Early years

The first connection can be traced back to the Blue Note club on February 22, 1964 where the club's house band, The Silhouettes were playing. Steve Kennedy was a member of the band and in a relationship with the female singer, Dianne Brooks. Doug Riley was also in the group. This is where William "Smitty" Smith first met Kennedy. Smith was working at The Flamingo which was a club down the road. Getting on well with each other straight away, they kept in touch. They had a plan to put together a group to play behind Brooks and they eventually did.^[4][5]

In 1966 The Soul Searchers were formed. The correct name for the group was Diane Brooks, Eric Mercury and The Soul Searchers.^[6] The instrumental part of the group consisted of Eric "Mouse" Johnson on drums and vocals, Steve Kennedy on tenor, baritone sax and background vocals, Terry Logan on guitar and vocals, and William "Smitty" Smith on Hammond B3 organ and vocals.^[7] Their first gig the group played was at the Memory Lane in Toronto.^[6]

Steve Kennedy left the band and his replacement was saxophonist Glen McDonnell.^[8] Some time later, and following the break up of the Soul Searchers, William Smith went via the same direction as Kennedy and joined Grant Smith and The Power, a group which David Clayton Thomas had been a member of.^[9] Kennedy had officially become a member of Grant Smith and The Power in April 1968 and Smith came in to the group in September. They played on the group's debut album, Keep On Running which was released on Boo BST 6802 around October - November 1968. Among the musicians on the album were Wayne Stone on drums and Kenny Marco on guitar. Some things Smith, Kennedy, Marco and Stone weren't happy about was the fact that they were playing mostly covers. And they were disappointed with the lack of the album's success.^[10][11]

Motherlode formed

Smith, Kennedy and co. formed Motherlode in 1969 and relocated to London, Ontario,^[11] where they struggled and stayed with friends. They finally got a break following their debut at the Image Club when Mort Ross signed them to Revolver Records that same year. According to Ritchie Yorke's book, Axes, Chops & Hot Licks: The Canadian Rock Music Scene, they got about 25 songs together and cut some of them in the studio.^[12]

Their first single, "When I Die" that was produced by Doug Riley and Terry Brown did not make any headway on the radio. A reciprocal deal in the US with Buddah Records made the song a hit reaching Number 18 on the charts. The song sold more than 500,000 copies and it eventually climbed to Number 1 in the Canadian charts.^[13][11]

Dianne Brooks contributed a song "Memories of a Broken Promise" as well as some background vocals to Motherlode's When I Die album. Motherlode also contributed a song and instrumental backing on Brooks album, Another Kind Of Soul that was released on Revolver Records.^[14] The bass guitar work and some acoustic guitar was handled by L.A. session-woman Carol Kaye. Just one track had Dave Young on bass.^[15]

Motherlode was booked to appear at the "Freak Out" festival. A 72-hour event that ran on the Labor Day period from August 29 to September 1, held at Rock Hill, 16 miles north of Orangeville. Other acts booked to appear were The Brass Union, Brutus, Lighthouse, Life, The Guess Who and Buckstone Hardware etc.^[16]

Break up and personnel changes

The group broke up in December 1969, their second album, Tapped Out which had already been recorded, previously was released posthumously only in the United States. Steve Kennedy, Ken Marco and Wayne Stone went on to be members of Dr. Music in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.^[11] The album contained the song "Black Cat", which was sampled by Gang Starr's "Daily Operation" (intro).^[17]

2nd version

As Revolver Records owned the name Motherlode, it decided to reform the group, keeping William Smith making this the second version of the group.^[18][11] This new Motherlode was formed with Smith and three new musicians, all black! This line-up consisted of Doug Richardson (saxophone), Anthony Shinault (guitar) and Philip Wilson (drums).^[19] It was reported by RPM Weekly in the July 11 issue that Mort Ross was producing new recordings for Motherlode and Chimo!.^[20] Also at that time, their single "Dear Old Daddy Bill" was at #20 in the Top 50 Canadian MAPL Chart.^[21]

It was reported by Billboard in its July 18, 1970 issue that their new single, "I'm So Glad You're You (And Not Me)" bw "Whipoorwill" which was produced by Mort Ross was scheduled for immediate release, with the Canadian release to be on Revolver and the United States release to be on Buddha.^[22] Released on Revolver REVS-008, the A side was composed by William Smith and Phyllis Gorman. The B side was composed by Anthony Shinault.^[23] For the week ending September 13, the single entered the Top 50 MAPL Canadian chart at #50.^[24] It reached its highest position at #33 on October 17 and held it for another week.^[25][26] By the 31st, RPM Weekly had changed the chart to the Top 30 Canadian MAPL Chart, making it drop off the chart. It was now in the Recommended Canadian Singles list.^[27][28] Their new single flopped in the US.

This line up stayed together for around seven months.^[19]

3rd & 4th versions

Mort Ross, Revolver Record's president had brought in Gord Waszek, of the rock group Leigh Ashford, to begin writing for the third version of Motherlode. They recorded "All That's Necessary", with Breen LeBoeuf on vocals, Mike Levine on bass plus Gord Waszek and several other members of Leigh Ashford. The B-side of this single was "My Chant" which was just a renamed version of "Hiro Smothek" from 1970's Tapped Out.^[29]

It was reported by RPM Weekly in their December 5, 1970 issue that Motherlode had reformed for recording with the previous line up having failed to capitalize on the success of "When I Die". The group was now under the leadership of Mike Levine.^[30] The line up consisted of Mike Levine (bass), Wayne St. John (vocals), Kieran Overs (guitar) and two former members of Leigh Ashford, Wally Cameron (drums) and Newton Garwood (keyboards).^[31][29] According to the December 5 article, there was still a high amount of American interest in the band. The group was working in Sudbury and Thunder Bay and later they moved to Western Ontario. Reactions to the group were said to be excellent. Along with Jam Jar, and Chimo!, Motherlode had been signed to the R.A.M. and Concept 376 agencies for Canadian representation.^[32] The record flopped and this 4th version that was assembled to promote the record broke up.^[29]

5th version

By March 1971, a fifth version of Motherlode was created from the remnants of Natural Gas, a Montreal-based group. The members were Dave Berman (saxophone), Brian Dewhurst (drums), Gerry Legault (bass, vocals), Joey Roberts aka Joey Miquelon (guitar) and Brian Wray (keyboards). They never managed to recording anything, and became part of Truck with the addition of Graham Lear.^[18]