As requested, here’s more from Canadians STONEBOLT, and now their most famous album, their self-titled debut 1978’s ”Stonebolt”, which surprisingly never has been officially released on CD or digital download. The vinyl isn’t easy to find as well.
”Stonebolt” is a quite sought after LP as the songs from this album included into ‘Regeneration: Best of Stonebolt’ were re-recorded. So you all fans have here the original 1978 takes with a very good sound quality.
The webteam has done a great job with this vinyl-rip taken from an almost new, un-played LP.
This very first STONEBOLT is much more soft-melodic / FM-ready band than the melodic rock they became later. While we find rocking tracks there’s as well harmonies and atmospheres similar to Eagles, The Doobie Brothers, some Cheap Trick, etc.
At the end of the Sixties guitar player Ray Roper, drummer Brian Lousley and bass player Dan Atchison were high school students. They decided to form a band named Perth Amboy, possibly after the city in New Jersey. (In 1968 a band from Michigan called The Amboy Dukes including Ted Nugent had a Top 20 hit titled “Journey To The Center Of Your Mind”).
Perth Amboy played at high school ball and many small venues in the Lower Mainland. In 1973 they changed their name to Stonebolt, after adding John Webster on keyboards and David Willis on vocals. Willis left the Seattle band, Shaker, to join Stonebolt.
Stonebolt made a name for themselves by playing all the bars in the local Vancouver area circuit. They recorded some demos in 1976 and the following year got noticed by Johnny Rivers’ road manager, Walter Stewart. He got Stonebolt connected to Parachute Records resulting in a recording contract.
They released their self-titled debut the following year, releasing two singles. “Queen Of The Night,” written by Adam Mitchell of The Paupers, peaked at #24 on CFUN but otherwise failed to make much of an impression without proper support from the label.
But the second, “I Will Still Love You,” hit the charts shortly thereafter and cracked Billboard’s Top 30, easily ranking as good a pop ballad as had been heard on the radio in years. The song is still very popular in Japan, and a regular in Classic Rock Radio world-wide.
Playing places as far abroad as Osaka, LA, and practically every point in between helped gain the group notoriety and were in the initial balloting for that year’s Grammys, eventually losing out to the disco invasion.
With the refreshed new interest in classic rock by the late ’90s, Stonebolt reformed in 1998. In 1999 Stonebolt released a “best of” album titled Regeneration. In 2010 the title track from Stonebolt’s 1980 album, New Set Of Changes, was included in the soundtrack for the Canadian drama film Amazon Falls.
Since then Stonebolt has continued to perform periodically for the past two decades.
This ”Stonebolt” LP is a much sought after piece, especially for the song “I Will Still Love You” in its original version. Late ’70s Rock fans with FM radio feeling enjoy this one.
Highly Recommended
Side 1
01 – Was It You
02 – I Will Still Love You
03 – One Man’s Heartache
04 – Sail On
Side 2
05 – The Shadow
06 – Do It Right (Do It Again)
07 – Singin’ In The Street
08 – Queen Of The Night
09 – Stay In Line
Lead & Backing Vocals – David Wills
Guitar, Lead Vocals – Ray Roper
Bass – Danny Atchison
Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals – Brian Lousley
Keyboards – John Webster
Synthesizer – Dale Jacobs