Saul Holiff stands with early rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Bill Haley, whom he promoted extensively in the late 1950s. London, Ontario, 1957.
The crowd was near capacity, but after the cost of promotion, posters, and rent of the arena, Saul made a grand total of $54. Undaunted, he pressed on, and by early August he hosted a dance marathon at the Lucan Arena with the Everly Brothers — who were currently enjoying the success of their song “Bye Bye Love.” The first marathon in the district for thirty-five years, the catch was that this one would feature four bands that played only rock ’n’ roll music, Saul told columnist Dick Newman. Judged by a panel, first prize was a new hi-fi recording set, and the venue featured a glass-enclosed mezzanine floor and modern air-cooling system that consisted of huge blocks of ice set in front of blower fans.18
Later that month Saul went on to promote a double bill with pop singer Jimmie Rodgers and a sixteen-year-old Canadian teen idol named Paul Anka. The son of an Ottawa restaurant owner, Anka was riding the wave of his monster hit “Diana,” penned when his friend Diane Ayoub asked him to write a song about her while they were at a high school party in Toronto. Saul felt certain about this show, and about Anka himself, who in his mind was destined to be another George Jessel.
Billed as a “rock ’n’ roll costume ball,” the show’s advance ticket sales included a draw for one lucky girl to have dinner with Anka and then dance with him at the arena. Despite the robust advertisements and Anka’s popularity, the show flopped. Clearly learning on the job, Saul continued to lose money on his promotions most of the time, and if he made anything at all, it was usually less than a hundred dollars.19
Despite this he remained convinced there was money to be made; he just needed to figure out how. And though he was personally more partial to the horns and strings of jazz and classical music, the challenge of promotion itself appealed to him more than selling clothing. He would soon learn that there were also other nuances, aside from the finances, such as the finicky and unpredictable nature of artists.
Edgy and zany, musician Little Richard caught Saul’s attention with a string of hits he released through the 1950s, like “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally,” so he phoned his manager and booked him for two dates in December. Two months before the shows, Little Richard’s management in New York phoned back to inform Saul that though the contract had been signed, these dates — and all others he had scheduled on his tour — were cancelled. While on a record-breaking tour in Australia, Little Richard had experienced an epiphany after a ball of fire soared overhead as he played at a stadium in Sydney. It was the launch of the Russians’ Sputnik 1, but already exasperated with the pressures of touring and the need for spiritual regeneration, Richard took it as a sign. Abruptly, he decided to leave his rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, change his ways, and become a preacher.20
“I have a great favour to ask. This afternoon, Gale Agencies in New York phoned to tell me that two dates that were signed and sealed for Little Richard and his orchestra in London and Kitchener on December 20th and 21st, plus all of his other bookings, have been cancelled. It appears that besides needing psychiatric treatment, Little Richard has become a monk,” Saul wrote to Everly Brothers manager Wesley H. Rose. “I had made extensive arrangements for these dates, such as the securing of highly desirable auditoriums in both Kitchener and London and have now been left holding the bag. I know that Don and Phil are not booked for these dates and would appreciate having them appear for me at that time.”21
The Brothers were unable to fill the shows, as they wanted to be home for Christmas, but despite these setbacks, Saul persisted. The following year, he expanded to nearby cities and bought three dates for Alan Freed’s ABC-TV summer series The Big Beat, a show featuring Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis. It was a smash, and the venue was packed to the rafters with more than four thousand wild, sweaty teenagers. By the summer of 1958, Saul promoted his first tour with the Everly Brothers and booked them for eight dates across Ontario and Quebec. Saul drove the boys to each city himself, during which he caught a glimpse of their notoriously acrimonious relationship and watched in the rear-view mirror as they fought bitterly “like cats and dogs” in the back seat the entire time.22
More dates followed with some of the most prominent names in rock: the Ink Spots, Sam Cooke, Frankie Avalon, Duane Eddy, Bobby Helms, Kitty Wells, Brenda Lee, Marty Robbins, Buck Owens, Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, Ferlin Husky, Faron Young, and Carl Perkins of “Blue Suede Shoes” fame. When rock ’n’ roll acts first began their crossover into Canada, they frequently travelled as package shows, primarily because many of them had only a few songs in their entire repertoire. As such, it wasn’t unheard of to have up to fifteen performers in a two-hour show.
Saul often postered his car to advertise the shows he was promoting. In the background is the theatre that advertised a contest to win a trip to Mexico, which Barbara Holiff won. Ontario, 1961.
In the early days, Carl Perkins performed in a country trio with his brothers Jay and Clayton, often touring with drummer W.S. “Fluke” Holland and the Isley Brothers, who were soul gospel singers. The first time they played in Canada they drove up in a brand new 1956 Fleetwood Cadillac for a date in the old mining town of Trail, nestled in southern British Columbia.23 “It was dirt roads, and not because it was muddy or anything, but because there were deep ruts in the road where people had been driving through and we all had to climb out of the Cadillac because it kept bottoming out. In some places we had to push that car,” remembered Fluke.
Saul soon booked them for a show in Ontario and got a first-hand initiation into the dynamics of wild rock ’n’ roll personalities. “Clayton Perkins, he’s Carl’s younger brother — craziest dude I ever heard of or met since then. We showed up, and Saul was standin’ out in front of the hotel, waitin’ on us, and we all said, ‘There’s Saul Holiff.’ And Clayton got out of the car and he ran up to Saul and jumped into his arms and bit him on his ear. The funny thing about that is, somebody like Saul — sophisticated, alligator shoes and all this kind of stuff, and someone we were all lookin’ up to — and this crazy boy gets out of the car, and Saul never forgot it. Every time I saw him after that, I’d always say, ‘Hey, Saul, how’s that ear of yours?’”24
With contacts firmly established with many big-name musical acts, Saul then turned to the business of making money. There had to be a way to utilize their star power in a way that was more lucrative for him than typical promotional work.
By the spring of 1959, Saul had expanded his other entrepreneurial endeavours and opened Sol’s Square Boy, a drive-in restaurant and the first in Ontario to offer push-button voice ordering from the comfort of your car. As a gimmick, everything in the restaurant was square — “including the owner,” Saul liked to joke — from the cube-shaped signage to the ice cream scoops and even the hamburgers. Square patties were advertised with the clever slogan that it was “four extra bites for your money.” A partnership project several years in the making, promotion for the restaurant was kicked into high gear and at times edged into the ridiculous. The grand opening of Sol’s Square Boy featured a full-page fake news story about a pair of gorillas that had escaped from the set of a jungle movie and were “cavorting” in the restaurant. It included a photo of Saul restraining men in gorilla suits, who were going after a couple of horrified “square girls” — employees at the restaurant. “You may not have to be a member of the ape family … but you’ll have a lot of fun monkeying around at the official opening of Sol’s Square Boy Drive-In,” ran the caption underneath.25
The grand opening day itself featured men dressed in gorilla costumes bouncing on trampolines outside the restaurant to illustrate the “crazy prices,” and a woman staged so that she appeared