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Jewel of the west (beautiful B.C.) M. "Chickie" Frankel Permission to use this music has been granted by the copyright owner for educational and archival use only. Canadian Copyright Law must be respected by users of this site. Use of this material is restricted to those activities permitted by law. Users may not make multiple copies, distribute or sell this material without permission from the copyright holder. |
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To view a larger version of the image, click on the image(Pdf and MIDI files will not be available due to the request of the copyright owner)
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This song was issued on the RCA Victor label
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That what began as a simple piece of folk music became the Province of British Columbia's official theme marking both the 100 anniversary of the union of Vancouver Island and the Mainland and the centenary of the Canadian confederation, can only be viewed as absolute serendipity. With the exception of a song I wrote in Yiddish to honour my beloved Grandmother and which enjoyed one public performance, I had been composing sporadically over the years and simply filing the songs away. At the time my young family moved to Vancouver, however, the resurgence of folk music in the U.S. had crossed the border and its development and growth nurtured from coast to coast. Coffee Houses materialized in cities and towns across the country. For high school and university students and young professionals, they became the focal points for socializing. In the beginning, Vancouver boasted one full-fledged Coffee House owned by local entrepreneur, Howie Bateman, although more informal Hootenannies could be found on campus at UBC, in private homes and one-time only rented venues around the city. Numerous local folk groups and solo performers appeared on the scene and shared the stages with professional Canadian and international folk artists. It wasn't difficult to be caught up in those heady days, to the point, in fact, of going into partnership with two others to established The Attic - a coffee house located just two doors down from the city's Jazz club, on 4th just off Alma. I become good friends with a couple of local folk groups - The Wee Folks, The Jubilation Singers - bought myself a Martin folk guitar and shortly thereafter, an Autoharp, and began to learn to play these instruments with their guidance and encouragement. Eventually, I turned to composing folk songs. One of these was a song about my love for the beauty of the province - the mountains, ocean, forests, sunsets, etc. etc. One of my coffee house partners had been association with Radio Station CKNW in its promotions department. He asked if he could take the song to the station's Program Director at that time, the late Hal Davis (whom I believe became the General Manager in later years), thinking perhaps the station might be interested in using the song as it musical theme. The Jubilation Singers recorded a demo for me and it was delivered to Mr. Davis. I frankly didn't expect anything to come of the "audition," and was more than merely surprised to receive a telephone call from Hal asking if I'd come in to talk with him. The upshot was that he had been sufficiently impressed to consider taking the song to the B.C. Association of Broadcasters with a proposal to have the Association promote it on their respective stations as their centennial theme song and a gift to the citizens of the province. There was one "however" attached - would I be prepared to change some of the original lyrics to accommodate the inclusion of "Jewel of the West - Beautiful B.C." If I could do that and have the Jubilations rerecord the song with the new words, Hal would proceed with his proposal to the Association. Moreover, Hal not only sold the idea to the Association but the broadcasters decided they would undertake to approach the Province to declare "Jewell" its official Centennial theme song. As the saying goes: the rest is history. The members of the Association provided the funds and wherewithal to record the song professionally. An arranger was engaged to create six difference versions of Jewell to accommodate the music genres reflecting each station's playbill - so we have folk, bossa nova, rock, big band, big band with vocals, choral version. The LP was recorded at the Vancouver CBC studios and four versions were released on RCA Victor. Berendol Music published the sheet music. I waived first year royalties which were to be directed to Centennial music scholarships under the aegis of the Association. On New Year's Eve 1965-66, the Premier introduced Jewell of the West (Beautiful B.C.) as the Province's official theme song celebrating both the 100 anniversary of the union of Vancouver Island and the Mainland in 1966, and the Centenary of the Confederation of Canada in 1967. THE COMPOSER/LYRICIST Machelle "Chickie" (Frankel) Shapira was born, raised and educated in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The daughter of a musician and bandleader and granddaughter (maternal side) of a musician, composer and band leader, Machelle showed an early musical aptitude picking out popular songs of the day on the piano. She was introduced to piano lessons at the age of seven. When she was eleven she was accepted as a student by well-known Russian trained Winnipeg music pedagogue (piano/violin) Jascha Resnitsky. Under his tutelage she was also provided the opportunity to train as an accompanist to his violin students in recital and on radio. At 13 she took her first paying work accompanying a Saturday morning tap dance class. During her High School years she accompanied now internationally noted opera Basso, Winnipeg-born Norman Mittleman, when he gave a concert at the school, which was also his alma mater, on a visit home from his studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. She was also accompanist for an original musical written by Winnipeger Basie Marantz and staged at the YMHA. In 1960, Machelle's young family relocated to Vancouver when her husband was given responsibility for establishment of a branch office for his Winnipeg parent company. Since her maternal grandmother, two aunts and one uncle and their respective families had themselves relocated to Vancouver in 1946, following the end of WWII, Machelle had visited the City on numerous occasions in the intervening years. The move was thus, in many ways, a homecoming and she soon became an active member of the community and eventually, was caught up in the resurgence of Folk music happening across Canada during the early sixties. With two partners, the Attic Coffee House was established on 4th and Alma in 1963. The Opening featured the local artists, The Jubilation Singers and Claire Klein Osipov and her accompanist. The Club featured both national/international folk artists, e.g., Scottish folksinger, Jean Redpath, and "White Queen of the Blues," American Barbara Dane - a student of Bessie Smith and other blues artists of the time - and local groups such as the Wee Folk. The Coffee House was just beginning to take-off when U.S. President John Kennedy was murdered in Texas. As a consequence, the club was forced to close that entire week because the folk artist engaged to appear was an American - a draft dodger living and working in Vancouver - but nevertheless a strong supporter of Kennedy - who refused to honour his contract. An American folk duo which was to follow had requested, and was granted, a rescheduling agreement in order for them to take advantage of a more financial lucrative contract in the U.S. The local and Toronto performers quickly contracted to fill in were less the enthusiastically received and the resulting financial impact led the partners to cut their losses while they could and the Attic was closed. Throughout this period, Machelle had begun to play guitar and autoharp and to compose. One of her compositions became the Province's official Centenary theme song in recognition of the joining of the Island with the Mainland (1966) and the 1967 celebration of Confederation. She also became involved with the Jubilation Singers as their artistic representative and was responsible for producing their recording on RCA Canadiana Series. Another of her compositions appeared on the recording. Machelle also began teaching Biblical history at the Vancouver Peretz Institute, accompanied the Kindergarten music classes, was a member of the School's Board of Education and the Parent/Teachers Association and, from time-to-time, accompanied Claire Klein Osipov in concert. As well, the two collaborated to produce a long play tape of Jewish folk music. Following her 1966 separation from her late, first husband, Machelle returned to Winnipeg with her three children, where she eventually remarried From 1968 to 1974, she was the Administrative Director of Rainbow Stage Theatre, Canada's longest consecutively running outdoor musical theatre. And, in 1972-73 she spearheaded the establishment of Rainbow's Manitoba School for Theatre and Allied Arts - the first four-year, part-time pre-professional training program in Canada. Although she left Rainbow in 1974, she continued on as the School's Executive Director until its demise in 1989-90. From 1975 to 1980 she worked on a free-lance contract basis writing continuity for the first Western Canada Lotteries show (broadcast out of Edmonton with Alex Trebek in one of his first jobs as emcee), a three show CBC Winnipeg network television summer replacement musical production, for which she also composed original music for one segment. She also wrote a variety of television and radio documentaries, radio dramatizations and science-based productions for the Department of Education in cooperation with the four western provinces and broadcast weekly on CBC radio and TV. As well, she was production assistant and continuity writer for Sesame Street Canadian inserts, which emanated out of CBC Winnipeg (English language), and wrote an original song for one segment. During this time she also did research for Homemaker's Magazine, researched, wrote and was responsible for the photo layout for a 25th anniversary history of Rainbow Stage Theatre. In 1981, she was invited by the then Deputy Minister, to join the provincial Department of Culture as a contract researcher/policy analyst in preparation for an inaugural meeting of Federal/Provincial Ministers of Culture and Heritage. Machelle continued to accept contracts with the Department and worked with various Branches, including Public Library Services, Administration and Finance, where she was responsible for the development, preliminary drafting and supervision of the enactment process of the Manitoba Home Use Video Classification legislation; the Research and Planning Branch, the Office of the Assistant Deputy Minister and the Arts Branch. In 1992 she joined the Arts Branch on a term contract and was responsible for national and international cultural issue areas, as well as acting as back-up to the Cultural Industries Consultant. In 1996, Machelle joined the Branch permanently in the capacity as Cultural Industries Consultant. Her responsibilities included the book publishing, sound recording and film industries, as well as retaining national and international files. During this period she was the point person on the Department's initiative to re-establish the not-for-profit Manitoba Film and Sound Development Corporation (which was funded by the Department) as a corporation of government. In this capacity she worked to develop appropriate legislations in conjunction with Legislative Counsel and saw the initiative through to Proclamation. In 2002, Machelle accepted a promotion to the Assistant Deputy Minister's Office where she was Acting Policy Analyst until her retirement in 2005. In November, 2006, Machelle was honoured by Rainbow Stage Theatre for her outstanding contributions to the development, growth and administration of both the Theatre and the Theatre School during her respective tenures. This honour included induction into the Rainbow Wall of Fame. In her retirement, Machelle continues to play piano and guitar and to enjoy the opportunity to have music in her life all day long, seven days a week, by way of CBC 2 and her vast record/tape/CD collection.
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