Six decades ago folk-singer Valdy got booed off stage. It led to his biggest hit

35:53Valdy: The Canadian folk music legend reflects on his 50-year career

Many people know Paul Valdemar Horsdal, better known as Valdy, as the singer behind Rock And Roll Song. It became a hit in 1972, and remains the Canadian folk singer's most popular tune. 

But that huge hit came out of a bad situation. In the late 1960s, as Valdy's popularity grew, the Aldergrove Rock Festival invited him to perform. But the rock fans at the B.C. festival didn't like Valdy playing his own folk music and covers of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. They raised their fists in the air yelling "Rock! Rock!" and "Get this jerk off the stage!" 

"It was just so hard on my ego," he says. "I was crushed."

He decided to turn those feelings and that experience into a song. He wrote Rock And Roll Song right after he returned home from the awful performance. Once Valdy released the song and heard it got big in both Edmonton and Winnipeg, he knew he had a hit on his hands. 

But to this day, Valdy still doesn't know why Aldergrove Rock Festival invited him to the show.

"Hats off to them for doing so," he says. "It gave me a song that gave me a career."

Since then, the 79-year-old continues to create music and tour the country. Up until the pandemic, he performed around 200 shows every year. He only cut down his performances to give other artists a chance.

"There's so many players out there and so few gigs that it's greedy of me to keep doing that," he says. "So I'm cherry-picking them now."

Valdy perfected the art of touring after doing it for nearly 60 years. He eats food that he can digest by showtime and takes a nap during the day to give him enough energy to keep going. Like one of his favourite artists, Bob Dylan, he refuses to stop touring.

"We don't quit from this business," he says. "It's just that people stop coming to see us play."

The full interview with Valdy is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Valdy produced by Cora Nijhawan.