Happy Easter my friends! Something a little peculiar today, but something that seems perfectly suited to these peculiarly topsy-turvy times we’re living through currently… a Christmas record about the Easter bunny, from Californian country-western label Canary.Canary was one of two labels set up by songwriter Earl Miles around 1966. First came Canary – named apparently after the birds that Earl kept – and then the mostly spoken-word offshoot Yellow Bird. The company held a registered office in Redwood City, California but recorded the majority of their material in Nashville (at the Monument Studios) because, as Earl explained, ‘Our artists are all local people, but we want the authentic Nashville country flavor’. At some point in the 1970s, Earl decided to amalgamate, and the company’s sole label became Canary Yellow Bird.
What sets Miles apart from most song-poem/vanity projects is that, initially at least, Miles had some money behind him and was able to employ some decent talent. Kentucky-born but San Francisco-based park ranger and part-time singer Durward Erwin recorded several sides and an album, Mod and Country, for Canary, and some of those tracks were picked up by the Irish company Emerald (distributed by Decca in the UK) for release here in dear old Blighty, and short-lived Philips imprint Nashville for release in Britain and in Germany. Erwin/Miles sides were even issued in New Zealand.
(A little aside: according to Erwin’s own website, he wrote and paid for the songs on Mod and Country to be recorded: of the 12 songs on the album eight are credited to Earl Miles, three to Grace Tindall and one to Gertrude Faith. At first, I thought that Erwin and Miles could have been one and the same person, but apparently not, although according to later Billboard reports it does seem that Erwin was a shareholder in the business).
By 1969 money must have been running out, and instead of using talent like Erwin, he was relying on family members to record for him. Linda Rae Miles (his niece?) issued several sides for Canary Yellow Bird; further releases featured the ‘steel guitar artistry’ (that’s how it appears on the label) of one Smiley Miles, who also acted at Linda Rae’s personal manager. My assumption is that Smiley was either Earl’s brother or cousin. As far as I am aware it was not a nickname for Earl himself, and a 1969 newspaper article seems to confirm that Smiley and Earl were two different people.
That same year Earl coughed up the moolah to record a cable TV pilot, Canary Ranch, featuring Erwin, Bobby Wyld, Smiley and Linda Rae singing and playing some of his songs. Canary continued for a few years, but with no hits coming Earl decided to diversify, setting up a country records distribution company and artists booking agency from his office in California in 1971. In 1973 Canary relocated to Portland, Oregon. That same year Linda Rae released what appears to have been the last 45 issued by the company, The Christmas Bunny backed with The Christmas Bunny (Interview), promoting the release by performing in the Palo Alto branch of Macy’s department store.Earl Miles passed away in 1998, leaving his daughter, Doree, one of the children who appears on The Christmas Bunny (Interview), to look after his legacy.
Here are both sides of the fabulous Christmas Bunny 45. Enjoy!
Download Bunny HERE
Download Interview HERE