Cashbox Canada is proud to now announce that this music icon will be joining our ranks to share his stories of the road, the music and memories he has experienced while touring with Mountain, West Bruce and Laing, Cork and many others. One legacy meets another on a weekly basis, so please watch for his stories and his ‘Best Seat in The House’ column here on Cashbox Canada.

Rock and Road Stories

By Corky Laing

It’s been 40 years to the month since I had the honour to show up on the Cashbox charts. Along with a bullet, “Mississippi Queen” worked its way up that chart into the Top 40 and jettisoned my music career to where I am today. So it’s all Cashbox’s FAULT.

I could be selling shoes at Giant Tiger but no, Cashbox made me believe that there was a brilliant career (including the ups and downs) to be had in the music industry. Along with appearing on the music charts MOUNTAIN was reviewed for a live performance at the Fillmore East by one of today’s renowned contemporary writers, Eric Von Laustveder (author of the NINJA series). It was an eloquent review and read more like a romantic Dickenson poem than a rock article.

CASHBOX Magazine set the bar to include reliability, credibility, and class. People in Cashbox, on and off the charts invented the rock music passion for a young industry that lives on to this day, so again I am honoured to be asked to write and reflect on the music biz for CASHBOX. However, with the actual honour comes the responsibility to write words of historical interest, new artistic discoveries, and new developing paradigms.
I will echo the optimistic outlook with respect to the past, the present and that thing called the future, which has served me well, over a hundred and fifty years with rock and roll stories.

I swear that I will do my duty and make every effort to write, inform, critique, philosophize and basically drop as many celebrities names (even if it takes X rated expletives) to impress you within 500 words.

These will be ambitious articles. I will reflect on over 40 years of touring, thousands of shows around the world, recording hundreds of song hits and a lot of non hits, entertaining millions of people who just want to connect with the music; this is my mission.

When Cashbox was first published 1942, Rock and Roll was in its infancy. A career in the music industry was not a serious consideration, it was a summer job. It was a way to meet girls and party. During the 60’s the music generated a culture with political and social ideas that were reflected in the content of the repertoire. Of course out of this an industry ensued.

While life reflected music, music reflected life. Out of that exchange an accessible commercial entity was born. With recording technology came an explosion of sound. This kind of rampant excitement was uncontrollable and so was the lifestyle it created.

One may refer to these times and an attitude as the old school but as history repeats itself we learn one thing “what’s old becomes new again”. These are exciting times. And so I will be telling you tales of Rock and Road escapades.

This is Corky Laing from the ‘Best Seat In The House’.

[Photo: Taffi Rosen]