The Toronto Sun - The Sunday Sun - August 25, 2002

DREAM WEAVERS

Music's the means to a better world

Skye MacDonald, Linda Leatherdale's daughter, watches Steve Holt play the piano at the launch party for his new CD The Dream

In life some paths are meant to cross. Like my path crossing with that of former Bay Streeter Steve Holt.

But ironically, it's not the world of stocks and investments that brought us together.

No, it's our dreams.

Steve dreams of making a better world through his music, and in his thought-provoking video for his new single We Need You - released in April - he makes a compelling plea for tolerance and love at a time when the globe is torn by so much suffering and strife.

I also dream of a better world, one rid of corruption - and in particular rid of cancer, so our children and families no longer have to suffer.

So, what euphoria when Steve joined in my Reach For The Skye Project to raise $1 million for cancer research at The Hospital For Sick Children. The trust fund is our way of fighting back, after my 11 - year - old daughter, Skye, battled a relapse of Hodgkins Lymphoma, and underwent a bone marrow transplant of her own stem cells during isolation at Sick Kids.

"If we come together, we can make a difference," Steve told a gathering of press, music industry professionals, family and friends at Centro Grill & Wine Bar last week, where he launched his new CD The Dream and announced some of the sales proceeds would go to Skye's cancer research project.

He also launched a challenge to his Bay Street friends to help make the dream come true.

So, how does a stock market analyst - with a highly successful, 15-year career on Bay Street - turn musician? " I've always loved music, and I was playing the piano by the age of four," recalled Montreal-born Steve, who graduated with the first Bachelor of Music degree at McGill University, where he majored in jazz performance.

His dream, Steve explained, was always to make it in the music industry.

So, now the question becomes how did he get to Bay Street? Steve went on, "My father, who was successful in the manufacturing industry, died at 56 and my family needed me to handle the family finances, including a stock portfolio."

Then aged 25, Steve was teaching at McGill and performing as a jazz musician. He left it all behind and plunged into the investment world, including completing the Canadian securities course.

Lucky with stocks

"It wasn't long before I was enjoying great success at picking stocks," Steve recalled, adding soon after he joined MacDougall, McTier - a small brokerage firm in Montreal, where he moved from being a retail broker into an analyst's role.

By 1987, the bright lights of Bay Street beckoned and Steve moved to Toronto, where he became employed by Midland Doherty. It was also the year of the Great Stock Market Meltdown, when in October $1 trillion was wiped from share values around the world.

"We'd never seen anything like it," he recalled. Still, he enjoyed success at picking stocks, even in the tough times, and went on to work for Richardson Greenfields, Midland Walwyn and later ScotiaMcLeod, where he worked with guru Fred Ketchen, manager director of equity trading.

"Life was great, I was earning good money and was ranked Number One analyst in Canada for consumer products," said Steve.

But music was still tugging at his heart-strings. By 1999-when the Toronto Stock Exchange was rockin' and rollin' to record highs, Steve left Bay Street and built his own recording studio in the living room of his downtown Toronto home.

Little did he know that while he followed his dream into pop music, including working with legendary producer Darius Szczepaniak, of Barenaked Ladies and Jann Arden fame - equity markets would begin to suffer a slow, but painful meltdown not seen since 1929, aggravated by corporate scandals like WorldCom and Enron.

To Steve, the golden rule of an analyst is to put shareholders first - something that's missing in today's markets, which have also been rocked by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The message in my music is we're all humans and we must end the hatred, and allow everyone to live, before it's too late," said Steve, a Juno Award nominee with five albums to his credit.

As the father of a 12-year-old daughter, he hopes others will share in his dream.

So do I.