by Richard Skelly » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:54 am
Memory is a tricky thing. I’m pretty sure I was at ground zero when Stonebolt got their big break. Back around 1977, Johnny Rivers hit Vancouver to play some raucous dates at the Body Shop Cabaret. I interviewed Johnny, getting to know his touring manager Walter Stewart in the process. At the time, Johnny ran a production company/record label called Soul City. After my interview, Walter mentioned how bowled over they were with the calibre of unsigned talent on the Lower Mainland. It was probably during that week when Stonebolt and Walter shook hands on a development deal.
A year later, I Will Still Love You soared up North American charts, also establishing Stonebolt in some foreign markets, particularly Japan. Walter Stewart co-produced the band. I don’t know if Johnny Rivers had a piece of the action. Stewart and co-producer J.C. Phillips (co-composer of Sugarloaf’s Green-Eyed Lady) weren’t stingy. String arrangements by veteran Jimmie Haskell bolstered tracks on the first Stonebolt album.
The album and standout single I Will Still Love You came out on the fledgling Parachute label. It was run by ex-UNI boss Russ Regan. Famous for luring Neil Diamond away from tiny Bang Records in the late ‘60s, Regan was always a 45s man. Indeed, Parachute apparently sold a lot more copies of I Will Still Love You than its modest #29 peak position on Billboard’s Hot 100 might suggest.
No doubt it was a heady experience for the five bar-band veterans comprising Stonebolt. The band’s core—Ray Roper (guitar), Danny Atchison (bass) and Brian Lousley (drums)—were high school chums who ended up in covers band Perth Amboy. In forming Stonebolt, they attracted ace keyboardist John Webster and vocalist David Wills (who had been fronting Seattle-based Shaker).
Stonebolt moved on to RCA for its followup album in 1979. The following year, Webster quit to join Tom Cochrane’s new band Red Rider. Years after breaking up, a reconstituted Stonebolt re-recorded old hits because some of the early master tapes were AWOL. I wonder if that was linked to the disappearance of Vancouver studio Total Sounds West where much of the first album was cut? A mystery, to be sure.