In its heyday, the Montreal Forum has been many things to many people: A hockey cathedral, a civic landmark, a building that absorbed decades of collective memory before the Canadiens finally left for the Bell Centre in 1996. But for a generation of Montrealers who came of age in the seventies and eighties, the Forum was where Donald K. Donald brought the world to their door.
Born Donald Tarlton, the Montreal-born concert promoter, record executive, and industry patriarch who operated under the name Donald K. Donald for more than six decades died on April 13, 2026. He was 82. His family confirmed he passed peacefully, his wife Annie by his side.
The loss landed hard across the Canadian music industry, and tributes came quickly. In Montreal, where Tarlton spent most of his career and did some of his most consequential work, the feeling is something closer to the end of an era made up of concerts, record catalogues, careers launched and sustained. This legacy traces back to one man who decided, when offers came from New York and Los Angeles and London, to build something right at home.
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