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The Royal Family


The Royal Family - Sometimes / Solitude - 7

Sometimes / Solitude - 7"
Apex - 1965


Michael Panontin
Troyka are by now well known in collector's circles for having been Canada's premier power trio, especially since the reissues of their self-titled 1970 LP on CD and vinyl. But the Edmonton threesome of guitarist Rob Edwards, bassist Ron 'Rumor' Lukawitski and drummer Michael Richards trace their genesis to the days of the British Invasion and the aptly named Royal Family.

Actually, Edwards and Lukawitski's partnership stretches back even farther, to their pre-teens when the pair started jamming together, learning to play along to popular Shadows and Ventures hits. They even formed a couple of bands - the Imperials and then the Ortegas - to perform some of those songs live. But all that changed when they met Michael Richards.

Richards had spent part of his youth in England and fancied himself a singer, guitarist and songwriter. He was introduced to Edwards and Lukawitski by drummer Larry Hall, and the four of them set out to play beat-inspired original music, christening themselves the Royal Family along the way.

Despite their youth - Lukawitski (who was using the name Ron Arthurs then) and Richards were just 16 and Edwards was only 15 when they formed - the guys were prolific songwriters. In fact, at their debut performance at the Banff School of Fine Arts on 10 July 1965, RPM reported that the guys performed "no less than fifty original compositions". Yes, five-zero. After less than a year together.

So the fact that the Royal Family issued two singles that year, the cutesy Merseybeat double-sider 'I Told a Lie' b/w 'Don't Even Want to Know' in May '65 and the follow-up 'Sometimes' later that year, should surprise no one. Both records sold well on their home turf, with 'I Told a Lie' even showing up on the playlist of CKCO in far-away Chatham ON. But it is 'Solitude', the scorching garage-rocker on the flipside of Sometimes', that makes collectors' hearts skip a beat or two. They were onto it long before the internet, with Underworld Records choosing the song to close out their sought-after 1985 comp, Nightmares from the Underworld Vol. 2.

But the Royal Family had their sights set on bigger things.

In 1966, they moved to Montreal - then still the largest city in Canada - and landed a slot at the Garden of Stars at Expo '67, one of only three Western Canadian bands chosen to perform on that coveted stage. It was there that the guys hooked up with New York songwriter/producer Teddy Randazzo. "Randazzo heard us at Expo, and invited us to New York," Edwards recalled. "We lived and recorded with him while staying at his mansion and riding around in his white Rolls Royce." Randazzo cut some demos with the guys for Columbia and set up a pending deal with Mercury. "He was a great guy, very generous, patient and sings on the tapes," Edwards added.

But unfortunately their arrangement with Randazzo fell apart, not least because he and the group were moving in completely different directions. That snarly vocal and those searing guitar licks on 'Solitude' had become the rule rather than the exception for the Royal Family. Randazzo had the boys doing four-part harmonies over pop arrangements. "[It] was very much like the Lettermen or Little Anthony. A lot of harmonies, [and] counterparts with melody lines weaving in and out. We didn't want to do that. We wanted to pound it away and be a guitar-focused band with guttural vocals."

In other words, something along the lines of Troyka. And so by '68, Edwards, Richards and Lukawitski had left Randazzo and New York, returned to Edmonton, dropped Hall (with Richards taking over on the drum kit) and reformed as, well, a gruff and muscular power trio. And the rest, you might say, is history.
         
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