Nucleus
Websites:
No
Origin:
Toronto, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Biography:
Nucleus emerged from one of Toronto’s busiest and most ambitious teenage bands of the mid-1960s, The Lords of London. The group — Greg Fitzpatrick, Sebastian Agnello, Danny Taylor, Hughie Leggat, and John “Screamin’ Jr.” Richardson — grew up playing weekend teen-club shows around the city before breaking onto larger stages such as the Canadian National Exhibition in 1967, sharing bills with The Guess Who, Kensington Market, and Moby Grape. Their singles “Cornflakes and Ice Cream,” “The Popcorn Man,” and “Candy Rainbow” earned them modest Canadian success, but the breakthrough they had hoped for in the U.S. never arrived.
By the fall of 1968 the Lords were shifting away from short AM-radio pop toward extended, improvisational rock. Agnello departed and was replaced by keyboardist Bob “Tonto” Horne. The new sound demanded a new name, and Nucleus was born — a harder, darker, more exploratory outfit whose marathon rehearsal sessions drifted between heavy psychedelia, proto-prog structures, and jazz-leaning instrumental interplay. Fitzpatrick wrote the bulk of the new material.
In 1968 they recorded what would become their self-titled LP for Bob Shad’s Mainstream label in Chicago, a haven for adventurous American psych and blues. The album’s release was delayed until April 1969 due to what Billboard called “a technical complication,” but when it finally surfaced as Mainstream S-6120 it immediately set itself apart from anything else in Canada at the time. From the sprawling, unhinged opener “Jenny Wake Up” to the tense, focused “Communication,” the record charted a young band pushing fearlessly into new musical territory.
Following the LP, the band issued two Canadian singles that captured their final stretch of work. The first, “Johnny Peace” b/w “Ernie’s Gone,” appeared on the Family label with a full-colour picture sleeve and briefly reached no. 22 on the RPM CanCon chart in April 1970; its A-side was an openly anti-war, draft-dodging song tied to the messaging of the Mosport Peace Festival Committee, who officially endorsed the release. RPM reported that Arc Sound “went all out” on the design and promotion of the record, which featured an unusual kazoo chorus and reflected Fitzpatrick’s growing profile as a songwriter. Their final 45, “Wonder Girl” b/w “Help Me Find Some Peace,” was released on Freedom Records later that year, written collectively by the post-LP lineup and produced under the guidance of their manager, Shel Safran. Freedom launched the single as the label’s inaugural release, with distribution handled by Quality Records, and RPM noted that the group remained active on the concert scene throughout Eastern Canada and the Northeastern U.S.
Although the LP sold poorly on release, “Communication” earned significant underground airplay, especially along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Billboard even suggested that Nucleus was “on the verge of breaking through internationally,” but the momentum wasn’t enough. Despite issuing two follow-up Canadian singles in 1970 — “Johnny Peace” and “Wonder Girl” — the band still struggled to gain broader industry support. Taylor, Leggat, and Horne moved on to form A Foot in Coldwater with Alex Machin and Paul Naumann, while Fitzpatrick and Richardson eventually pursued work in California.
The Nucleus album went on to become one of the great cult artifacts of Canadian progressive rock — a heavy, imaginative, forward-leaning LP that predated the early-’70s prog boom and showcased a band brimming with youthful creativity. Its reputation grew steadily among collectors, and the musicians reunited in 1991 for an audiophile gathering of the Canadian Wax Hounds, revisiting both their Lords of London and Nucleus years.
In the decades since, the members followed their own paths: Sebastian Agnello established himself as a respected solo artist; Fitzpatrick eventually settled in Newfoundland; the others continued performing, including in later versions of A Foot in Coldwater. What remains is a singular album — one of Mainstream’s strongest late-’60s releases — and a snapshot of a Toronto band catching fire just as the decade ended.
-Robert Williston
Greg (Francis) Fitzpatrick: bass, piano, vocals
Sebastian Agnello: keyboards
Danny (Vince) Taylor: drums
Hughie (C.H.) Leggat: bass, vocals
John (Screamin’ Jr.) Richardson: lead guitar, vocals
Bob (Tonto) Horne: organ (replaced Agnello)
