Streetheart

Initially rooted in Regina, Saskatchewan, before settling in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Streetheart emerged in the late 1970s around singer Kenny Shields and keyboardist Daryl Gutheil, both from Witness Inc., joined by guitarist Paul Dean, bassist Ken Spider Sinnaeve, and drummer Matt Frenette. Streetheart developed a melodic rock style leaning toward hard rock and AOR, marked by dense guitars, prominent keyboards, and a very upfront vocal delivery, blending original compositions with rearranged covers of rock standards. The band quickly made its mark on the Canadian scene with the album Meanwhile Back in Paris… in 1978, followed by Under Heaven Over Hell in 1979 and Quicksand Shoes in 1980, which established the Streetheart sound within the country’s English-language rock landscape. The departure of Paul Dean and Matt Frenette at the turn of the 1980s to form Loverboy brought the first lineup change, without halting the recording of new releases, notably Streetheart in 1982 and Dancing With Danger in 1983. After a more sporadic period of activity and several personnel changes from the mid-1980s onward, Streetheart regrouped at regular intervals, most often around Kenny Shields and Ken Sinnaeve, focusing on concerts and tours across Canada, which kept the band’s repertoire present on the national rock scene into the 2010s.