Rich Wamil & Copperpenny

Rich Wamil & Copperpenny - Fuse

This was another one of those "still sealed" records I scored for my birthday. The cover looked cool, I subconsciously filed this under rock and prog, and assumed I was in for a '70s keyboard driven album. I mean, with a title like Fuse, with a cover that featured an old glass fuse - the kind you could once find in your stove or old electric panel - I figured this was going to be an electrified experience.

Before I dropped the needle I scanned the back cover, and the only name I recognized was Hayward Parrott, who engineered the album. This was cool, as I'd just seen his name on The Front, an album I'd just found. While the cover showed Rich Wamil & Copperpenny, the album's spine and the record label attributed this to Copperpenny. I'm guessing at the time there was some name recognition for Mr. Wamil, and sure enough on the credits his name is in bold print.

The album opens with "Disco Queen" and sure enough, what I'm getting is a blend of rock and funk with a generous dollop of keyboards. I wasn't disappointed, this was good fun. The whole first side was solid. The second side features a really cool cover of Van Morrison's "Feedback on Highway 101" that got my attention.

Musically Copperpenny was first and foremost a rock band who incorporated elements of Gospel, rhythm and blues, funk, and a lot of swagger. I often find this point of the '70s a lot of fun, as there are big riffs, with the echoes of the late '60s permeating the grooves. In a way this reminded me a bit of some of the early Grand Funk - particularly the Mark Farner fronted songs.

Rich has a big voice, and I can see (hear) why his name is on the marquee. However, the whole band is on fire throughout, and the album sounds huge and full. I've also got to give a lot of love to Bert Hermiston who played the sax solos on the album. The dude was the epitome of cool. I'm not generally a sax man, but you have to give it up when things stand out.

Just as I'm getting into it, the last song "Tossin' and Turning" ends, and I'm left wanting more. This was too short. I'll just have to get up and flip it over and repeat.

Since I'm on my repeat listen, I'll just take a peek and see what's out there on the band. Fuse was the band's third album, and their first on Capitol Records Canada. It was also their last. Which was a shame. There's very little out there on Mr. Wamil, or the band in general, although I read that they had a short lived variety show (I wonder if it was a local cable access show) and they were responsible for discovering Doug Henning. Maybe he was the one who made their career disappear.

Regardless, Copperpenny now seem to be little more than a forgotten footnote, and despite being on Capitol Fuse isn't out there on any of the streaming platforms. The album is a buried treasure. Their RCA debut is out there, and I'll likely give it a listen, but it was this album I wanted to find.

I was going to try and work in a blown fuse thing to end with, but it seemed a little too dismissive and I didn't have the energy.

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald, who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...

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