lot of bad habits,” he says.

A succession of bands followed. When he wasn’t booked to play a school sock hop or community club dance, he was sneaking into adult-only clubs to observe his favourite drummers. Those included Reg Kelln, who was often accompanied by guitar legend Lenny Breau, Ron Savoie, who later joined Cummings in the Deverons, and Garry Peterson, who continues to tour with a version of the Guess Who, to this day.

“In the early ’60s, Winnipeg was home to all these phenomenal musicians. I’d study them endlessly, and try to emulate them, the minute I got home.”

Among the top draws in the city in 1965 was the Quid, which had changed its name from Mickey Allan and the Viscounts a year earlier, to sound more British. One night, Fidkalo was playing in a club — he can’t recall who with — when he was approached by members of the Quid between sets. They were looking for a new drummer, they said, and had their eye on him.

Fidkalo jumped at the opportunity. Not only did the Quid have shows lined up across Western Canada, the group was preparing to head into the studio to cut its debut single, Crazy Things, plus he considered Ron Rene, the Quid’s lead singer, one of the best frontmen in the city. “Back then, Ron was doing James Brown better than James Brown,” he says.

He was 16 when he became a member of the Quid. Was he upset when he was permanently expelled from Sisler High School in Grade 10, for coming to class “hammered,” the morning after a gig? Not a bit, he says.

In his mind he was a rock star, and he happily subscribed to all the excesses — booze, cigarettes, staying out all night — that seemingly went hand-in-hand with that lifestyle.

Being a member of the Quid offered him a front-row seat to some of Winnipeg’s most noteworthy musical moments. For instance, there was the time when the Quid was playing at the University of Manitoba the same night as Chad Allan and the Expressions. Earlier that day, Randy Bachman, the latter group’s lead guitarist, instructed him to drop by the Expressions’ dressing room, when the Quid’s set was over.

He did just that. Seconds after he got there, in walked Cummings.

“Burton went up to Randy and said, ‘I hear you guys wanted to see me,’” Fidkalo says, telling the story. “Randy said yeah, they wanted Burton to join their band. To which Burton said, ‘I’d love to, but I just got off the phone with the Beatles, and I already accepted their offer.’

“A second later Burton laughed and went ‘just kidding, of course I will.’ I gotta say, it was pretty cool to be standing there, witnessing the birth of the Guess Who.”

Not long after Lover Lover, the Quid’s second single, cracked the Top 10 in markets across the country, Rene announced he was leaving for the Fifth, a Winnipeg band that had been booked south of the border, to open for Sonny and Cher and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Fidkalo was “pissed” at the news, so much so that he broke a chair over Rene’s head in a drunken rage.

Nonetheless, Rene invited Fidkalo to join the Fifth on the road a month later, when that group’s drummer was unable to continue.

“I probably should have said yes, because the money they were offering was substantial, but I was still mad at Ron and I let my principles get in the way,” Fidkalo says. “Mind you, a person with untreated alcoholism going to California? I’m not sure how great an idea that would have been.”

From there, Fidkalo signed on with the Deverons, Cummings’ old band, but his drinking resulted in a hasty dismissal. Next came the Luvin Kynd, a band that was as talented as any he’d been with; problem was, the rest of the group enjoyed partying as much as he did and, as a result, got into its fair share of trouble.

Fidkalo’s battle with the bottle escalated after the demise of the Luvin Kynd, which occurred around the same time he and his girlfriend learned they were expecting. They were promptly married — people gave them two weeks, but they stayed together for 25 years, he points out — but his new wife said she didn’t want their child to grow up in a household where her dad was on the road for weeks on end, or playing in bars until the wee hours of the morning.

He frustratingly agreed, and enrolled in a two-year accounting course at Red River College. That led to a job where one of his supervisors, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, recognized Fidkalo needed help.

It took a couple of years for him to get completely sober. Once he did, he landed a credit manager position with a company that specialized in the school photography and yearbook business. He worked there for 43 years, before retiring in 2015.

Fidkalo continued drumming during that period. He spent a few summers with a band that was regularly booked to play Winnipeg’s riverboats, and he backed up an Elvis impersonator for close to a decade.

There was also a brief period in 1987 when the Quid got back together, first for a rock reunion show at the Winnipeg Convention Centre and later, to serve as the opening act for a cross-country Bachman-Cummings tour. Unfortunately, the tour was cancelled at the last minute, when the headliners had one of their many fallings-out.

Fidkalo was between bands five years ago when he received a call from Larry Votto. Votto and his brother Norbert belonged to Five Shades of Grey, a rollicking unit that had been packing ’em in at bars and legions for 10 years already, with a mix of Beatles, Rolling Stones and Tom Petty covers.

Five Shades was about to record a promotional CD, and Votto asked Fidkalo to sit in with them, in the studio. He did just that. This summer marked his fifth anniversary with the group, which plays an average of two shows a month — a number that could be substantially higher, if it wasn’t for the members’ advanced ages, Fidkalo says with a chuckle.

“We could be playing every weekend but it’s bit of a grind, setting up and breaking down your own equipment, when you’re 75,” he says.

Not to mention, he was playing with Five Shades four years ago, when he suffered a heart attack during the third number. A stubborn sort, he chalked the pain up to a three-pack-a-day smoking habit, which he’s since dropped, and continued banging away.

Three days later, he was in the hospital, undergoing quadruple by-pass surgery.

“So yeah, as much as I’d love to be out there every night, I have to take it a little easy,” he says.

Having said that, if you are ever out for a bite, and you notice a person with longish grey hair beating his hands along to a song on the house stereo system, feel free to lean over and say, “Hiya, Len.”

“My mom used to give me heck for tapping away with my knife and fork during family meals, and not much has changed,” he says. “A while ago, I was at a restaurant when the manager came over to say people were complaining, because I was drumming so hard on the table. I hadn’t even realized, I told him… it’s just my natural reaction.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca