Missing in Miss America

Joe Boyd and Mary Margaret O'Hara

Legendary producer/writer Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention) was in Toronto this weekend to promote his epic and excellent new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (wrote about it here). Coincidentally, the launch was held at the Rivoli: the Queen Street club that opened in 1982 with a logo designed by Mary Margaret O’Hara—and Joe Boyd played a big role in O’Hara’s one major album, 1988’s Miss America.

I wrote a chapter about that album in my book Have Not Been the Same (co-authored with Jason Schneider and Ian A.D. Jack).

How did Joe Boyd get to work with this Toronto singer, and why did he leave the project? Obviously, this question came up during the Q&A at the Rivoli.

One of the first records Joe Boyd put out on his Hannibal label — after no-wave-adjacent band Defunkt and the McGarrigles’ French Album — was Hal Willner’s Amarcord Nino Rota, a 1981 tribute album to the Italian film composer. Everything about that sentence gives you a hint of the depths of Boyd’s catholic tastes.

Sometime in 1982 or ’83, Willner told Boyd about this amazing Toronto band called Go Deo Chorus, that he absolutely must see. Mary Margaret O’Hara was the band’s singer. Boyd trusted Willner enough to hop a plane and see the group play at the Palais Royale in July 1983, a historic venue on the Lake Ontario shoreline. They were opening for Parachute Club, who’d just released their Daniel Lanois-produced debut. (Now there’s a gig I wish I saw. I was 11 years old.)

Boyd was blown away by Go Deo Chorus and wanted to sign the group—but they broke up the day after that gig. O’Hara and her manager, Jody Colero, were shopping a solo deal for her.

Hannibal made an offer, but were outbid by Simon Draper at Virgin Records; Boyd knew that Hannibal — his small, weirdo, small-budget label — couldn’t compete at that level. He said he’d be very interested in producing it, though, and stayed in touch.

For paid subscribers, Boyd tells the rest of the story here (when I started rolling tape), about how he came to work on Miss America—and why he left the project: