The 2020 Kemptville Live Music Festival welcomes Glass Tiger, Honeymoon Suite and Andy Kim

It’s another Canadian Superpack for the closing day at the 2020 Kemptville Live Music Festival with multiple Juno and Canadian Classic Award winning headliners Glass Tiger, Juno award winning and Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee Andy Kim and rock solid Canadian icon band Honeymoon Suite rounding out the day. The 2020 Kemptville Live Music Festival runs July 23-26, 2020 on the historic grounds of the Kemptville Campus just 30 minutes from downtown Ottawa.

What more could there be on the way for this 6th annual live music festival?

Glass Tiger

And so it continues…the story of one of Canada’s most enduring and iconic bands, Glass Tiger, roars on.

Originally known as Tokyo, the band formed in Newmarket, Ontario in 1981 and spent several years cutting their teeth in the bar scene of the day. With rapidly growing popularity, it didn’t take long for all the major record labels to come courting, culminating in their signing of a world-wide recording deal with Capitol Records in 1985.
Changing their name to Glass Tiger, their debut album, The Thin Red Line quickly became an unstoppable force, rocketing up the charts to become the fastest selling debut in Canadian history, spawning no less than five hit singles.

Leading the charge, was the now-and-forever iconic, Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone), a song that is etched into the very fabric of popular music’s history. Grammy nominated and five-time award winners of both The Junos and Canadian Classic, the band has shared stages and recording performances with some of the world’s leading acts including; Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Bryan Adams, Journey, Julian Lennon, and Cheap Trick (to name a few).

So now, ladies and gentlemen, the celebration of life and music continues with Glass Tiger’s latest offering…please welcome “33” Glass Tiger’s 5th studio album. Produced by Glass Tiger founding member Sam Reid and UK, singer, songwriter, Andrew Cole, “33” is an unapologetically raw, mature, eclectic, statement that states simply: “This is who we are today and this is how we see the world around us.”

Honeymoon Suite

Johnnie Dee and Derry Grehan, the principal and founding members of Honeymoon Suite, met when introduced by manager Stephen Prendergast in 1982. Deciding to work together, they formed Honeymoon Suite with Grehan’s former, ‘Steve Blimkie And The Reason’ band-mate Dave Betts on drums, plus an anonymous keyboard player and bassist.

In 1983 they decided to enter the Homegrown Contest put on yearly by Toronto’s Q107-FM radio station so Prendergast approached his friend and producer Tom Treumuth to produce a song for them. Based on the buying public’s response, “New Girl Now” won the contest and Bob Roper at WEA Canada was so impressed with the song and response that he signed the band right away.

Personnel conflicts eventually arose and the keyboardist was replaced with Toronto bred Ray Coburn. Although a session player named Brian Brackstone played bass on the album, the band soon found themselves a permanent bassist named Gary Lalonde. Originally scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day, the milestone first album was released in June of 1984.

Throughout 1983 and 1984 Honeymoon Suite toured Canada and the US, consistently headlining club gigs and opening for such acts as Billy Idol, April Wine, Laura Branigan, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, and Bryan Adams. In 1984 the band was nominated for the ‘Most Promising Group’ Juno Award but did not win.

Propelled by the success of more singles from the album, 1985 saw the band begin to headline gigs throughout Ontario and the rest of Canada. A highlight was the presentation of an award at the 1985 Junos. By this time the first album had achieved platinum sales status. Almost 22 years later the album has now sold over 400,000 units in Canada alone.

Keyboardist Ray Coburn returned to the band in time for WEA to release a ‘best-of’ compilation in 1989. Betts and Lalonde then took their leave and Coburn, Dee and Grehan began writing together again.

The trio returned to the studio in 1990 to craft ‘Monsters Under The Bed’ with Paul Northfield producing. The album featured Steve Webster (from Billy Idol’s band) on bass and Jorn Anderson on drums. Singles like “Say You Don’t Know Me” and “The Road” did well in Canada. Some US success did come their way as songs got placed on TV’s ‘Miami Vice’ and two movie soundtracks, ‘Lethal Weapon II’ and ‘One Crazy Summer’.

The original band reformed in 2015 and released their latest EP ‘Hands Up”’ (March 10/2017). This 7th album was recorded and mixed at Coalition Studios in Toronto and is the first new album in 8 years, since the release of Clifton Hill. The songs are powerful, each one different from the other, but all blending together to make one of the best albums the band has released to date.

Produced by Johnnie Dee and Derry Grehan, the album is loaded with melodic hooks, powerful guitar tracks and lush keyboards. Dave Betts and Gary Lalonde are rock solid, and Johnnie Dee delivers a stellar vocal performance once again. The album also features a guest vocal by Derry Grehan’s daughter, Leah Marlene, who sings on “Market Square.”

Andy Kim is a dreamer. At the age of 12, Andy had a vision for what he would become. It is still the child within Andy that leads him along today.

Having scraped together 40 bucks, and much against the better wishes of his parents, Andy boarded a bus from Montreal to New York City. Andy was only in New York City for a couple of days, but he accomplished his goal. He just walked into the Brill building, into the offices of Leiber and Stoller, and asked to speak to Jeff Barry. He was given 5 minutes. Jeff liked what he heard, and Andy’s musical career got its start.

Eventually, Jeff signed him to his Steed record label and he produced and co-wrote Andy’s first top 20 hit, “How’d We Ever Get This Way?”, which sold 800,000 copies. Andy had a number of other top 20 hits at that time, including the top 5 Baby I Love You, which earned him his first gold record selling more than 1.5 million copies. That same year, he co-wrote “Sugar, Sugar” for fictional popsters The Archies. The song was No. 1 for four weeks and became Billboard’s Record of the Year and the biggest-selling record of the year. Ike and Tina Turner covered the song, as well as Wilson Pickett and Bob Marley.

Andy Kim

In 1970, the very first JUNO Award ever given out was to Andy for Male Vocalist of the Year. In 1974, he wrote a new song called “Rock Me Gently” and absolutely no one wanted to produce it. Andy loved the song, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He formed his own record company, called !CE, and produced the record on his own. When it was released, “Rock Me Gently” went straight to #1 on the Billboard charts and it remained on the charts for a staggering 4 months. This second #1 Billboard song added to Andy’s international success.

A true Canadian son, Andy has recently been awarded the country’s top industry honours including the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and a star on Canada’s Walk Of Fame. Andy is a member of Songwriters Hall of Fame, was inducted into Billboard’s Hit Parade Hall of Fame, and in 2017, For the 2nd time in their 70-year history, SOCAN honoured Andy with their Cultural Impact Award. Over his epic career, Andy has sold over 30 million records, and has over half a billion streams on Spotify and YouTube.

2019 Andy Kim was inducted into Canadian Music Hall Of Fame (The Juno Hall of Fame).

And for now, Andy just keeps writing and performing his songs, because that’s all he’s ever dreamed of doing.

Tickets on sale Monday, December 23, 2019 at www.kemptvillelivemusicfestival.com