This Could Have Been a Power Studio #

One of the disappointing decisions that Ruben made was not joining forces with Century II Productions which was owned by Tommy Banks. Dr. Banks was mainly using the studio for recording jingles and commercials. He had started several ventures such as Banks Music Associates which was a booking agency run by his wife Ida and the Tommy Banks Orchestra which was a jazz big band that did several tours in Japan.

I think by this time Ruben was a bit leary of business partners because I think his partner was giving him a hard time about the slow money flow. However, Tommy Banks had contacted Ruben to see if they could join forces. Tommy was a music guy and so relied on hired people to maintain his equipment, he’s not an engineer. Ruben is not a music guy, so he leaves the producing up to the artists themselves but he is a full-fledged engineer.

Had this merger happened a lot of great things could have happened here. Tommy had the contacts to bring business in and Ruben had the chops to record those tracks. Also, I would be able to tell the world that David Foster and I both got our start from the same place. Even though David Foster is from Vancouver Island, he credits his recording career in Edmonton under Tommy Banks.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized how much Ruben wanted to get out of the recording business. We will circle back to that later in my story as we get closer to that timeline. In the meantime, I did do some recording myself. I think a lot of my payment from Ruben was in the form of time in the studio to record my band and other projects.