Red Rider

Born: 1953, Lynn Lake, Manitoba
Debut: 1974
Breakthrough: 1980
Superstardom: 1988
Genre: Pop

Achievements

– Diamond Album (Mad Mad World, 1991)
– 16 Top 40 Singles, including 9 in the Top 10, and 2 #1’s
– Star on Canada’s Walk of Fame (2009)
– Induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (2003)
– 4 major Juno Awards

Major Juno Awards

– Group of the Year (Tom Cochrane & Red Rider), 1987
– Male Artist of the Year, 1992
– Song of the Year (“Life is a Highway”), 1992
– Album of the Year (Mad Mad World), 1992

Studio Albums and Hit Singles

Early Years

1974: Hang on to Your Resistance

1980: Don’t Fight It

– Hit Single: “White Hot” (#20)

1981: As Far as Siam

1983: Neruda

– Hit Single: “Human Race” (#29)

1984: Breaking Curfew

Tom Cochrane & Red Rider

1986: Tom Cochrane & Red Rider

– Hit Singles: “Boy Inside the Man” (#25)

1988: Victory Day

– Hit Singles: “Big League” (#4 WP; n/a YE), “Good Times” (#2 WP; #36 YE), “Victory Day” (#32)

Tom Cochrane

1991: Mad Mad World

– Certified Diamond
– Hit Singles: “Life Is a Highway” (#1 WP; #5 YE; #6 U.S.), “No Regrets” (#3 WP; n/a YE), “Sinking Like a Sunset” (#2 WP; n/a YE), “Mad Mad World” (#25), “Washed Away” (#7 WP; n/a YE)

1995: Ragged Ass Road

– Hit Singles: “I Wish You Well” (#1 WP; #4 YE), “Wildest Dreams” (#5 WP; #49 YE), “Dreamer’s Dream” (#4 WP; #37 YE), “Crawl” (#11 WP; #90 YE)

1999: X-Ray Sierra

– Hit Singles: “Willie Dixon Said”

2006: No Stranger

Notes:

WP = Peak on Weekly Singles Charts.
YE = Position on the Year-End Singles Chart.
n/a YE = Finished in Year-End Top 100 but position unknown as the chart is currently unavailable for that year.
All Canadian chart positions published by RPM Magazine.
All U.S. chart positions published by Billboard Magazine.

While most members of rock bands see their success diminish when they go solo, the opposite was true for Manitoba-born Tom Cochrane who became the next big male pop star in Canada after Hart, Adams, and Gowan with two Top 5 hits in late 1988 / early 1989. His Mad Mad World, released in 1991, eventually reached Diamond status, selling a million copies domestically.

Tom Cochrane was born in the small mining town of Lynn Lake in north-western Manitoba. His father was a bush pilot. When he was 4 his family relocated to Acton, Ontario and then the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. When he was 11, he sold his toy train set to buy a guitar and after school began playing folk music in cafes across Canada. An album of his material was released in 1974 (re-released later after his breakthrough). He went down to Los Angeles (U.S.) to write music for movies but earned little income. He returned to Toronto and drove a cab before taking a job on a Caribbean cruise liner.

In 1976, he returned to Los Angeles working as a dishwasher and for a delivery company while trying to peddle his songs to record companies. Without any luck, he returned to Toronto again.

One fateful night in 1978, Cochrane walked into the El Mocambo Tavern in Toronto and met the band Red Rider. The band was looking for a lead singer who could also help with song-writing and Tom fit the bill. He called his friend Deane Cameron at Capitol Records and some politics was played out. He suggested the band get Rush manager Ray Danniels to represent them but when Danniels tried to sign them onto his own Anthem label, Cameron drafted them onto Capitol. Meanwhile, managerial high-flier Bruce Allen requested Capitol take on emerging band Prism. Cameron swung a deal saying he would sign Prism on condition that Allen manage Red Rider.

The debut release Don’t Fight It appeared in 1980 and spawned the Top 20 hit “White Hot” about poet Arthur Rimbaud and his travels through Africa. Although they saw no further hit singles from subsequent albums, aside from the Top 30 “Human Race” off their Neruda album (named after the South American poet), airplay of songs on album-oriented rock stations across Canada helped keep record sales respectable. By the mid-80s, however, the band had run out of steam, not having been able to repeat their early success. Apparently, the pressure resulted in a fist-fight among band members and crew. Red Rider dissolved and departed Bruce Allen’s camp which was devoting more attention to Loverboy and Bryan Adams.

Cochrane and Red Rider’s guitarist Ken Greer maintained a working relationship and recruited ex-Streetheart bassist Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve. A change of scenery was called-for and they headed over to Dave Edmund’s Rockfield Studios in Wales.

Cochrane was beginning to hit his stride. The album entitled Tom Cochrane & Red Rider yielded the radio hit “Boy Inside the Man” and won for them a Juno for Group of the Year. With much musical experience (13 years), Tom was asked to produce The Grapes of Wrath’s Treehouse album. Encouraged by the progress, he recruited keyboardist John Webster and John Cougar Mellencamp producer Don Gehman and put his heart and soul into Victory Day. Everything fell into place and two songs off the album broke into the Top 5. In “Big Leauge” he sang about a rising hockey star killed in a car crash. The story was used to convey the message that exporting Canadian talent to the United States was ultimately unsatisfying. The song peaked at #4 on the RPM charts. The follow-up “Good Times”, peaking at #2, was the biggest Canadian song of 1989, beating out Kim Mitchell, Jeff Healey, Blue Rodeo, and even Alannah Myles. In lieu of his success, he recorded some of his / Red Rider’s past songs to orchestral arrangements and released The Symphony Sessions.

The Red Rider concept had, by now, overstayed its welcome, and Greer decided to further his career as a producer / collaborator. This meant that Tom had now come full-circle, returning to a soloist like in the early days of the 70s. The difference was that he was now a household name in Canada. There was something personal he wanted to do first, however. He took his family to walk on African soil on behalf of the World Vision famine relief organization. 1991’s Mad Mad World was shaped by such an experience.

To put it briefly, the album saw five of its tracks crack the Top 30, four of which the Top 10, and one of which—”Life is a Highway”—become a chart-topper and international hit, nabbing the Juno Award for Song of the Year. The album, itself, sold a million copies in Canada, certifying itself Diamond, won the Juno for Album of the Year and for Cochrane Male Artist of the Year.

Four years later, Cochrane released Ragged Ass Road which, in terms of hit singles, matched the success of Mad Mad World. The album was more stripped-down than its predecessor. Two more studio albums followed.

Tom Cochrane is an avid golfer, a pilot, and a hockey buff. He lives in Oakville, Ontario, often spending his summers at his cottage in Georgian Bay and part of his winters at his home outside of Austin, Texas. He and wife Kathleene have two daughters.

In the early 80s, dance music became less popular in the English-speaking world. It was to be reborn several years later. Punk rock whose appeal was confined for the most part to the United Kingdom morphed into new wave. The synthesizer, Bob Moog’s 1963 invention, had made appearances in rock throughout the 70s, but a number of British artists began experimenting with using the synthesizer as the lead and sometimes only instrument. This new electronic rock helped spawn a second British Invasion. Arguably, with acts like Images in Vogue, Strange Advance, Rational Youth, Blue Peter, Moev, The Spoons, and Rough Trade, Canada was more keen on developing synthesizer-driven pop than the United States. The most popular new wave act was perhaps Vancouver-based The Payola$.

With the new styles in music, radio was friendlier to some artists than to others. The so-called underground music scene became exceptionally popular as did college radio which picked up the slack. In order to help promote and recognize more experimental music, the CASBY awards were established in 1981 to honour excellence in independent or “alternative” music and artists.

Guitar-oriented new wave group Corbeau was somewhat successful in Québec. When it disbanded in 1984, female singer Marjo embarked on a solo career. Québec never grew tired of dance music. With the new interest in synthesizers, electronics were added to the genre care of acts like Trans X and the hugely successful Men Without Hats. English Canada experimented with dancier new wave and came up with male/female combo outfits like The Parachute Club and Martha and the Muffins, which later became known as M+M.

After new wave, the second most popular genre in the early 80s, which did not receive as much radio airplay, was heavy metal. A few artists in Canada dabbled in this, like Helix, Toronto, and Chilliwack spin-off The Headpins, and some combined electronics with hard rock, like Aldo Nova and supergroup Loverboy.

Curiously, a backlash against this new-fangled music emerged in parallel. A number of groups performing more traditional blues rose to prominence, the most notable of which were The Powder Blues Band, Doug and the Slugs, and a cappella group The Nylons. Medicine Hat (Alberta) risqué country band Showdown debuted in 1980 and Montréal fusion-jazz outfit UZEB in 1981. Scottish import Eric Robertson, a composer, pianist and organist scored a multi-platinum album entitled Magic Melodies.

A number of acts did not deviate from straight-forward pop: The Kings, Teenage Head, Straight Lines, Sheriff, and Red Rider (whom we’ll feature later in conjunction with front man Tom Cochrane’s solo career). But it was primarily the solo artists who performed mainstream pop and a few of them were to become the biggest names in Canadian music history.

Diane Tell (who also performed with aforementioned UZEB), Véronique Béliveau, and Martine Saint-Clair made headways in French Canada. René‘s little sister Nathalie Simard became a child star in the early 80s. In 1983, Céline Dion emerged and blew everyone in the province away. We’ll talk about her later when she achieved international superstardom.

In English Canada, debuts from women were notably absent during this period. For the men, however, it was a very different story. From Montréal, an English singer who liked to wear sunglasses at night released a sleeper hit album in 1983. No one knew just how popular he was to become by the middle of the decade. His name was Corey Hart. An ex-Sweeney Todd Vancouverite singer got some attention with his “Let Me Take You Dancing” in 1979. But, frustrated with his lack of big success, he teamed up with songwriter Jim Vallance, changed his singing style from smooth to gravelly, and released Cuts Like a Knife in early 1983. For Bryan Adams all hell broke loose, and he captivated the nation eventually becoming the most successful Canadian artist of all-time. The biggest male name in French songs was perhaps Manitoba-born Daniel Lavoie. Although he started out in the 70s, his popularity skyrocketed in the early 80s, and he garnered a few Félix Awards. In 1998, he teamed up with two other singers and released the third best-selling single of all time in France.

The best-selling albums during the period were those from Anne Murray, Loverboy, Ginette Reno, and the aforementioned Eric Robertson. Another big-seller was the novelty comedy record Bob & Doug McKenzie‘s Great White North responsible for a couple of hit songs, including the Geddy Lee (Rush) led “Take Off”.

It is also worth noting that, outside of Québec, which had a very productive year, significant Canadian music was practically non-existent in 1984. Sherry Kean scored a Top 20 hit with “I Want You Back” and Italy-born Zappacosta became known in some circles with his debut release. But no Canadian song made the weekly Top 10 in the RPM charts throughout the entire year. Furthermore, no Canadian song made the year-end CHUM chart, and the Juno Awards were delayed. What happened in 1985, however, was to more than make up for it.

With the ever-increasing popularity of music videos, Canada launched a national channel called MuchMusic at the end of August in 1984. Although criticized for focussing too much on music from and that appealed to Torontonians (where the station was based), and showcasing too much American-style black and Spanish music, it enabled a number of Canadian artists to gain exposure and make breakthroughs. Two years later, a French language version was aired called MusiquePlus.

MuchMusic was also criticized for airing too many movies, game and reality shows when most people tuned in to see the MVs. The channel responded to all the criticism by launching MuchMoreMusic in 1998 which played more MVs and music that appealed more to adult Canadians.

Eventually, MuchMusic replaced CBC’s Good Rockin’ Tonite which was broadcast from Vancouver.

Coming up, we’ll provide a list of significant Canadian songs in the early 80s, followed by a special feature on Bob & Doug McKenzie’s The Great White North album, and then mini-profiles on semi-major acts Martha and the Muffins, The Parachute Club, Martine St-Clair, and Toronto, and finally individual profiles on major artists Men Without Hats, The Payola$, Loverboy, Diane Tell, Véronique Béliveau, Corey Hart, Daniel Lavoie, and Bryan Adams.