In the months before Stampeders' bassist Ronnie King died at the age of 76, he was adamant that he would be making the Ontario gigs planned for the band in 2024. King's health had been in decline for a number of years, which had somewhat limited his abilities on stage for a series of tours. He was suffering from arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and cancer. He admitted to drummer Kim Berly, his bandmate for 60 years, that he didn't look forward to touring anymore. He had mobility problems, and he was in pain. Berly was often dispatched to drug stores while on tours to get medication for King during that time.
He was clearly ailing, but maintained both a stoic "show-must-go-on" attitude and his trademark good nature whenever he hit the stage. "It's funny, he told me many times that he didn't really like touring anymore and he didn't want to do it," says Berly, in a phone interview with Postmedia. "But it was when he was most alive, even in his last year. When you step on stage, a lot of aches and pains are just pushed to the side, and he could be present and enjoy it. So I knew that the tours were good for him, and we all did. There was never any question: As long as Ronnie could go, he was going to go."
A Farewell Tour and Tribute
King died of cancer on March 4, 2024, at Peter Lougheed Hospital. It was less than six weeks before the Ontario tour was to start. As per King's wishes, the tour went on. Musician Dave Chabot, a longtime friend of The Stampeders who also plays with the Jack Semple Band, filled in on bass and vocals and has been with them ever since.
A new tour will take the band to 13 cities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, including a June 11 show at the Werklund Centre's Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary, where the band formed in 1964. Since King's death, Berly, guitarist-vocalist Rich Dodson and Chabot have completed three tours, the first one in Ontario and also runs through British Columbia and the Maritimes. This latest Prairies leg will mark a turning point for the act.
"This is the last tour where we're introducing the new band," Berly says. "We've got a little tribute video to Ronnie, and I'm going to talk about him and tell some stories and all that. Then, I think, life will move on. But I want to make sure everybody knows when they show up at the concert that we are paying respect."
Remembering Ronnie King
Still, for longtime fans, it's hard to imagine the Stampeders without Ronnie King, the perpetually grinning and irreverent storyteller who was once dubbed the "Keith Richards of the Stampeders." Of the three, King best embodied the rock-star qualities that were expected of a band in the late 1960s and 1970s.
The Stampeders began life in Calgary in 1964 but departed for Toronto in 1966. It was a family affair early on, including Van Louis and Al Meyer, the older brothers of King and Berly. That first trip to Toronto was made in a rundown 1957 nine-passenger hearse that the band named "The Old Smoker" because its shoddy exhaust tended to fill it with toxic fumes as they travelled down the Trans-Canada Highway. Eventually, being a hard-working but poorly paid Toronto band took a toll on the Stampeders, which slimmed down to just King, Berly and Dodson. It was as a trio that the act found success, scoring a massive hit on both sides of the border with Dodson's Sweet City Woman in 1971 and dominating the 1972 Juno Awards. They would spend much of the decade as an in-demand stadium act, opening shows for The Beach Boys and The Eagles and occasionally rubbing shoulders with the likes of Keith Moon, Rod Stewart and Robert Redford. Berly has taken on the role of band historian and continues to reflect on those heady years. He is currently working on a memoir, while a documentary film is also in the works.
