Singer-songwriter Carol Isaac
led a gypsy-like life before settling in
Winnipeg in the latter ’60s. Born in
Saskatchewan and raised in Nova Scotia,
the daughter of an Air Force father, she
hit the road as a solo folk music artist
in her latter teens criss-crossing the
country by train or by thumb to perform at
coffeehouses.
“I was playing at the 4D (Fourth
Dimension) coffeehouse in Fort William in
1965 when Neil Young was playing
afternoons there with his band the
Squires,” she said. Isaac recorded a
solo album in Montreal and even appeared
on radio with Tommy Hunter but put down
roots in Winnipeg after playing a few gigs
with country performer Eddie Laham.
Meeting Bill Iveniuk, folk duo Bill &
Carol was born.
By 1969, the two had switched to electric
instruments with Carol on electric guitar,
Bill on bass, drummer Gord Osland, and
guitarist Greg Leskiw and taken the name
Wild Rice. After Leskiw left to join
the Guess Who, guitarists Eddie LeClair
and Dale Russell played in Wild
Rice. “It was really hard after Greg
left because we had a pretty good sound
together,” she said.
“We opened for several acts at the
Centennial Concert Hall and did a few
shows with the Guess Who,” said Isaac, who
recalls Guess Who manager Don Hunter
bringing the group to New York to try
getting RCA Records to sign them. In
late 1972, Wild Rice released an album
titled Together on their own Rice Records
label recorded at Century 21 studios in
Winnipeg and featuring the top local
musicians. The group appeared in
local pubs and played in the American
Midwest.
“It was a bit tricky playing down there
because of the Vietnam War going on and
the draft,” she recalls. By the
mid-1970s, the two had grown apart.
Their swan song came one night performing
at the Paddock restaurant on Portage
Avenue. Ex-Guess Who member and
friend Jim Kale was in the audience
heckling the two. “I just stopped in
the middle of a song,” she said, “put my
guitar down, went out into the audience,
grabbed Kale by the lapels and offered to
take him outside to settle things. I
wasn’t going to take any nonsense from
him.” That was it for Wild Rice.
