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Ian Thomas - Ian Thomas (1973)

Track listing:
  1. Painted Ladies
  2. Another
  3. One Of Those Days
  4. Will You Still Love Me
  5. Coming For My Life
  6. Come The Son
  7. When You Have Love
  8. Evil In Your Eyes
  9. Insecurity
  10. White Clouds

Notes


Originally released on GRT in 1973, Ian Thomas' debut album spawned his biggest hit with the contagiously melodic "Painted Ladies," peaking at number four in his homeland of Canada and number 34 in the U.S., and eventually becoming his only American Top 40 single. The song is easily the album's high point, as other efforts such as "Will You Still Love Me," "When You Have Love," and "Insecurity" cease to administer anything different from the plethora of soft rock tunes that consumed radio in the early '70s. Thomas does manage to emphasize his vocal strength on "Come the Son," a tune which received a small amount of airplay in Canada and exposed his talent for songwriting, even though its musical makeup couldn't come close to the album's hit single. "Painted Ladies" carried Ian Thomas into Canadian gold status and netted Thomas a Juno award for most promising male vocalist in 1974. Although his future singles would never equal the status of "Painted Ladies," he did improve upon the overall strength of his albums as a whole.

Thomas first got his musical start at age six after taking piano lessons. By the age of 14 he had graduated to guitar and a year after that he wrote his first original tune. In the mid'60's he formed the folk trio Ian, Oliver and Nora featuring Oliver McLeod and Nora Hitchinson. By the end of the '60's they were joined by Bob Doidge (bass) and Nancy Ward (keyboards, recorder) and called themselves Tranquillity Bass.

The band would record two singles for RCA and often performed with the Edmonton Symphony and The Hamilton Philharmonic. They split up in the early '70's after an album they recorded failed to impress RCA and remains unreleased. Thomas got a day job as a theatre manager in Hamilton.

In April 1973, Thomas signed to GRT Records and immediately released "Painted Ladies" which became a monster hit across North American; the song reached No.4 in Canada and No.34 in the United States. He won a Juno Award for 'Most Promising Male Vocalist that year.

During this period he also produced a two-hour CBC Radio show called "The National Rock Works" which also featured comedy and became a showcase for the talents of his brother Dave Thomas -- future SCTV alumnus.

Over the years Thomas has produced some classic albums including 'Calabash' (1976), which was followed by a U.S. tour with his band at that time: Mike Oberle (drums), Juno Award winning graphic artist Hugh Syme (keyboards), Josh Onderisin (guitar), and David Sawyer (bass). His fourth LP for GRT was 'Still Here' (1978) and included the hit single "Coming Home". Thomas' final album for GRT was 'Glider' in 1979 containing the hits "Pilot" and "Time Is The Keeper".

In 1980 Thomas had been picked up by Anthem Records after the demise of GRT and took a run at several more gold albums - 'The Runner' (1981) (they same year he also made a guest appearance on the SCTV TV show), 'Riders On Dark Horses' (1984) and 'Add Water' (1985).

It was from these album that number of acts would find Ian Thomas songs to the top, including "Hold On" (Santana), "The Runner" (Manfred Mann), "Right Before Your Eyes" (America), and "Chains" (Chicago).

In 1991 Thomas joined forces with three other veteran Canadian musicians - guitarist Bill Dillon (Daniel Lanois, Joni Mitchell), drummer Rick Gratton (Rough Trade, Marc Jordan) and bassist Peter Cardinali (Rick James, Oscar Peterson) - to form the Boomers. They've become successful in Europe, especially in Germany and have several gold albums under their belts.