Information/Write-up
The Laurie Bower Singers – Canada’s Studio Soundtrack
The story of the Laurie Bower Singers is less about chart hits than it is about presence. For more than two decades, their voices seemed to be everywhere in Canadian life—on radio jingles, television themes, variety shows, commercials, and an unbroken run of albums that defined the sound of smooth, professional harmony. Behind it all was trombonist, arranger, and choral leader Laurie Bower, whose knack for marrying jazz sophistication with pop clarity made his singers indispensable to broadcasters and record producers alike.
Born in Kirkland Lake in 1933, Lawrence “Laurie” Bower studied trombone and choral technique at the University of Toronto and cut his teeth in the dance bands of Benny Louis, Ozzie Williams, and Mart Kenney. He was soon a regular in CBC studios, part of a generation of musicians who moved fluidly between jazz clubs at night and commercial sessions during the day. Bower’s reputation grew not only as a player but also as an arranger with a gift for clarity—he could take any group of singers and give them a polished, unified sound.
The Laurie Bower Singers came together in 1969, first as a compact vocal quintet and then gradually expanding into a rotating ensemble of Toronto’s finest session singers. At a time when the CBC and the Canadian Talent Library were commissioning music to fill airwaves with homegrown content, Bower’s group was perfectly placed. They were versatile, reliable, and fast. The group could cut a full album of covers in a matter of days, record a pair of jingles in the morning, and back a jazz orchestra on television the same evening.
Their albums, issued steadily through the 1970s—often on the Canadian Talent Library imprint—captured their lush, easy-listening style: re-voiced pop and folk hits arranged with orchestral sweep. But their real influence went far beyond LPs. By their own estimate, the singers recorded hundreds, even thousands, of commercials. Cal Dodd, one of the later members, once joked that they were doing “two jingles a day, every day, for 25 years.” If you turned on Canadian radio or television during those decades, chances are you heard the Laurie Bower Singers without knowing it.
What set them apart was Bower’s insistence on precision without losing warmth. His charts gave the singers the silky quality of American groups like the Ray Conniff Singers, but with a flexibility that allowed them to slip into jazz, folk, country, or advertising work without missing a beat. They became the “house sound” of countless CBC productions and a model of professionalism for younger singers breaking into the Toronto studio scene.
By the end of the 1970s the group had even reached the U.S. market, with three albums released stateside, but the tides of popular taste were shifting. While disco and rock dominated commercial radio, the Laurie Bower Singers remained most valuable in the worlds of broadcasting, jingles, and live television. Bower himself branched out in the early 1980s, co-founding the Spitfire Band and continuing to play trombone with big bands led by Guido Basso, Peter Appleyard, and Jim Galloway.
The group wound down its activities in the late 1980s, formally retiring around 1990. Yet their legacy is less about one big hit and more about saturation. They were part of the fabric of Canadian sound during a formative period, when broadcasters and advertisers relied heavily on live studio talent. The Laurie Bower Singers brought polish and consistency, ensuring that Canadian music—whether on a prime-time CBC variety show or in a thirty-second toothpaste jingle—always sounded world-class.
Today their records are prized as artifacts of the Canadian Talent Library era, and Laurie Bower himself is remembered as a linchpin of Toronto’s studio culture: a musician who quietly shaped the way Canada sounded during a quarter century of rapid change.
-Robert Williston
Laurie Bower: vocals
Patty Van Evert: vocals
Tommy Ambrose: vocals
Kathy Collier: vocals
Vern Kennedy: vocals
Orchestras directed by Guido Basso and Moe Koffman
Recording engineer: Mark Smith
Recording supervisor: Johnny Burt
Technical consultant: Bill Baker
Repertoire consultant: Arthur Collins
Executive producer: J. Lyman Potts
Liner notes:
It’s safe to say that the only resident Canadians who have never heard the Laurie Bower Singers are deaf. But just whether all who listened actually were aware they were hearing the Laurie Bower Singers is something else again, because often they are not introduced or identified.
Without question, the busiest group of vocalists in Canada, the Laurie Bower Singers dominate all forms of electronic entertainment – radio, TV, and records. On both radio and TV, they participate in literally hundreds of commercials. In the video medium, they have to their credit such shows as In Person, Barris & Company and Mallets & Brass. On radio, The Juliette Show. On records (and radio) The Mutual Understanding; and CTL albums such as those by Ben McPeek and Mary Lou Collins. Individually, the members of the group add further laurels to their credit and contribute to the entertainment of twenty million of their fellow countrymen as well as multi-millions abroad.
Patty Van Evert and Tommy Ambrose are native Torontonians. Kathy Collier hails from Windsor, Ontario, and Vern Kennedy from Amherstburg. Laurie Bower was born and raised in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, but obtained his Bachelor of Music Degree in 1957 at the University of Toronto. Prior to entering the singing field, he played trombone in a number of Toronto-based bands. He did four virtually “live” years in radio, TV, and recording studios, assembling and directing vocal groups for any number of situations. In addition to his achievements cited above, Laurie arranged the Canadian Young Canada Singers in the popular Can-a-da album and other ensembles in the Canadian National Exhibition Grandstand Show.
This is the first album in which Laurie Bower receives top billing and thus enters into world competition with the vocal recording groups of English-speaking countries. The group is supported by orchestras under the direction of Guido Basso and Moe Koffman. The arrangements for the twelve numbers are by Rick Wilkins.
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