United Empire Loyalists

• Genres: Rock

Biography

Two hundred copies? That was the total number of pressings of "No, No, No," UEL's sole single release (circa 1968). From the outset, UEL's fan base was limited -- only a few hundred of Vancouver, BC's enlightened teens had ever heard of this band -- until the Vancouver Record Collector's Association rescued them from total oblivion, featuring UEL on the 1983 anthology History of Vancouver Rock and Roll, Volume 3. The group consisted of Rick Enns (lead vocals, bass), Anton "Tom" Kolstey (lead guitar), Jeff Ridley (rhythm guitar), and Glen Hendrickson (drums). Enns was a former member of the Tom Northcott Trio; Hendrickson also pounded the skins for Mock Duck and Orville Dorp. "No, No, No," with its complex but catchy guitar hook, was actually an old Willie Cobb blues tune titled "You Don't Love Me." The band appropriated it from Jerry Garcia and his mates -- having backed the Grateful Dead on more than one occasion. UEL were known for their extended free-form jam sessions a la Cream and Ten Years After. An hour-long studio performance was filmed by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in 1968 as part of the Enterprise television series (lost in a dusty vault somewhere?). Barring its rediscovery, UEL will remain more legend than reality. ~ Stansted Montfichet, All Music Guide

United Empire Loyalists was the name given to inhabitants of the thirteen colonies who remained loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution, and particularly to those who migrated to present-day Canada. In 1783 and 1784 the United States lost between 50,000 and 60,000 people, many of whom became the backbone of English-speaking pioneer settlement in Canada. Historians estimate that perhaps 100,000 United Empire Loyalists fled America during the revolutionary period. They emigrated mainly from New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island in 1783, and to Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) in 1784.

Bibliography

Calhoon, Robert M. The Loyalists in Revolutionary America, 1760–1781. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

Norton, Mary Beth. The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774–1789. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.

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