holes of choice for Toronto’s criminals and their hangers-on. Tong and his partner at the time, Jack Gillespie, would go into the bars just to let these patrons know they were around and they were watching.
Barkeep Lennie Jackson was a drifter, a pool shark, and one of these hangers-on; he landed a job at Starr’s tavern after moving to Toronto from Niagara Falls. As Vallée writes, “It wasn’t long before Lennie Jackson decided he wanted some of the better things in life, and that the way to get them was not by waiting on tables in a bar, but by robbing banks.” Jackson ended up quitting the Horseshoe and becoming a wanted man for his role in a series of bank robberies with the Boyd Gang. He was eventually shot by Gillespie, but not before he and his fellow partner in crime, Steve Suchan, shot and fatally wounded Tong in March 1952.
While there are a couple of old newspaper stories about shootings near the Horseshoe in the 1950s, these events were rare. Asked about this by the Globe and Mail, long after he had retired and the bar was set to celebrate its fortieth anniversary, Starr, then seventy-seven, replied, “Oh, there were a few freak incidents like that. In the early days, we spent about 90 percent of the time at the door keeping out the type of people we didn’t want in. But over the years we had a cross-section of all kinds: college kids, doctors, lawyers, and businessmen.”
Besides this eclectic cast of colourful characters, most of Starr’s regular patrons were good-time folks from the East Coast. Daughter Natalie Clairman remembers, “At a time when the economics in the Maritimes was not very good, they were migrating to Toronto. They were country music fans, so they eventually persuaded my dad to bring in some music. It sounds simple, but that’s as simple as it was.” Adds Natalie’s son, Starr’s grandson Gary Clairman, “I’m sure Jack became a fan of country music, but it’s not like he was playing it around the house. He was smart enough to know though that it was going to fill the place.”
The country and western acts certainly helped pack the establishment. Beginning in the early 1950s and lasting until he retired in the mid-1970s, Starr’s booking policy helped fill the Horseshoe’s coffers for twenty-five years. Marvin Rainwater was the first act Starr hired. Rainwater, an American country and rockabilly singer and songwriter, had several hits during the late 1950s, including “Gonna Find Me a Bluebird” and “Whole Lotta Woman” — a number one record in the United Kingdom. The musician was known for wearing stage outfits based on traditional aboriginal clothing; he was part Cherokee.
The first country performer, though, was Shorty Warren, from Jersey City. As Starr later told the Globe and Mail, “Country music was not a socially accepted genre at the time, so the tavern provided an escape for country music lovers.”
Starr’s business acumen, marketing and promotional powers quickly built the Horseshoe Tavern from an intimate eighty-seven-seat restaurant serving food, beer, and liquor, and catering to a neighbourhood clientele, to a five-hundred-seat music venue serving the growing musical needs of expats and migrant workers from Atlantic Canada — and also satisfying the growing legions of Hogtown’s country music fans. Stompin’ Tom Connors recalls this reputation in his second memoir: “Everybody who was a country fan and who landed in Toronto for any reason, either by plane, car, bus, or train, for any length of time, sooner or later wound up paying a visit to the Horseshoe.”
2
Nashville North
I won’t stay home and cry tonight like all the nights before
I’ve just learned that I don’t really need you anymore
I found a little place downtown where guys like me can go
And they’ve got bright lights and country music
Bright lights and country music, a bottle and a glass
Soon I’ll be forgetting that there ever was a past
And when everybody asks me what helped me forget so fast
I’ll say, “Bright lights and country music”
— Bill Anderson and Jimmy Gateley, “Bright Lights and Country Music”
You can make a case that the high point of the Horseshoe Tavern’s existence was during its heyday as a country music bar. I am not talking about the mainstream country you hear over the airwaves today. I am talking about vintage country, the kind your grandparents tuned in to on their transistor radio after a hard day’s work — listening to a station from Wheeling, West Virginia, or Nashville, Tennessee, at the farthest reaches of their FM dial. From the mid-1950s to the late 1960s at the Horseshoe, lineups around the block were common. The tavern’s stationery proclaimed, “Toronto’s Home of Country Music.” Seven nights a week, honky-tonk tunes spilled out onto Queen Street. Nashville legends — and future Country Music Hall of Fame members — picked and strummed their guitars and sang their timeless songs on the ’Shoe’s stage to adoring audiences. Some of them even recorded albums at Starr’s bar. You could see the admiration all the Nashville acts had for the Toronto venue and for its charismatic owner. Take the famed American bluegrass musician Mac Wiseman, for example. As he writes on the sleeve of his 1965 album Mac Wiseman Sings at the Toronto Horseshoe Club, “The Horseshoe uses top country & western artists fifty-two weeks a year and the great success being enjoyed by this fine club must be attributed to Mr. Jack Starr and his friendly, efficient staff. Mr. Starr is not only a very smart club manager; but he’s also a wonderful person and a true friend of country music. Anytime you are around Toronto, drop in at the Horseshoe, and tell Jack — Mac sent you.”
Donn Reynolds, Canada’s “King of the Yodellers,” poses outside the Horseshoe Tavern.
This is a part of the tavern’s rich history few know about. Many of those famous performers from that era have passed on; others have fuzzy memories of those days. Thankfully, a handful of these musicians — and some of the fans — are still around to share their stories. Allow me to transport you back to those good, old country days.
* * *
Fifty years ago, the Horseshoe was known in the music industry as Nashville North and was a regular stop for the top country stars of the day, including those great acts from the Grand Ole Opry. The list of performers who graced the ’Shoe’s stage during this period could fill this book. The following is just a sampling of the country heavyweights who played there: George Hamilton IV, Faron Young, Kitty Wells, Bob Luman, Ferlin Husky, Little Jimmy Dickens, the Carter Family, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Bill Anderson, Charley Pride, and Tex Ritter.
Nearly every country superstar of the time, save Hank Williams, Porter Wagoner, and Buck Owens, played there. Although according to Wayne Tucker, who wrote the definitive biography of Dick Nolan — the leader of the Horseshoe’s house band during this period — Owens, known for pioneering the Bakersfield sound, did make an unannounced, impromptu appearance.
Buck Owens was a big name in the 1960s and his fees were high. For this reason he didn’t actually play the Horseshoe. But one night Buck dropped into the ’Shoe just to hear the music. He was keeping a low profile amongst the crowd and he had asked Dick, the emcee, to keep his presence a secret. Dick knew that Buck had a temper but he ignored his request and announced that he was in the audience. Then to stir the pot he said: “Would you like to hear him sing?” So an angry Owens had no choice but to take the stage and do a number for free.
When the club was full, it was full, which was nearly every night. Bill Anderson, Tex Ritter, and Willie Nelson were some of Starr’s favourite acts. Years later, many performers still recall with fondness
