In the late 1950s, a young couple entered the country music scene. At first, they played small bars and lounges in town, but they eventually broke onto the national stage and climbed the music charts.
You may think this is the story of one of music’s most famous romances, Johnny Cash and June Carter. But this Canadian tale hits closer to home. This is the story of Morris and Dorothy Rainville, who performed in Canada and the U.S. as the Rainvilles up until the mid 1970s, living for a time in Niagara.
Chances are you haven’t heard about them before now, but they are arguably the most famous country duo to come out of Greater Sudbury.
When Morris and Dorothy met, they felt an immediate connection. It was as though they knew each other in a previous life, Morris said in an interview with The Star. They became partners in life, in music, and later in their exploration of past-life experiences.
The duo started playing music in 1956 and even had a weekly TV show on CKSO TV, from 1957 to 1964, called CK Ranch Party.
In 1964, the couple moved to Niagara Falls where Morris earned a teaching degree and they continued to perform. The Rainvilles started to write their own material and, in 1967, recorded four of their songs.
In 1976, they also recorded a Phil Gariepy song entitled I Got What I Wanted. After they released it, it reached No. 1 on the RPM Country Charts in Canada. The song also went on to No. 82 on the pop charts, said Morris.
The couple appeared on Carl Smith’s Country Music Hall later that year.
In 1968, 1970 and again in 1971, The Rainvilles won the R.P.M. Gold Leaf Award for being in the running for best Canadian Country Group. The year 1970 also saw them sign with Melbourne (Rodeo) Records and the songs Fortunate Son and Wrote A Song both reached the Top 10 in the Canadian Country charts during that year.
Their first album, The Rainvilles, was released in 1971 and their second album, Polar Bear Express, was released in 1972, where the single Polar Bear Express topped the charts again in Canada. This song was also used for a few years in TV ads for the Polar Bear Express train running from Cochrane, Ont., to Moosonee at James Bay.
Unfortunately, the couple stopped touring in the mid 1970s when Dorothy underwent a double mastectomy for breast cancer. Morris would later return to record music (which he continues today at 87 years old), with Dorothy writing some songs, including the hit Mississauga Man.
After touring, Morris worked as a salesman and the couple had two children. They lived throughout Ontario and moved back to the home they built together in Sudbury in the late 1990s. The couple had been married 63 years when Dorothy passed away in September 2021.
Morris and Dorothy were inseparable in life — and it seems in death, as well.
“We were very close,” said Morris.
With his wife’s permission, Morris placed Dorothy under hypnosis to search for a past life
Recently, Morris found an unpublished manuscript handwritten by his wife in a box in the basement. He said he felt pushed to find it. Morris spent three months transcribing the manuscript onto his desktop computer and then sent it to a publisher, Austin Macauley Publishers, which allows authors to publish their work by sharing some of the costs of publishing.
Her novel, Beyond the Death of Ira Nesbitt, was published posthumously this past September. In fact, it was Dorothy’s third published book. The couple worked together on two previous books. And, as Morris sees it, on this third one, too.
Both Morris and Dorothy shared an interest in hypnosis and specifically, past life regression therapy, a process by which hypnosis is used to recover what practitioners believe to be memories of past lives.
“While we were alone playing music, mostly in Ontario, Quebec and the northern States, I was reading a lot of books on psychic phenomena and hypnosis,” said Morris.
In particular, he became fascinated with the book The Search for Bridey Murphy by hypnotherapist Morey Bernstein. It is the story of Ruth Simmons, who, while under the author’s hypnosis, recounts the story of the life of Bridey Murphy, a woman from 19th-century Ireland. It became a bestseller and was published in 30 languages in 34 countries.
Morris eventually taught himself hypnosis and was surprised when it “actually worked.”
With his wife’s permission, Morris placed Dorothy under hypnosis to search for a past life. It was during these taped sessions that Dorothy tuned into different characters and stories. Channelling the stories of these characters, Dorothy wrote three books based on transcripts when she was under hypnosis. Dorothy would mention names and places, which Morris would later cross reference through research.
The two other books that came out of this process were Search for a Princess and Perhaps, both published by the iconic Highway Book Shop in Cobalt. Ont.
Morris figures that Beyond the Death of Ira Nesbitt was penned by his wife in 1973, prompted by one of her hypnosis sessions. The story is described as a heart-wrenching tale of love, sacrifice and redemption. Morris is actively promoting his wife’s book through social media and YouTube and has even created a Facebook page under her name, Dorothy E Rainville.
