PROFILE
Charlie Ferguson
By Andrew King
C
onsidering he had to get special permission from the Liquor
Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) to mix FOH in clubs as a
teenager, Charlie Ferguson is as close to being a pro audio
“lifer” as one can get.
The veteran engineer finds himself back on the road to kick
off 2020 – currently with acclaimed alt-rockers 54-40 – following a
12-plus-year stint as the house engineer at Fallsview Casino in Niagara
Falls. While he kept in touch with a number of his previous clients over
those years, including the likes of Don Felder, Grand Funk Railroad,
and Big Wreck, not to mention the hundreds of touring acts he took
care of at the venue, Ferguson is back to building his network and
generating new opportunities to get behind the console.
“I’ve been learning a lot about myself throughout this process at
52, going on 53,” Ferguson says with a good-natured chuckle. “You
come off the road after being somewhere for 12-and-a-half years and
you’re really off the radar, so it’s been a battle climbing that mountain
lately, but I love it. I’ve been doing this since I was 17, so it’s in my
blood; there’s no changing it.”
Ferguson was born and raised in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbour-
hood. His parents are originally from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and
his father’s fondness for playing guitar and writing songs instilled an
appreciation for music in his son at an early stage.
Fast forward to his mid-teens, Ferguson had dropped out of
school and was living in a rooming house downtown Toronto. That’s
when he took the first few steps on what’s become a decades-long
journey in live sound.
“In a room on one side of me was a guy named Malcolm Burn,
who turned into an accomplished producer, and on the other side
was a musician named Tony Lester. They played in a band called Boys
Brigade,” Ferguson explains, citing the fairly popular new wave group
from the early ‘80s.
Ferguson was initially interested in tour managing the group, but
ended up joining the crew of Toronto live sound vet Rick Boffo, who
was working with Boys Brigade in addition to a slew of other artists
and venues around Toronto. That included the iconic Horseshoe Tav-
ern, where Ferguson cut his teeth for a year-and-a-half before getting
an invitation to hit the road with Prairie Oyster – for which he needed
permission from the LCBO. “That’s when the ball really started rolling,”
Ferguson recalls, “and it hasn’t stopped since.”
He ended up doing corporate gigs with Frischkorn Associates
– now operating as FMAV – in and around Toronto as he tried to fill
his schedule with touring gigs. “Norbert [Frischkorn] was all about
etiquette and professionalism, and really instilled that in my brain, so
I ended up taking that attitude on the road,” Ferguson shares.
When word spread about his reputation, things “really took off,”
leading to extensive domestic and overseas touring with a slew of
popular music acts. He also took unique gigs like an eight-week tour
with then-federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent.
He came off the road in 2007 to accept the full-time gig at Falls-
view and continued adding notches to his belt over the next dozen
years. “The relationships that formed at Fallsview were great,” he fondly
recalls. “I mixed quite a few American bands, a lot of whom would
basically leave their FOH guys at home.”
Looking back on his decades in the business, Ferguson lists the
engineers and techs he got to meet in his time at the casino as a top
career highlight. Others include mixing Kathleen Edwards in front of
500,000 people for Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto – aka SARSfest
– in 2003, working in iconic venues like the Grand Ole Opry, touring
with the likes of John Prine, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, and other
personal favourites, and forging close relationships with other tour-
ing pros, like Willie Nelson’s late stage manager Poodie Locke and
Canadian FOH vet Jonny Watt, who passed in early 2019.
When he’s not pushing faders, you can find Ferguson swinging
clubs on the golf course. He and good friends Tom Young, FOH en-
gineer for Tony Bennett, and Mark Radu, senior systems designer for
Solotech, take an annual golf trip together. “Not just two of the best
sets of ears in the music industry, but pretty good golfers as well,”
Ferguson puts in. In the winter, he’ll either trade golf for some pickup
hockey, or just travel somewhere warm and stay on the links, as he
plans to do over 12 days in Cuba in early 2020.
His current challenge is getting his name back out there and
packing his schedule for the foreseeable future. “I’m a true believer
that when a door closes, a few windows open up, and I’m open to
anything and everything that comes my way,” says Ferguson with an
audible optimism. “I’ve been blessed to be in this business so long
and it still feels that way. I can’t wait to get back on the road.”
Andrew King is the Editor-in-Chief of Professional Sound.
20 PROFESSIONAL SOUND