Geoff Kulawick was once nominated for a Juno Award for producing an album by the Canadian rap group TBTBT, which stands for Too Bad To Be True.
What just happened to the Mississauga music guru — brokering a deal that puts the iconic Canadian record label True North under his umbrella — could well be labelled Too Good To Be True. Kulawick already has his own independent Canadian record label and music promotion business, called Linus Entertainment label which he runs out of Mississauga.
The True North label, with the logo of the needle pointing to true magnetic north, is the ultimate acquisition for a true-blue homegrown music fan like Kulawick, who made his reputation in the music industry by having the best ears in the business.
The True North catalogue includes the bedrock of the Canadian musical pantheon with artists such as Bruce Cockburn, Colin Linden, Murray McLauchlan, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and David Wiffen.
Even when he was scrambling to make a name for himself in the tough music business way back at the beginning of his career, the Ottawa native always had trouble dealing with music, and acts, he didn't believe in strongly himself.
"I never liked promoting music I didn't love myself," Kulawick said Friday in an interview at his Mississauga home.
In his first stint as the creative guy at Warner/Chappell, he turned heads by developing and recording groups like The Tea Party, Spirit of the West, the Rheostatics and King Cobb Steelie.
He got to write his own ticket when he moved to Virgin/EMI in Mississauga, working only with artists he wanted to sign.
"Geoff's a song guy, and his instincts are very good," said former EMI Music Canada President Deane Cameron in a Billboard Magazine story in 1998. "He also sees the [global] picture."
Kulawick is not limited by category or style. He has discovered and signed everyone from rapper Choclair to Leahy to the Boomtang Boys to La Bottine Souriante. When the latter 15-piece group plays, led by a guy sitting on a chair, tapping out the beat on a board, "you hear how the music evolved from New Orleans to Québec."
Still "a song guy", Kulawick has a stack of CDs on his desk, waiting to receive his professional assessment. (This is what my in-box looks in my dreams, by the way.) Careers are riding on what he hears.
The interview stops while Kulawick plays a couple of things he is particularly excited about. One is a cut called Emily's Song from Church Bell Blues, the new album by Catherine MacLellan, daughter of Gene MacLellan (author of Snowbird, Put Your Hand in the Hand The Call etc.)
Then he plays a couple of cuts from a group called The John Henrys, who sound eerily like the lost Ottawa Valley cousins of Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers. He's transfixed as he listens. True North is about to reconfigure an earlier release of theirs and reissue it with new artwork and fine-tuning of some songs.
Then Kulawick clasps Downchild's Live at the Palais Royale (which may be the best-reviewed album in Canada this year) and raves about how the live performance is the absolute perfect thing to slap on during a big summer barbecue.
It's his job to find the artists and it's his job to get them the success they deserve, the soon-to-be-44-year-old says. "People will not discover great artists just because they exist."
Which brings us to getting air time and radio play and sets Kulawick off on a diatribe against the formulaic mediocrity of many radio formats. "There seems to be discrimination against Canadian artists," he says, "discrimination that you don't see at retail or among fans."
Despite the obstacles, Geoff Kulawick plans to soldier on, bringing the next generation of Bruce Cockburns and Ron Sexsmiths to public attention, no matter how long and twisting the road to acclaim.
They couldn't have a more passionate ally.