Sam the Record Man is still spinning – far from Toronto
You can spot the sign from the food court. In a corner of Belleville, Ont.’s Quinte Mall, past the chain stores that populate what must be every mall in Southern Ontario – a Peoples Jewellers here, a Claire’s there, a Winners down the hall – are three chunky red capital letters that mark the very last outpost of a Canadian retail-music empire: SAM. A good two hours' drive east on Highway 401 from the corner of downtown Yonge Street that a chorus of spinning neon discs once lit up, in a city with a population of 49,454, is what’s left of Sam the Record Man.
“I never thought that I would be the last Sam the Record Man,” says Spencer Destun, 74. “We didn’t plan on it.” It’s a wintery Tuesday afternoon, and Mr. Destun is at his desk in the Belleville store’s back room, overstock CDs piled up on shelves behind him. His 41-year-old son, Krystofer, is sitting on an empty wooden LP crate, wearing one of the store’s t-shirts, which feature the flagship store’s façade, “THE LAST” stamped above the “SAM” in the “YES THIS IS SAM THE RECORD MAN” sign. (The shirts go for $19.99 each.) Holly Destun, 54, Spencer’s wife, is out front, using a pricing gun on a stack of CDs.
It’s a modest end to a chain that was anything but. Sam Sniderman started selling records out of his family’s radio shop at 714 College St., near Ossington, in 1937. By the late fifties, newspaper ads with what had become Sam’s trademark enthusiasm (“ANYBODY CRAZY ENOUGH CAN SELL AT THESE PRICES BUT ONLY ‘SAM THE RECORD MAN’ DOES!!!") were already boasting that the store had the largest record selection in the country. Then came Yonge Street: after a short stay below a furniture store at Dundas, Sam’s opened up the block at Gould on Sept. 5, 1961, its sprawling interior “organized with all the finesse of a steamer trunk packed by somebody given five minutes' notice to leave the country,” as Toronto Star writer Gerald Levitch put it in 1979.
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But that wasn’t big enough for Sam’s. Jason Sniderman, who started working in his dad’s store as a seven-year-old and became the company’s vice-president in the eighties, says in a phone call that “the idea was to have the chain spread as widely as possible across the country.” And it did: huge stores opened in cities such as Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, Hamilton and Edmonton, and smaller ones opened everywhere. There were somewhere between 125 and 150 at the height of the chain’s popularity, Mr. Sniderman guesses. “I travelled with my dad all the time,” he says. “Whatever airport he was in, he was recognized as being Sam the Record Man.”
As Sam’s grew, so did the sleepy Canadian music industry. Before the chain took off, Mr. Sniderman remembers, “you could never contemplate a Canadian music business with people selling 10,000 records, let alone millions.” But Sam Sniderman stocked locals – Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, the Guess Who and Buffy Sainte-Marie, to name a few – and helped change all that. “I think that’s his true legacy,” he says.
In May, 1979, Spencer Destun opened his first Sam’s franchise store in downtown Belleville; Holly Destun was the manager. He opened a second a few years later in Trenton, Ont., then closed it and opened another in Quinte Mall in 1985. For a while, remembers Mr. Destun, “we were basically the only game in town – when I say we, I don’t mean Sam’s: I mean the music industry. … we had a lot of people coming into our store because they didn’t have other options as to where to go and spend their entertainment dollar. It was easy that way.” But by the late-nineties, music-sharing services such as Napster and competitors like HMV had left Sam’s share of a shrinking market at only 9 per cent, according to Billboard magazine; it had once been 25 per cent. When Sniderman Radio Sales and Service Ltd. declared bankruptcy in October, 2001, “people would come into the store and say, ‘When are you closing?’ and I’d say, ‘We’re not closing,'” remembers Mr. Destun. (By then, the family had already shuttered the downtown Belleville store. In the 1990s, Mr. and Ms. Destun added one last Sam’s, in Kingston; that, too, had since closed.) Other franchisees weren’t so lucky, and by the time the last two corporate-owned stores, in Halifax and on Yonge, closed in 2007, only the Belleville and Sarnia, Ont., franchises were left. By the time Sam Sniderman died in 2012, the Quinte Mall Sam’s was it.
“Even though we could probably exist by calling it something else, we would lose all the cachet that is involved in the Sam the Record Man name. Now, that cachet is quickly disappearing,” Mr. Destun says. “So it’s very, very important that we work at keeping this name alive.” Last spring, they launched SamTheRecordMan.com, to save locals from neighbouring municipalities such as Port Hope, Bancroft and Cobourg from having to make the long trip into town. And they’ve started focusing on vinyl records again, since it’s what twenty– and thirtysomethings have started coming back to the store to buy.
“We’re carrying on an idea that seems to have had its day,” Mr. Destun says. But, he adds, “we’re not quite so sure we can’t blend it into something else.”
Still, vinyl makes up only 3 per cent of their sales; online sales account for less than 1 per cent, and it doesn’t seem like many young people are buying there yet–the site’s current three best sellers are 16 Biggest Hits by John Denver, 1964–1971: Very Best Of by the Rolling Stones, and 1974-1978: Greatest Hits by Steve Miller. The locals who sell in-store, meanwhile, are acts like Freddy Vette (a local DJ who fronts a fifties cover band) and Andy Forgie (a local DJ who fronts a Beatles cover band). Were it not for DVDs, “we would’ve been out of business five years ago, six years ago,” says Mr. Destun.
Everyone is quick to point out that today is a slow day – “a snow day,” says Krystofer, with a shrug – but there are more of those now than there used to be. On a good day a decade ago, the store could make 500 sales; on a good one now, they’ll make 250; this day, they’ll barely hit 50. “A music store is not sustainable any more,” says Mr. Destun. But a Sam’s, they hope, still might be, at least as long as their customers keep following the instructions on another sign that greets them just inside the store’s entrance. “THANK YOU! For keeping us in business!”, it reads. “Buy lots!!!”
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Record Store Day – which this year sees independent music retailers across Canada and elsewhere stocking exclusive vinyl releases from artists such as R.E.M., Green Day, Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay – is this Saturday, April 19; Sam the Record Man (390 N. Front St., Belleville, in Quinte Mall) will be open 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
New Spirit Garden to provide link to Alderville First Nation’s past
KINGSTON – A new garden in Lake Ontario Park is meant to provide a link to Kingston’s Indigenous past.
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The new garden, to be called “Manidoo Ogitigan” (“Spirit Garden”), is to help tell the story of the Alderville First Nation, which in 1837 was relocated from the Kingston area to a 1,450-hectare (3,600-acre) site near Rice Lake in Alnwick Township north of Cobourg.
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The finished garden was unveiled on Monday, which was National Indigenous Peoples Day.
“Our people were here for a long long time and after the American revolution everything changed,” said Dave Mowat, chief of the Alderville First Nation.
“The whole wave of settlement history and the whole wave of the British occupation, with resettling the loyalists, it meant that our people had to be moved out of the way. It’s not a pretty history.”
The move, first to Grape Island near Belleville and finally to its present location along the south shore of Rice Lake, was part of a “land surrender,” prompted in part by an influx of United Empire Loyalists following the American Revolution.
The garden is meant to be a link between the Alderville First Nation and its history in Kingston.
When it was approved by city council in 2019, the garden was described as a homecoming for the Alderville First Nation, and Mowat said it is hoped it will serve as a way of acknowledging the impact colonization and attempts at cultural assimilation had on the Indigenous community.
It will also provide a physical place for members of the first nation to gather in their ancestral home, he said.
The city has been working with the Alderville First Nation since 2013 the chief at the time, Jim Marsden, proposed the idea to establish a commemoration site in the Kingston area.
At last Cinderella shall go to the ball! Lloyd Webber’s retelling - with Doc Martens and fishnets
Already it has been quite the show, and the curtain hasn’t even risen on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-awaited Cinderella.
Thanks to the ever-changing Covid restrictions — dictating how many theatregoers can be welcomed to the venue — the £6 million retelling of the beloved fairy tale has been at the centre of an extraordinary political fracas.
For months the theatre mogul has been insisting he would open yesterday for press previews come what may, and he was prepared to go to jail rather than let down his audience.
But the ‘Freedom Day’ of June 21 was pushed back to July 19. Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to do ‘whatever we can to be helpful’ for the show.
However, Lloyd Webber rejected his offer of allowing the show to be part of a scheme to allow some theatrical productions to go ahead at full capacity, as it would not have helped other shows.
He is to put on the production with the audience at 50 per cent capacity.
It’s a financial disaster and he reveals that he will ‘personally’ bear the cost. Sources indicate it’s likely to exceed £100,000 a week — possibly as much as £500,000 in all. But what of the show itself, written by British Oscar-winner Emerald Fennell?
Alison Boshoff reports on the musical that Covid couldn’t kill…
Already it has been quite the show, and the curtain hasn’t even risen on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-awaited Cinderella
Cinderella goes goth
Cinderella is a refusenik in a fairy-tale village where all the girls are size eight blondes in pastel frocks.
By contrast, Cinderella, played by Carrie Hope Fletcher, wears big black Doc Marten boots, with fishnets and black lace gloves and is scornful of the fairy-tale aesthetic.
Writer Emerald Fennell has turned Cinders’s home town, Belleville, into a modern version of the fairytale village, complete with a ‘witch-dunking lake,’ a ‘convent for unsightly women’ and a ‘nip and tuck tavern.’
Cinderella, played by Carrie Hope Fletcher, wears big black Doc Marten boots, with fishnets and black lace gloves and is scornful of the fairy-tale aesthetic
Fennell says: ‘Part of that is the world of the godmother, a sort of megalomaniacal, terrifying plastic surgeon-cum-couturier who has made everyone in that town look the way they look.’
Prince Charming has left town and his younger brother, Prince Sebastian, is the love interest.
Fennell says that Sebastian is similar to Cinderella in that he’s always been overlooked, and that the romance springs from a point of friendship. ‘They have been friends their whole lives and suddenly everything changes.’
In keeping with her rebellious leading role, Carrie Hope Fletcher, pictured with Andrew Lloyd Webber, has spoken out in support of his rejection of Boris Johnson’s offer of help. ‘Yeah, I did get a few tweets that day going, “tell your mate Boris” and I’m like, “my mate Boris? What?” As if I’ve got a batphone!’
The glass slipper and Prince Charming remain, but gone is the idea that you have to change yourself for someone to love you.
Fletcher said: ‘I do wish this version of Cinderella had been around when I was 17, because I’d have been obsessed.’
Rehearsing in a bubble
The cast and crew have been in a bubble since March. Everyone who attends the Gillian Lynne Theatre where they are rehearsing has had to have a Covid test every 48 hours.
Technical rehearsals — with everyone in place and together — have been going on for almost two weeks. Leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher observed: ‘We’re bibbidy-bobbidy back!’
Prior to that, choreography was initially done in a studio in Connecticut, with dancers at the Gillian Lynne Theatre and on Zoom working through pieces like the waltz at the ball.
Lloyd Webber said in March: ‘We just had our first run-through for Emerald. She hadn’t actually heard her script for the first time properly. It was an absolutely extraordinarily emotional moment for all of us because we were like, “Oh, my God, we’re in a theatre. We’re actually doing what we do.”
‘I walked off to the back and I must say, I did have a tear.”
Sparkles and castles
Emerald Fennell’s script may be a feminist retelling, but there are still plenty of sparkles in this fairy tale.
Costume designers have fixed over 15,000 Swarovski and Preciosa crystals to the costumes, and more than 250 pairs of hand-made shoes have been created.
Costume designer Gabriela Tylesova commissioned custom-printed fabrics from Italy and the UK for the costumes which are contemporary fashion but influenced by period costume.
For the set, Lloyd Webber was inspired by the fortress at Carcassonne, France, although what has resulted is a ‘toned down’ version of the famous medieval citadel.
There are over 5,000 lights embedded in the floor and back wall. The set was built by workshops based in Plymouth, Cardiff, Tunbridge Wells and Cambridge. The back wall of the show is formed by a series of handmade ribs which give a sense of movement. There are 210 of them, and if laid end to end they would run for 2km.
The A-list fans
The show only opened to its first preview last night, but Fletcher has already found herself an army of fans.
This week, she woke up to a tweet from Hollywood star Mia Farrow in response to a video of her performing one of the show’s songs.
Russell Crowe tweeted the same video, seemingly so impressed that he simply wrote the words ‘Carrie Hope Fletcher’.
Star with a pop prince brother
Carrie Hope Fletcher, 28, is an actress, writer and blogger — and the younger sister of McFly star Tom Fletcher.
Carrie Hope Fletcher, 28, is an actress, writer and blogger — and the younger sister of McFly star Tom Fletcher
She started in showbiz aged five, in a Honey Nut Cheerios advert.
Like Tom, she went to the Sylvia Young Theatre school. At nine, her West End career began when she was cast in Les Misérables, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Mary Poppins.
She said: ‘I had a difficult start to secondary school, missing the first month because of Mary Poppins. Everyone knew who I was, who my brother was — McFly were huge by then — and had made their mind up about me. One girl made everyone’s life a misery, picking on insecurities. But that’s just teenagers.’
She didn’t go to drama school or university but wrote a blog and a self-help memoir, plus four romantic novels.
Fletcher, who lives in London, is providing a ‘tuck shop’ for the cast in her dressing room including fizzy drinks and chocolate bars.
Anyone who wants a drink or snack is being asked to write a joke in her Cinderella journal by way of payment.
She lives in North-West London with her cat, and is dating actor Oliver Ormson.
Fletcher has been outspoken on the issue of the theatre industry’s treatment of women, and body image.
During her second stint in Les Misérables — from 2013 to 2016 — she was referred to by a senior member of the creative team as ‘our butch Éponine’, which knocked her confidence.
She said: ‘It was my first adult job, and just a throwaway comment. They were like, “Well, we’ve not had anyone as big as you before.” I thought, “OK, will I have to put up with that for the rest of my career now?” Thankfully, producers are opening their eyes and having discussions for the better.’
More than one Prince Charming
Actor Tosh Wanogho-Maud was cast as Prince Charming, and completed four weeks of rehearsals before leaving, citing a schedule clash.
He has been replaced by Caleb Roberts who had a small role in the 2018 TV series A Very English Scandal about former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe.
Caleb Roberts, who had a small role in the 2018 TV series A Very English Scandal about former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, will play Prince Charming
Fairy tale of a first-time lead
The male lead is dancer Ivano Turco, a graduate of Urdang Academy in Islington, who is a newcomer to the stage.
Born in Zimbabwe, he grew up in Milton Keynes and went to his first audition in July for an ensemble part. There he caught Lloyd Webber’s eye.
He said: ‘I was asked to stay behind and I remember being in the dressing room pacing nervously. I had to dance and sing in front of the creative team and then . . . two days later I got the call.
‘It still feels weird now saying: “My role”. I can’t believe it. It really is the stuff of fairy tales. It is a magical story.’
Born in Zimbabwe, Ivano Turco grew up in Milton Keynes and went to his first audition in July for an ensemble part. There he caught Lloyd Webber’s eye
Lloyd Webber said: ‘Ivano initially came in to audition as a dancer but has a natural acting talent, a wonderful voice and an innate charm and warmth, and from the day we met I just knew I’d found our Prince.’
The midwife with an Oscar
Actress and writer Emerald Fennell, 35, who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film Promising Young Women this year, is the writer of Cinderella.
Lloyd Webber has been a friend of her father, society jeweller Theo Fennell, for decades.
She recalls: ‘I was sitting next to Andrew at a friend’s dinner, which makes my life sound much more exciting than it is.
He said he’d always wanted to make Cinderella, but had never found a way to do it that was different.
‘I told him the problem with Cinderella is that it relies upon the fact that a makeover makes a woman better, and then wrote him an outline.
‘He is incredibly decisive and collaborative. And he really does take everything on board. I know that if I say something he might not agree with me, but if he doesn’t, he will almost certainly be right.’
Actress and writer Emerald Fennell, 35, who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film Promising Young Women this year, is the writer of Cinderella
It’s a huge first theatre job for Fennell, left, a credited writer on Killing Eve who has also written novels, starred in Call The Midwife until 2017 and more recently portrayed Camilla Parker Bowles in the Netflix drama The Crown.
Lloyd Webber says: ‘It is faithful to the original and has the beloved elements — the ball, the glass slipper.
But in the original the story rather runs out of steam when the Prince is holding the slipper, but here there is a bit more to it than that. There is an edge.’
But can we actually go to the ball?
The theatre has been sold to 100 per cent capacity, and Andrew Lloyd Webber has written to ticket holders — who’ve paid up to £162 for entry — to thank them for their patience and to warn them that they might have to change their plans at short notice.
Lloyd Webber has previously said he will lose money if the theatre is less than 80 per cent full. He will now open at 50 per cent capacity.
He said: ‘Having taken legal opinion from senior counsel, if we had gone ahead at 100 per cent it would be very likely that every member of my cast, crew and orchestra, the front and backstage staff, plus our loyal audience members, could be individually fined hundreds of pounds, which I couldn’t possibly risk.
‘If it were just me, I would happily risk arrest and fines to make a stand and lead the live music and theatre industry back to the full capacities we so desperately need.
‘For now, Cinderella is the first world premiere of a new musical in this country since the pandemic. It is the product of hundreds of people’s tireless effort for years. Win, lose or draw, we have to continue.’