'It's been a heck of a ride': Lethbridge music promoter, Ron Sakamoto, to receive special award at the 2023 Juno Awards

For 59 years, Ron Sakamoto has been redefining the live music industry in Canada.

It's earned him multiple awards and acclamations, including inductions into the Country Music and Canadian Country Music halls of fame.

He also received the CCMA ‘Talent Buyer or Promoter of the Year’ award for 17 consecutive years – a streak that’s renamed it in his honour.

Now, he's being honoured at the 2023 Juno Awards with the prestigious Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award for his impact on the growth and development of the Canadian music industry.

"What they've put together is my whole life of music in Canada," Sakamoto told CTV News.

"It's just a spectacular award and it just blows me away. It's just unbelievable."

Sakamoto was born in Coaldale in 1943.

Like Ron, his parents were born in Canada, but they were relocated from Vancouver to southern Alberta, where they were interned in work camps during the Second World War.

The family eventually moved to Medicine Hat and started a farm.

It was there, singing and driving tractors, when Sakamoto found his love of music and, at the age of 21, he decided to open up a music club in Medicine Hat called Honeycomb-A-Go-Go.

"People would say, ‘hey, you can't do that. What are you doing? You're stupid,’" he said.

"Okay, fine. But they're not calling me stupid anymore."

Sakamoto expanded the club to Lethbridge and decided to make promoting his full-time gig by starting Gold & Gold Productions.

"Everybody thought I was crazy, that I couldn't do it out of Lethbridge," said Sakamoto.

"Well guess what? I did it out of Lethbridge."

In the years that followed, he's started multiple businesses including Sakamoto Agency, Sakamoto Records and Paradise Canyon Golf Resort.

Thanks to Sakamoto, acts like KISS, Shania Twain and The Guess Who visited and toured southern Alberta for the first time.

Those that know him say the Canadian music industry wouldn't be what it is without Ron Sakamoto.

"There's not enough words to say how Ron has impacted the Canadian music industry," said Paul Biro, the president and operating partner with Sakamoto at Sakamoto Agency as well as his long-time friend.

"He risked, he put it on the line to deliver those acts to Canada and at times when no one else would. He did it."

"You know, you talk about those people who have been foundational in building the Canadian country music industry, and the Canadian music industry in general, and Ron's name sits on the top of everyone's list," added Chris Duncombe, another close friend of Sakamoto’s and band member of ‘The Washboard Union", the only band that Sakamoto manages.

"There are bands that will not tour without him being involved. That speak volumes."

In addition, Sakamoto and his wife Joyce Sakamoto have made significant contributions to the community including a donation of $40,000 towards the ‘One Book, One School’ event.

This allowed over 13,000 students from Kindergarten to grade 12 to read the same book.

The Sakamotos have also donated guitars to start a school music program as well as helped create Canada’s first digital audio arts program at the University of Lethbridge with a donation of $200,000.

Sakamoto was also instrumental organizing benefit aid concerts for Albertans forced from their homes by Calgary’s 2013 flood and Fort McMurray’s wildfire in 2016.

Its acts like these as well as how he treats every single person he meets and works with that sets him apart.

"How he leads people and how he helps artists, these are things that are near and dear to his heart and he shows us, everyday, some of the best ways to do it," said Biro.

"Ron just has that level of care and grace that you only learn from as many years of doing this as he has," Duncombe told CTV News.

Despite working and being surrounded by major music artists on a daily basis, Sakamoto says it’s important that he doesn’t treat them any different than he would a stagehand or a fan at a show.

"I don't treat anybody any different than anybody else and they know that," he said.

"They know I don't blow smoke up whatever because they're just people like you and I."

Ron will receive the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award at the 2023 Juno Opening Night Awards on March11 and looks forward to looking back on his 59-year career.

"The only thing I can say is that it's been a heck of a ride."