Information/Write-up
Stand Back, released in 1975, captures April Wine at the moment they transformed from a hard-working Canadian touring act into one of the country’s most reliable radio and concert draws. The lineup solidified during the making of Electric Jewels — Myles Goodwyn, Jim Clench, Gary Moffet, and Jerry Mercer — had now fully locked into place, and the shift is immediately audible. The looseness of their early years gives way to a sharper, more deliberate sound, built around Goodwyn’s increasingly confident songwriting and the powerful, tightly drilled rhythm section that defined April Wine’s mid-’70s identity.
Canadian FM radio was in the midst of its own evolution at the time, and Stand Back arrived just as stations like CHOM-FM Montréal, CHUM-FM Toronto, CKLG-FM Vancouver and a rising university-radio circuit were opening their playlists to domestic rock with a broader, cleaner, more melodic approach. April Wine fit this new atmosphere perfectly. “Tonight Is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love” became an immediate favourite, its bright guitars and open, unforced chorus giving the band a presence on both FM and AM formats. “I Wouldn’t Want to Lose Your Love,” with its patient vocal and layered harmonies, expanded that reach even further, becoming one of April Wine’s most widely played ballads of the era.
What made the album stick, however, were the deeper cuts. “Cum Hear the Band,” “Oowatanite,” and “Don’t Push Me Around” reflected the grittier side of April Wine’s live show, the part of their sound that made them a headliner in hockey arenas, campus halls, and western roadhouses long before U.S. programmers began paying attention. Clench’s vocals on “Oowatanite” were especially potent, giving the track a rawness that contrasted with Goodwyn’s more melodic sensibilities. These songs became concert staples and helped define the band’s reputation across the country during an era when touring was the lifeblood of Canadian rock.
The sessions themselves reflected a group growing more decisive in the studio. Mercer’s drumming had become explosive yet disciplined, Moffet’s guitar lines were cleaner and more architectural, and Goodwyn’s vocals carried a new sense of control. Even the arrangements feel more purposeful than on earlier records — economical, melodic, and tailored to the strengths of a band increasingly aware of its place on Canadian airwaves.
Stand Back became one of the first Canadian rock albums to achieve double-platinum status, a remarkable milestone at a time when the country’s domestic industry was still maturing. It allowed April Wine to consolidate their national following and build the foundation for the albums that would carry them into international markets over the next several years. If the early records document a band still discovering who they were, Stand Back is the sound of April Wine settling comfortably into their identity and recognizing, perhaps for the first time, how far that identity could take them.
-Robert Williston
Musicians
Myles Goodwyn: guitars, keyboards, lead vocals
Jim Clench: bass, vocals (lead vocals on ‘Oowatanite’ and ‘Baby Done Got Some Soul’)
Gary Moffet: guitars, background vocals
Jerry Mercer: percussion, background vocals
Songwriting
‘Oowatanite’ written by Jim Clench
‘Don’t Push Me Around’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Cum Hear the Band’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Slow Poke’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Victim of Your Love’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Baby Done Got Some Soul’ written by Jim Clench
‘I Wouldn’t Want to Lose Your Love’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Highway Hard Run’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Not for You Not for Rock & Roll’ written by Myles Goodwyn
‘Wouldn’t Want Your Love (Any Other Way)’ written by Jim Clench, Myles Goodwyn
‘Tonite Is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love’ written by Myles Goodwyn
Published by Slalom Music
Production
Produced by April Wine (‘Oowatanite’, ‘Don’t Push Me Around’, ‘Cum Hear the Band’, ‘Slow Poke’, ‘Victim of Your Love’, ‘Baby Done Got Some Soul’, ‘Highway Hard Run’, ‘Not for You Not for Rock & Roll’, ‘Wouldn’t Want Your Love (Any Other Way)’, ‘Tonite Is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love’)
Produced by Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish (‘I Wouldn’t Want to Lose Your Love’)
Engineered by Ian Terry
Recorded at Studio Tempo and Electric Lady Studios
Lacquer cut at Disques SNB Ltée
Manufactured and produced for Aquarius Records of Canada Limited
Management by Terry Flood
Artwork
Design by Bob Lemm
Photography by Graham Fowler
Live photography by Graham Likeness and Rodd Butt
Notes
First Canadian pressing; second pressing has alternate labels
Bio
April Wine emerged at the end of the 1960s out of the fertile east-coast music community that stretched between Halifax and St. John’s. Brothers David and Ritchie Henman had played together since their teens in Newfoundland, eventually regrouping in Nova Scotia with their cousin Jim Henman in various lineups. Around the same time, Myles Goodwyn — born in Woodstock, New Brunswick and raised in a tough working-class household — was working through his own bands in the Halifax scene, including Woody’s Termites, Squirrel, and East Gate Sanctuary. When those projects dissolved in late 1969, the four musicians brought their strengths together under a new name that simply sounded right: April Wine.
Real opportunity lay outside the Maritimes. The group made a demo and sent it to Montréal’s fast-rising Aquarius Records; a polite rejection was misread as an invitation. On April 1, 1970, with little money and plenty of nerve, April Wine arrived unannounced in Montréal. Aquarius partners Donald K. Tarlton and Terry Flood heard something promising and signed them, putting the young band up in a rural chalet to write and rehearse while touring the region opening for Mashmakhan.
Their debut album April Wine (1971) introduced Goodwyn’s songwriting voice, and its standout track “Fast Train” became a Canadian Top 40 hit. With momentum building, April Wine returned to the studio with a new bassist — Montréal musician Jim Clench, who had replaced the departing Jim Henman — and English-born producer Ralph Murphy to craft On Record (1972). It became their first breakthrough: a muscular reworking of Hot Chocolate’s “You Could Have Been a Lady” shot to No. 2 in Canada and cracked the U.S. charts, while their cover of Elton John’s “Bad Side of the Moon” became a fixture at rock radio. The band quickly graduated from bars to theatres and arenas, opening for The Guess Who, Jethro Tull, Badfinger, Stevie Wonder, and Ike & Tina Turner, gaining the road experience that would define their next decade.
During the making of their third album Electric Jewels (1973), the Henman brothers exited the group; Goodwyn and Clench rebuilt the lineup with two crucial arrivals: drummer Jerry Mercer, already nationally known from Mashmakhan, and guitarist Gary Moffet. The chemistry was immediate. Electric Jewels became a formative record, showcasing songwriting depth in tracks such as “Weeping Widow,” “Just Like That,” and “Lady Run, Lady Hide,” and solidifying the band’s dramatic stage show, complete with lights and pyrotechnics, on their ambitious Electric Adventure tour.
Through the mid-1970s, April Wine became one of Canada’s most reliable and inventive rock bands. Stand Back (1975) pushed them into double-platinum territory with “Tonight Is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love” and “I Wouldn’t Want to Lose Your Love,” while harder-edged tracks like “Oowatanite” turned into signature concert moments. When bassist Steve Lang replaced Jim Clench in 1976, the band entered its most commercially dominant phase. The Whole World’s Goin’ Crazy arrived with unprecedented platinum advance orders, followed in 1977 by the ballad-driven Forever for Now, whose single “You Won’t Dance with Me” became their best-selling Canadian record of the era.
In March 1977, April Wine unwittingly stepped into one of the most famous episodes in Canadian rock. Booked as headliners for a pair of Toronto charity concerts at the El Mocambo, they discovered that their “opening act,” listed as The Cockroaches, was in fact The Rolling Stones, secretly recording material for Love You Live. April Wine’s own set was captured and released as Live at the El Mocambo, a raw snapshot of a band hitting its stride just as guitarist-vocalist Brian Greenway joined the lineup. With Goodwyn, Moffet, and Greenway, April Wine became a formidable three-guitar outfit; Goodwyn could now move between guitar, keys, and vocals without leaving gaps in the band’s sound.
Their U.S. breakthrough came with First Glance (1978), recorded at Montréal’s Studio Tempo and Québec’s famed Le Studio in Morin-Heights. “Roller” unexpectedly surged on FM rock stations in Michigan, spreading across the U.S. and giving April Wine their first gold album outside Canada. The band was soon touring American arenas with Rush, Journey, Styx, and other major acts, no longer an opening act from the north but a rising international name.
They entered the 1980s at full strength. April Wine performed at the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in August 1980 before tens of thousands of fans, signalling their arrival onto the global hard-rock stage. Their next studio album, The Nature of the Beast (1981), recorded partly again at Le Studio, became the pinnacle of their international success. The soaring ballad “Just Between You and Me” broke the U.S. Top 20, while their explosive reimagining of Lorence Hud’s “Sign of the Gypsy Queen” became a defining FM rock staple. The album went multi-platinum in Canada, platinum abroad, and spent months on the Billboard 200, cementing April Wine’s presence across North America and Europe.
The follow-up, Power Play (1982), produced additional airplay with “Enough Is Enough” and “If You See Kay,” but the workload of back-to-back touring and recording cycles took its toll. Animal Grace (1984) and the more fragmented Walking Through Fire (1985) revealed a band under strain, and by the mid-1980s April Wine quietly dissolved. Goodwyn released a solo album on Aquarius and Atlantic; Greenway issued Serious Business; Mercer moved into session work and new collaborations.
By the end of the decade, however, classic-rock radio had revived interest. Goodwyn returned to Montréal in 1988 and began discussing a reunion with Greenway, Mercer, and Jim Clench. A renewed April Wine debuted live in 1992, playing to sold-out crowds across Canada and the United States. Their 1993 studio return, Attitude, went gold in Canada with the single “If You Believe in Me,” followed by Frigate (1994). The band spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s touring widely, sharing stages with Def Leppard, Foreigner, Meat Loaf, Nazareth, Blue Öyster Cult, and other cornerstone classic-rock acts.
Goodwyn brought the group back to its roots for Back to the Mansion (2001) and later the analog-leaning Roughly Speaking (2006). Lineups shifted as the years passed: Clench left and later passed away in 2010; beloved long-time bassist Steve Lang died in 2017; drummer Jerry Mercer retired after more than three decades. Their successors — notably bassist Richard Lanthier and drummer Roy “Nip” Nichol — kept the group’s live power intact alongside Greenway’s enduring presence.
Goodwyn’s 2016 memoir Just Between You and Me shed new light on his early life and the band’s long arc, and in 2018 he was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. April Wine themselves received the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 and entered the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the 2010 Juno Awards.
In late 2022, facing ongoing health issues, Goodwyn announced his retirement from touring, but remained involved in writing and guiding the band. He performed one final live concert with April Wine in March 2023, joined by original bassist Jim Henman for a poignant reunion. Myles Goodwyn died in Halifax on December 3, 2023, at the age of 75.
April Wine continues to tour into the present with Brian Greenway, Richard Lanthier, Roy Nichol, and Marc Parent, carrying a legacy built on powerhouse guitars, durable songwriting, and more than fifty years of Canadian rock history — a catalogue that never left the airwaves, and a name that remains synonymous with the rise of Canadian rock on the international stage.
-Robert Williston
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