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Jamie Anstey with his collection.

Photo courtesy Scott Jenson

The Collector

By Joe Leary

Published 11:59 PST, Fri January 19, 2024

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Jamie Anstey is a collector, and while that; in and of itself is not necessarily the foundation for a compelling story, Jamie’s primary passion is.

For a number of years, the Richmond resident has been acquiring a large—and I mean large—stockpile of original master audio tapes of scores of Canadian artists and their often, long-forgotten recordings.

Some of them are famous and many of them flew below radar. But to Jamie, they’re all vital to the West Coast music scene and the artists deserve to have their recordings preserved and enshrined. And were it not for people like Jamie Anstey, dedicating their time to the laborious process of preserving these musical treasures, they would likely collect dust, or oxidize and simply not live to see the light of day, these many years after their recording dates. “I’ve always been a big fan of 60’s Vancouver music and was honored to be involved in many re-releases of material on CD and LP,” he says.

“Eventually; along with Larry Hennessey, I formed a record label called Regenerator Records, in order to reissue this stuff. Larry has played a huge part in all tape preservation”. Regenerator’s highlights include Terry Jacks Greatest Hits Anthology; and the first recordings of Chad Allan; the original lead singer and founder of the Guess Who. Allan passed away in November at the age of 80 “Larry really got me into the studio side of things and taught me a lot about tape machines and transfers. Eventually, I built my own studio, after acquiring about a dozen Studer machines from the CBC”.

As for Anstey’s penchant for acquiring and preserving master tapes, that came from his sheer respect for their historic value. “I realized how precious and rare they were, especially when you needed them to do a re-issue,” he says, adding, “and how great they sounded. I spread the word and people started bringing tapes to me to transfer; some in the business had large collections and other musicians had just a few of their basic ones.

My friend, the late Si Garber had worked at various studios over the years and had a warehouse full of tapes he had rescued. Those eventually came our way. The late Chad Allan—who was a dear friend for many years—had asked me to take a dozen boxes of his reels. It was there I discovered an early tape of the band’s first performance. That became, Early Roots; a release on our Regenerator label”.

Over the years, Anstey has enjoyed a lengthy relationship with Canadian recording artist Terry Jacks, most recently in a managerial capacity. During the pop star’s chart dominance—since first appearing on the local music scene as a member of rock group, The Chessman—Jacks amassed quite the musical catalogue; both as a solo artist and as a member of the ‘The Poppy Family’. “I’ve worked with Terry Jacks for the last twenty years and Larry and I ended up doing a double disc release of his 40-year anthology of hits,” he says. “Terry had saved every master tape of himself and The Poppy Family and they ended up joining the collection.”

Other treasures in Anstey’s warehouse include numerous musical gems from long-forgotten, yet iconic Vancouver bands, The Painted Ship, Mother Tucker’s Yellow Duck and Papa Bear’s Medicine Show. While acquiring these classic recordings started purely as a labour of love, costs quickly factored in. “There were some collections that required payment as well as travel expenses,” he says.

“Ultimately it costs me personally to store them on a daily basis and sometimes it’s difficult to pay the bills just to store this stuff”. At last count, Jamie Anstey’s collection of multi-track and master recordings sits somewhere around 20,000 individual reels. “I started cataloging them but as more were added it became more difficult to keep up. I’m way behind now but I’d like to get them all catalogued eventually and wherever possible, they will get released”.

One never knows where the next treasure trove of early Vancouver recordings will appear or what will eventually become of them. “Last year a friend, Jason Flower, was planning a release by a Victoria-based psychedelic-rock band called As Sheriff and had happened upon a few of their random recordings. Jason was shocked when I turned up with a ton of unreleased tracks to add to his project; which were re-mastered by Larry”.

It turns out they were recorded in Vancouver at R&D Studios; the same facility where local classics like the Poppy Family’s, Which Way You Going Billy and A Country Boy Named Willy by Spring was also recorded. “The ‘As Sheriff’ album was released earlier this year and sounds incredible,” adds Anstey. “I was happy to be able to add to that project and provide something musically that wasn’t supposed to exist, some sixty years later.

That’s what this is all about”.
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