Shooter, originally known as Greaseball Boogie Band, was a Canadian rock music group active in the early 1970s.
["Greaseball Boogie Band"]
AllMusic. They were most noted for receiving a
Juno Award
The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...
nomination for
Most Promising New Group at the
Juno Awards of 1975.
["Proudly Canadian: Shooter"]
'' Cashbox'', March 11, 2015.
The band, which initially tried to market itself as a Canadian version of
Sha Na Na, consisted of vocalist Duncan White, keyboardist Ray Harrison, saxophonist Wayne Mills, guitarists John Bride and Michael Holman, and drummer Tommy Frew. Their debut album as Greaseball Boogie Band, consisting entirely of covers of 1950s rock songs such as "
Be-Bop-A-Lula", "
Blueberry Hill", and "
Sea Cruise", was released in 1973 on
GRT Records. The associated single "Be-Bop-A-Lula" received modest airplay but did not chart, and the band received a Juno Award nomination for Most Promising Group in 1975.
Almost immediately, though, the band changed their name to Shooter, and changed their visual image from a
greaser look to a 1930s
gangster style. Around the same time, Holman and Frew left and Norm Wellbanks (bass) and Sonnie Bernardi (drums) were added to the line-up. The newly christened band released the album ''Shooter'' in 1975.
["A concert more dress rehearsal than real show". '']The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'', May 31, 1975. The album again consisted entirely of covers, this time selecting more current songs by artists such as
Leo Sayer,
Neil Sedaka, and
Roger Cook. They had hits on the Toronto-based CHUM Chart with "Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)" and "Train" (a third single, "Hard Times", received airplay on some other stations) but GRT Records went bankrupt in 1976 before the band could release another album.
[
They signed to Casino Records, releasing the radio singles "Cherokee Queen" and "Flows Like a River" in 1978 while working on the followup, but that label also went bankrupt before the album could be released.][ Harrison, Mills and Bride left to form Cameo Blues Band,][ while White and a returning Frew briefly carried on with a new band lineup that included Rhéal Lanthier and John Gibbard of ]Crowbar
A crowbar, also called a wrecking bar, pry bar or prybar, pinch-bar, or occasionally a prise bar or prisebar, colloquially, in Britain and Australia sometimes called a jemmy or jimmy (also called jemmy bar), gooseneck, or pig foot, is a tool ...
, but the band broke up by 1980 without releasing any further new music.[
]
References
External links
*
* as Greaseball Boogie Band
{{Authority control
Canadian rock music groups
Musical groups established in 1972
Musical groups from Toronto
Musical groups disestablished in 1980