COLUMN: Carillon Flashback November 6, 2001 – Love of rural roots unspoiled by Sunshine Records success

They have recorded demos for Chantal Kreviazuk and helped launch the careers of The Crash Test Dummies and McMaster and James. They have also produced a pile of albums for country artists like Stew Clayton and Ernest Monias, and the late and great Metis fiddler, Reg Bouvette.

For more than 25 years, Nestor and Linda Shydlowsky have been bringing a little bit of musical sunshine into the lives of thousands. The owners of Winnipeg’s Sunshine Records are celebrating two-and-a-half decades of success as a relatively small, independent recording studio in competition in an industry of giants.

Carving a niche in aboriginal, ethnic, country and old-time music, Ness Michaels, as he is known in music circles, has seen the studio grow from a “mom and pop” operation on Selkirk Avenue to the largest of its kind in Canada.

Shydlowsky, who still spends most weekends playing in a Ukrainian band at weddings, socials and anniversaries, says music has always been a big part of his life. The son of Alec and Anne Shydlowsky, of Tolstoi, he used to sit by the stage at weddings and socials, intrigued by the sounds of the instruments and the energy of the musicians.

Saturday mornings on the farm, young Nestor’s ear would be glued to the radio, as CJOB presented The Western Hour live from the stage at the Starland Theatre.

Even though he now spends most of his time in Winnipeg, Shydlowsky keeps his country connections and still very much thinks of Tolstoi as home.

He is also proud of his Ukrainian background and the family name Shydlowsky, even though he learned early in his career he would have to shorten it somehow for business purposes.

Nestor Michael Shydlowsky became Ness Michaels around the time he was trying to make a name for his studio in big eastern centres, like Toronto, in the late 1970s.

“Ness Michaels is much easier to spell and so much easier to remember.”

Sunshine Records has survived and flourished for 25 years in an industry where few independents last five, never mind 25, Michaels points out.

According to Michaels, the success of the Sunshine label can be attributed to its diversity of artists and their own philosophy of contributing what they can to the success of those artists.

“If you help enough other people achieve their dreams, your own dreams will come true.”

Michaels (or Shydlowsky) says there is a great deal of satisfaction in being a small part of someone’s successful career.

Under the Sunshine Group, they now have four labels. Sunshine Records provides country, fiddle and aboriginal music. Cherish Records produces gospel music, James International is the rock label and Baba’s Records, appropriately enough, is the company’s label for its Ukrainian music offerings.

The lean years of eating “tube steaks” while running a struggling company in the city’s North End are gone for Ness and Linda Michaels. Today, their biggest challenge is limiting visits for treats to the famous Gunn’s Bakery, which is almost next door.

Along with Gunn’s Bakery, Sunshine Records is one of Selkirk Avenue’s prime destinations. Any given day, the in-house studio may see a Metis fiddler, a pow-wow group, a polka band or a country or rock group.

The Sunshine catalogue boasts 627 releases and the company has generated more than $15 million in sales over the past 25 years. The owner of Sunshine Records is a great believer that the music they record will never go out of style, and never deletes an item from the record catalogue.

“A brand new market on the internet is showing that some releases are just as popular today as they were as new releases, 10 or 15 years ago,”