In the White room

Longtime guitar player Richard White, CNV's recently appointed deputy city manager, plays in a band aptly named the Bureau Cats.

Sean Kolenko photo

Richard White knows a thing or two about city planning. He was the first person to handle the gig full-time for the City of North Vancouver. Prior to him, it was a contract, ad-hoc portfolio, used as needed by the city.

Much has changed ‘round these parts since that time, the evolution of Lower Lonsdale and the city’s waterfront lands offer but two examples, and White’s work has garnered some attention as a result. Last year, the Planning Institute of British Columbia, an organization with which he’s volunteered and served as media liaison, named him planner of the year — a nice pat on the back, to be sure, for a nearly three-decade tenure at 141 W. 14th Street.

But White, CNV’s recently appointed deputy city manger, is quick to share the spotlight and praise his colleagues for their work in helping chart the city’s development. Gary Penway, who’s assumed White’s old post as director of planning and community development, was the visionary behind the transformation of the waterfront, he says.

“That was primarily Gary’s work,” White says, nodding.

“He was the guy.”

If White appears eager to ensure his professional talents aren’t placed before those of his coworkers, then his readiness to downplay his musical chops is equally as strong.

A longtime guitar player, White is quick to qualify his axe-playing skills as “not very good” although he says he’s always enjoyed being part of a group. His current band, the aptly named Bureau Cats, don’t play as much as they used to but White says they still hit the stage for two or three gigs a year. In the past, a busy schedule might have yielded three or four times that.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he says, simply.

“I like playing in bands.”

White's a big jazz fan, but, like many, he says he doesn’t quite understand the genre. There’s a tension to jazz, White explains, an in-song push-and-pull between the instruments that requires an educated ear to grasp the intricacies present.

Rock and roll, on the other hand, is much more locatable and it’s the classic sounds of the '50s, '60s and '70s that White’s group of merry men toil in. He mentions The Band and guitar icon Robbie Robertson’s solo work, released after Robertson dissolved the group in the mid-70s, as a personal favourite.

Any discussion of The Band amongst rock aficionados is either prefaced or followed by a mention of Bob Dylan. And this conversation is no exception.

It was Dylan, on the advice of bluesman John Hammond Jr., that recruited The Band — then known as The Hawks — to perform with him on his then-controversial but now much-lauded first electric tour. It’s easy to talk about the importance of those shows, as a new pop music landscape was forged from the chorus of boos offered by folk music fundamentalists and the abrasive rock and roll the boys on stage countered with. Nothing in music was ever the same afterwards.

But it isn’t the mod-suited hipster-era Dylan that White is quick to talk about. He’s a fan of The Basement Tapes, a sprawling multi-genre collection of tunes The Band and Dylan recorded in the basement of Big Pink, the name of the home in West Saugerties, N.Y., the group rented in the late ‘60s.

From there, White mentions a veritable parade of acts he enjoys, from Van Morrison to Eric Clapton to the workingman’s rock of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And in a shrewd comparison, White says he believes that Springsteen’s reputation as a performer — a frontman still offering three-hour performances to sell-out crowds — is due, in part, to the impact of Mick Jagger a generation before The Boss exploded on the pop landscape.

“Jagger changed things for singers,” White notes.

“After him it wasn’t good enough to be part of a band like Dylan or Van Morrison, you had to be more.”

And, with that, White’s got to get back to work. The deputy city manager has a schedule full of tasks more important than dissecting the pantheon of rock greats. But, just before he heads back to his office, he offers one more glimpse into his personality.

It’s picture time and White asks, jokingly, how his hair looks.

“Looks fine,” I say, reassuringly.

“Not that you could be a critic,” he responds, with a laugh.

White is also, it seems, a comedian.

skolenko@northshoreoutlook.com
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