Crowbar was a Canadian rock band based in Hamilton, Ontario, probably best known for their 1971 hit "Oh, What a Feeling".
From 1969 to 1970, most of the members of the group had been a backup band for Ronnie Hawkins under the name "And Many Others". However, in early 1970, he fired them, saying "You guys are so crazy that you could f*ck up a crowbar in three seconds!" They recorded their first album in 1970 (Official Music) as King Biscuit Boy and Crowbar. King Biscuit Boy left the band later in 1970, but continued to appear off-and-on as a guest performer.
Crowbar's rock, blues and boogie mix made it one of Canada's most popular touring bands of the early 1970s. The band toured in the United Kingdom but, otherwise, made little impact outside of Canada, perhaps the result of the strong nationalistic fervor that characterized its performances.
Disbanded in 1975, it was revived in 1977 (minus Jozef Chirowski, who had joined Alice Cooper's band) for a tour of eastern Canada and again by Kelly Jay and others intermittently during the 1980s for club work in southern Ontario.
The band consisted of a variety of players in various combinations over its lifetime including:
King Biscuit Boy (Richard Newell) on harmonica
Roly Greenway on bass guitar
Kelly Jay (Blake Fordham) on harmonica, vocals and piano
John Rutter on vocals (1970)
Richard Bell on keyboards (1970)
Jozef Chirowski on keyboards
Larry Atamanuik on drums (1970)
Sonnie Bernardi on drums
Rheal Lanthier on guitar
John Gibbard on guitar and slide guitar
Sonny Del-Rio on saxophone
And while they might have been Canadian this has a certain funky American rock vibe.
Crowbar - Oh What A Feeling
3 comments:
this LP (Original Music on Paramount) was very cool ...when it was releaed it came in a 'tobacco bag' with a pull string...yeah, just like the kind you would see someone carry their tobacco in if they were rolling their own, which was probably their idea. Of course, the bag was LP sized but still was that same material (almost burlap like). I remember I got it as a promo at my college radio station (it was a throw/give away) and listened to it for a while (pretty bluesy, but no Butterfield, Blues Project or Electric Flag l;evel for me) then it became one of my first sell-offs. Within ten years I was picking up more of them on Epic including tracks they did wuth Allen Toussaint. See if you can find those. They are definitely worth a listen.
Thanks, man! I heard this on the radio for the first time in 20 years and had to have it!
This is a good song, but it's totally, totally ripped off from James Brown's Live at the Apollo Vol. II. The guitar, the "bap badap baaa," and the "Hey Hey" section are dead giveaways.
I also think the main vocal melody is lifted from the Woodstock movie, just before Santana plays, when the hippies are mud sliding.
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