Anglo Leather Company Band concerts ‘brilliant’
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com Story & Photos
HUNTSVILLE — “The Anglo Canadian Leather Company Band (ACLC), from Huntsville Ontario, was the best industrial band in North America.”
That was 100 year ago.
Saturday night 53 bandsmen and women channelled the brass band in the first of two weekend tribute concerts. The other sold-out show was Sunday afternoon.
“Brilliance” paid homage to its owner, C.O. Shaw, band leader Herbert L. Clarke and the workers and players who brought fame to the tiny Northern Ontario town by putting it on the national and international map.
And with a core of the Muskoka Concert Band, conductor Neil Barlow assembled an outstanding collection of additional musicians to put on a “brilliant” two-hour “best-of” the ACLC.
“The Huntsville Band,” as it was often referred to be indeed “the best industrial band” on the continent.
Certainly during the five-year contract that Shaw hired Clarke to run the band. And then for a time after.
Shaw, today better known for building the Bigwin Inn resort on Lake of Bays, east of Huntsville, made his fortune with his tanning company.
Muskoka had an abundance of hemlock trees, which produced a by-product that was the best for tanning leather. And so, Shaw’s Anglo Leather Company became the Commonwealth’s leading leather producer during the First World War, outfitting hundreds of thousands of soldiers worldwide with leather for everything from boots to leather belts and gun straps.
Needless to say he was a rich man with a big fat leather wallet filled with His Majesty’s money.
And he spent it on his music hobby.
In an effort to take away the tedium and toughness of the leather-tanning business, he turned the company band into one of the best in the world.
An accomplished amateur cornetist himself, he spared no expense in hiring away Clarke, the world’s pre-eminent cornetist, from the John Phillip Soussa leading band in Washington, D.C.
With that coup, he told Clarke to spare no expense in putting together the personnel and instruments needed for the finest band in the land.
And, as Barlow said during the musical journey (accompanied by slides), while some important historical artefacts exist in local archives, exact dollars figures aren’t clear.
But it’s believed that Shaw paid Clarke between $12,000 and $15,000 per year between 1918 and 1923. Today, that would be about $350,000 to $400,000 per year.
That was just the beginning.
Clarke augmented the existing band, comprised of mostly Italian industrial workers, with international all-stars in each section.
The band played regularly in band shell Shaw had built overlooking the tannery, which was on Hunter’s Bay (where today KWH Pipe is located).
The octagonal band shell, on Susan Street next to the Huntsville Public School still exists as a unique-looking five-sided home.
But as the band quickly progressed under Clarke, they rose to the top of the musical charts in Canada and United States, travelling regularly and challenging the best bands of all types, private, municipal and industrial.
“The Huntsville Band” was broadcast nationally by remote on early radio, and supplanted many American bands that used to dominate the stage at Canadian National Exhibition each August.
No need for them, when you have your own, better, band just up the way, said Barlow.
Saturday’s Algonquin Theatre concert featured many of the same pieces played a century ago using copies of the same charts, which still exist.
After opening with O Canada, the band played Chicago Tribune, Raymond Overture, L’Arlesienne Suite No. 1, Entry March of the Boyars, Hungarian Dances Nos. 5 &6, Light Cavalry Overture and “God Save the King.”
Guest cornetist, Robert Venable who played lead trumpet in Phantom of the Opera in Toronto, performed two beautifully powerful and soaring numbers.
The first was a solo Clarke would have played, entitled From the Shores of the Mighty Pacific. The second one was Hoagie Carmichael’s classic Stardust.
The band finished with “Canada’s other official anthem,” said Barlow, the Theme from Hockey Night in Canada.
The concerts were a presentation of the Muskoka Concert Band with the Huntsville Festival of the Arts.
Saturday night’s audience was dotted with dozens of original band member family members.
The largest contingent was Shaw family relatives, including Bob McLennan’s gang, many who came the 300 miles from their homes in Brockville.
They made the trek especially for the concert weekend and attended a Conway family reunion Sunday afternoon on Lake of Bays.
They thought it was “brilliant.”
And while most of them aren’t involved in music, they are very proud of their C.O. Shaw roots.
Another bandsmen with a cheering section was Abbott Conway Sr., and his son’s wife, Beth, was among those thrilled to be at the concert.
“It was superb.”
Also on hand Saturday night was Martha Watson. Her great uncle George Simmons, who led the town band in Bracebridge joined the ACLC band as assistant conductor to Clarke and succeeded him after 2023.
