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NOSTALGIC VANCOUVER “The Band at the Top of the Town”
Arthur Delamont was paid a visit about this time (1937) by one of his sax players, Dal Richards. He told Arthur that he had the opportunity to take a professional gig that summer down at the Winter Garden (located on a pier at English Bay) so he would not be able to travel to San Francisco with the band. Arthur was getting used to losing his boys when they reached a certain age. He was just lucky that he always had new players in waiting. Dal would go on to play with Sandi De Santis’ band and Stan Patton’s band in 1938-39 and in 1940 he would succeed Mart Kenny as leader of his own band which would play for 24 years at the Hotel Vancouver’s Panorama Roof. Dal’s band was known as “The Band at the Top of the Town” and was heard nationally on CBC Radio. The musical rage from about 1935 to 1945 was dance bands and several of Arthur’s boys over the years would find a second home leading and playing in the top dance bands across the country, including his own son Gordon and Dal Richards.
Dal’s band comprised eleven pieces and it featured singers like Beryl Boden (his first wife), Lorraine McAllister (his second wife) and Juliette. Over the years the orchestra included, trumpeters Chuck Barber and Gordon Delamont and saxophonists Stan Paton and Lance
Harrison. (Dal Richards) –excerpt from The Life & Times of the Legendary Mr. D.