Donald Tarlton after after being presented with the Walt Grealis Award at the Juno awards gala dinner in Saskatoon, in March, 2007.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
When Montreal concert promoter Donald Tarlton brought Rush to Quebec City’s Colisée on April 7, 1983, the progressive-rock trio hadn’t played the market previously. Anticipation in the hockey arena was high, but when the show began, the new wave band the Tenants was on stage instead of the group the fans had come to see.
Because advertisements for the concert had not mentioned an opening act, disappointed Rush fans rained boos and garbage on the Tenants. The band was scheduled to open for Rush again the next night in the Montreal Forum, and Mr. Tarlton did not want a repeat of the fiasco.
He swung into action, calling his radio station contacts to hype the Tenants across the dial and get them booked for an interview on the city’s main rock station, CHOM-FM. The Forum concert went off without a hitch.
“Donald made everyone know in Montreal there would be an opening act,” said music manager Jake Gold, who was on the road with the Tenants at the time. “He could have written the band off, but he wanted to make it work − and he made it work.
“He was the ringmaster.”
Mr. Tarlton, the dominant rock concert promoter in Montreal and eastern Canada for decades and a larger-than-life entrepreneur with moxie, acumen and smiles to spare, died on April 13. He was 82 and had Parkinson’s disease.
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, right, congratulates Mr. Tarlton after investing him into the Order of Canada at a ceremony in Ottawa, in February, 2001.TOM HANSON/The Canadian Press
He created the concert promotion and booking company Donald K. Donald Productions as a 23-year-old in 1966. Today, a groovy Quebec generation remembers the words “a Donald K. Donald production” on the ticket stubs of their youth.
The fun-loving, storytelling impresario was dubbed the “phone-freak of pop” by a local newspaper for his near-constant attachment to his telephone. In 1969, he co-founded the independent record label Aquarius Records, which would be home to April Wine, Corey Hart, Sum 41, Sass Jordan and other artists.
In the 1970s, he aligned with Michael Cohl’s Toronto-based Concert Productions International, Harvey Glatt’s Ottawa-based Bass Clef, Norman Perry’s Perryscope Productions in Vancouver and other regional promoters to establish a national concert circuit in Canada at a time when live music promotion was a regional business.
Mr. Tarlton brought the biggest acts in the world to his hometown: Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Queen, Pink Floyd, Rush, Kiss, U2, Michael Jackson and Madonna. He also presented the province’s biggest international star, Celine Dion, on a world tour.
His reputation extended south of the border. He was the first Canadian elected to the board of directors of the New York-based North American Concert Promoters Association.
“Donald was a player, as savvy as anybody in Canada, anybody in the United States,” Bob Lefsetz wrote on his widely read blog the Lefsetz Letter, upon the promoter’s death.
Mr. Tarlton was working as a stage manager at the Forum one night in 1969 for his mentor, the legendary local promoter Samuel Gesser. When singer Janis Joplin regurgitated Southern Comfort liqueur on Mr. Gesser’s shoes, the promoter decided on the spot that rock concerts weren’t for him and suggested his young protégé take over.
“And that was it,” Mr. Tarlton said years later. “I became the rock promoter of Montreal.”
The Beatles had ceased touring by that time, but Mr. Tarlton claimed to have played tambourine during the “bed-in” recording of Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon and Yoko Ono on June 1, 1969, in room 1742 at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Mr. Tarlton, right, with his childhood friend Ted Blackman, later a prominent local sports broadcaster and columnist with The Montreal Gazette.Courtesy of family
Three weeks later, he put together one of his first big events at what was the home of the Montreal Canadiens: a bicultural festival in 1969 with Steppenwolf, Robert Charlebois, Mashmakhan and Life.
“I realized if I was going to bring U.S. acts to town, I had to interest French Canadians in American rock ‘n’ roll,” he told The Globe and Mail in 2000. “I was aware that to be successful I had to use a politic of inclusion.”
The proud Quebecer was invested into the Order of Canada in 2001. He was the recipient of the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award in 2007, in recognition of his impact on the Canadian music industry.
The man nicknamed Deke received a less formal honour in 1972, when the Rolling Stones placed a full-page ad in the music trade magazine Billboard to bestow upon him the Above and Beyond the Call of Duty award. It was given to Mr. Talton in recognition of what he did best: taking care of business.
Unknown saboteurs had used dynamite to blow up two equipment vans parked on a ramp at the Forum on the night before a Rolling Stones show. No one was hurt, but the band’s sound system was damaged.
Replacement speaker cones were sourced in Los Angeles, but the cargo hold on the only flight headed to Montreal in time to save the concert was full of rock lobster. Mr. Tarlton bought all the crustaceans to make room for the sound equipment. The show proceeded as scheduled and an L.A. soup kitchen served lobster bisque that day, courtesy of the resourceful Montrealer.
Mr. Tarlton’s record company business (Donald K. Donald Group of Labels) was composed of Aquarius Records, Tacca Musique, DKD Vibe, DKD Disques and DKD D-Noy. Success stories included La Chicane, Kevin Parent and France D’Amour.
He told The Globe the biggest problem he faced as an indie label owner was fending off major record companies from poaching his artists by offering them piles of cash after their contracts lapsed.
“Hey, I’m not complaining, that’s the competitive nature of the business,” he said. “My job is to hold on to my artists. That’s why I wear running shoes − I always have to be faster than the majors.”
Mr. Tarlton in his DKD office in Montreal.ANDRE PICHETTE
Mr. Tarlton was built for comfort, not speed. The only time anyone remembered him running was at a Stampeders’ seafood-stocked post-show party in Campbellton, N.B., where he streaked through a guest house yelling “Hey-hey-hey” like the cartoon character Fat Albert, wearing nothing but socks and a grin.
As recounted in the book Truly Unfamous, written by onetime Aquarius Records president Keith R. Brown, the naked shenanigan scared away the nursing students present and most everybody else. Mr. Tarlton was unconcerned. “Oh, well,” he said. “I guess there’s more lobster for us.”
Given his knack for telling tour stories with a dramatic flair, an entry into musical theatre was a natural evolution for him. In 1985, he co-presented the stage production Tango Argentino at Place des Arts in Montreal with New York theatre promoter Mel Howard. A subsequent hit Broadway run earned three Tony Award nominations.
“That was very financially very lucrative for Donald, and a pivotal moment in his life,” said AEG Presents executive Debra Rathwell, who worked for Mr. Tarlton earlier in her career. “He was much more adventurous and open to the world after that success.”
Another of Mr. Tarlton’s Broadway co-productions, the jazz revue Black and Blue, won three Tony Awards in 1989.
Though the promoter drove a green Rolls-Royce, he was approachable and had an instinct for people. At his Forum concerts, he would drape a signature white silk scarf around his neck and head up to the upper concourse to meet music fans who knew who he was.
“Donald believed deeply that he and those of us who worked for him needed to respect and care for both the artist and the audience,” Ms. Rathwell said. “He taught us that they were both equally important when promoting a show.”
In the early 1990s, Mr. Tarlton sold Donald K. Donald Productions to BCL Entertainment Group, owned by Bill Ballard, Michael Cohl and Labatt Brewing Company.
“Donald wanted a party at every show,” said prominent Canadian music manager Bruce Allen. “He was a delight to be around and a character when the music business had a lot of those.
“We don’t have them anymore.”
Donald Ross Tarlton came into this world on May 12, 1943, in Montreal. He was one of two sons born to bookkeeper Theodore (Ted) Tarlton and homemaker Eva Tarlton (née Cooper).
When his mother noticed him singing in front of a mirror as a five-year-old, he told her that he was talented enough to charge money. When he was 7, family members and neighbours did indeed pay 10 cents to attend his Christmas carol concert.
“I stuck up posters around the house advertising the event,” he told The Globe. “I started very early as a promoter, hustler and entrepreneur.”
While at suburban Rosemere High School, Mr. Tarlton organized dances. Before he turned 20, he took on the persona of Donald K. Donald as a dancehall emcee and booking agent.
Mr. Tarlton jokes with fans after he was awarded the Walt Grealis Award at the 2007 Juno Awards.STRINGER/CANADA/Reuters
His nimble thinking was apparent at the 1967 World’s Fair, known as Expo 67. He and his partners won the contract to run the discotheque in the Youth Pavilion, but, to their horror, soon realized the admission price was capped at 25 cents. A capacity crowd of 300 would gross the partners just $75 each night, which would not even cover the rental costs of the light and sound equipment.
The financial bath was averted when Mr. Tarlton came up with the idea of charging the dance-happy attendees by the hour. The discotheque made money over the course of the summer, and Mr. Tarlton learned a lesson.
“If you’re gonna live and work in the province of Quebec,” he said later, “it would be good if you could do it in French, because it was a French contract.”
The promoter ingratiated himself early on with Montreal rock-radio personalities as part-owner of the bar Laugh-In. It was his idea to allow DJs to drink free, a booze policy he leveraged to gain on-air access.
“In the next few months April Wine is going to become the biggest act in show business,” he told CHOM morning host Live Earl Jive in 1974, calling in to hype one of his own acts. He then rattled off a roll call of his forthcoming concerts: Chicago, the Bee Gees, Bad Company and the Edgar Winter Group, Chick Corea, and a triple bill of Rory Gallagher, Nazareth and Rush.
“The radio station got the scoop on shows, and Donald got free advertising,” said Ted Brennan, a longtime production manager for Donald K. Donald Productions.
In 1975, it was at the insistence of Bee Gees manager Dick Ashby that Mr. Tarlton and Mr. Cohl co-present the Jive Talkin’ trio’s concerts in Canada. The alliance between the two titan promoters changed the rock concert landscape in the country and resulted in a friendship between the former rivals.
“He was the best and I loved him throughout,” Mr. Cohl said.
Although Mr. Tarlton briefly worked out of Toronto part-time in the 1990s, he was loyal to his roots. In 1996, he produced a concert in benefit of flood victims in Quebec’s Saguenay region.
“Montreal is my town, and Quebec is my province,” he once proclaimed.
Mr. Tarlton leaves his wife, Annie Tarlton; and brother, Bob Tarlton.
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