Impresario nonpareil Donald K. Donald died Monday, a month before his 83rd birthday. But his legacy will last eons among music fans of a bygone era.

DKD — né Donald Tarlton — had been in ill health the last few years, suffering from the effects of Parkinson’s disease.

Tarlton was an indomitable figure on the local music scene. In a city of characters, there have truly been very few like him. The DKD mould has long gone missing.

During his heyday in the 1980s and ‘90s, he brought all the biggies to town — the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, AC/DC et al. But he always had an eye out for local talent. He produced Céline Dion shows. He was a mentor to April Wine and Corey Hart and signed them up to his Aquarius Records label.

While he booked tours across the country, his home and his heart was always in Montreal. There was no prouder citizen than Tarlton, always extolling the virtues of the city to rock ‘n’ roll royalty and commoners alike.

He brought the ebullience and enthusiasm of a circus carny to the job. No matter the venue, he was out there walking the floors, checking out the crowd with an ear-to-ear grin. And no matter the concert, he would call local media to pronounce what would become his mantra: “Lots of good tickets still available.”

It’s a different world today. The largely faceless mega-corps run the biz now.

“One of the main reasons that I opted out of concerts for records is that it’s no longer about relationships — it’s all big conglomerates running the concerts now,” Tarlton........

© Montreal Gazette