It was about 1954 when a pert teenager wearing kiss curls and a summer dress posed on a major Winnipeg hotel's nightclub stage for a promotional photo. Miss Berni G (Garrison) had been singing and tapping her way before audiences in Kenora, Ontario, since the age of five. At 18, she auditioned for a well-known Winnipeg radio show on CKRC and launched her musical career into the booming cabaret scene by becoming the vocal front for the Paul Grosney Orchestra.
As a kid she was only just learning the names of some of the greats with whom she was later to share a stage: Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and the Mills Brothers, to name a few. One time, just before a show, she offered to help an overweight, white-haired performer up the stairs. The woman proved to be Sophie Tucker in ill health during the last years of her life.
"She could still sing though, and she had that place packed," says Garrison today recalling those early career years and examining a photo of herself at age 18 on the cover of her latest CD, aptly titled From Then to Now. The CD was recorded locally and released through the independent label Bearwood Music. It's a collection of 20 old favourites including "Ain't Misbehavin'", "Stardust" and "Tennessee Waltz," on which Garrison pounds on her signature instrument, the piano. Although her career began with vocals, it is not the singing but the energetic piano that is the highlight of this CD - and the potent power of sentimental music.
"I've chosen the right music to make people happy," she says.
Garrison's career blossomed in 1961 as the darling of CBC TV's Stu Davis Show when she donned a cowboy hat and appeared with the Tumbleweed Trio. She was a single mother at the time and she managed to raise two kids while doing office work by day and a regular nightclub gig from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. The piano performance came later. Though she studied piano as a young girl, her real growth came after hearing the flamboyant pianist Liberace.
"I copied his recordings note for note; I learned them all by ear," she says.
On the CD, Garrison is joined by her "Frenz," Barry Taylor on drums, Paul Steenhuis on bass (also the record's producer) and a variety of guests including Walter Martella on trumpet, Graham Ord on sax with vocals by Susann Richter and Ray Fulber.
Usually a solo performer, Garrison considers herself lucky that so many have come forward. Her daughter, Kai-Lee Klymchuk, now working on her PhD in psychology and far removed from a musical career, is also included; she sings "Someone to Watch Over Me" on the new recording.
"When she'd finished singing," Garrison reports, "Paul [Steenhuis] came to me and said, 'We are hiding this talent because?' She knocked our socks off." Berni G is a familiar face at the annual pantomime, and she will arrange the music for this year's production of Sleeping Beauty. She has performed in a variety of shows from the goddess concerts of the 1990s to appearances at the Coast's care homes. For a while, she led senior men in song - an experience she will never forget.
"Every one of them was a gentleman," she recalls of the now disbanded choral group.
Her sense of humour and complete confidence on the stage has turned up in small parts for Driftwood Players productions and in the role of Buttercup for the musical HMS Pinafore.
The From Then to Now CD launch takes place on Oct. 25 at Gibsons United Church on Truman Road and promises to be an outstanding night of music with special guests and musical mayhem. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., show is at 7. Tickets at the door cost $8 for 65 plus seniors and $12 general admission.
