At the early age of 13 years and unbeknownst to his mother, he and friend Don Towell played at a rather seedy restaurant/bar for free pop and $25 each. A couple of years later he entered a singing contest at the same club he and Don played at, here he met one of the judges Bob Sauve. Bob persuaded Tony and his mother that Tony could play acoustic guitar with his band at a club that Bob was playing at in the West End of Ottawa, called The Bayshore Hotel.
So in 1981, at barely 16 Tony, to his amazement was in a real bar playing music six nights a week. While playing with Bob Sauve and “Country Power” he learned to play bass guitar and after about a year playing with Bob Tony moved on to play with some other local of other bands; Shades of Sound, Joan And the Country Hearts and Chris McCann and Straight Goods.
In 1986, Tony formed his first band called “Uptown Country”. This was a 4-piece band that played the Ottawa valley area from Fort Coulonge, Quebec to Kinston, Ontario. Tony fronted the band while playing bass guitar and unknown to him this was very rare and garnered the band some attention from local promoters. The band was kept very busy working up to 45 weeks a year.
All the while Tony was improving the musicianship of the band by changing the members until it became a very strong 3 piece band called “The Truetones”. This band played not only country music but also some rock music. With Tony playing bass, rock guitarist Dan Dupont and jazz/rock drummer Ian McQuiag the band became very popular in the Ottawa valley area. The band was kept very busy playing clubs in the Ottawa area for a couple of years.
In 1991 Tony release his first album called “True To You” on cassette. It consisted of 9 original all self-penned songs. There were only a few hundred of these cassettes available and it did not get any radio airplay.
In 1995 Tony formed another 4 piece band, named “Sidewinder” consisting of; himself playing acoustic guitar, bass player Roy Wallingford, guitarist Alan Cranny and Ottawa Valley Country Music Hall Of Fame drummer Sam Henry. After a very short time together they landed a very sought after “house” gig at the renowned “Nashville Palace”. For two and a half years they played every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights to mostly a capacity crowd (200). Tony also performed at the club on the weekends sometimes appearing six nights a week there.
In the fall of 1996 Tony made a weeklong trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record an audition for acclaimed TNN (The Nashville Network) show, “Be A Star”. While in Nashville Tony appeared at several song writing clubs throughout Nashville including “Gilleys” and the infamous “Blue Bird Café”.
Also in 1996 Tony release his first CD entitled after one of the tracks “What The World Doesn’t Know”. The CD received mild airplay and the single “You’re A Jukebox Junkie” topped the Canadian country music charts in the months of March and April of 1997 at 97 and 95 of the top 100 respectively. Another single “Out Of My Misery” Topped the charts in the summer of 1997 at 96 of the top 100. The CD contained 11 original songs, 2 of which Tony wrote himself, 5 were co-written with friend Sherwood Lumsden, 2 were co-written with Sherwood Lumsden and Sidewinder guitarist Alan Cranny, 1 was written by Sherwood Lumsden and 1 was co-written with Sherwood Lumsden and Juno award winner Lynn Miles.
In 1998/1999 Tony and his band Sidewinder left the “Nashville Palace” and started travelling the regular circuit in the Ottawa Valley area.
Also during the years, 1999-2000 Tony took his musical fans and interests on a twist and formed a swing band. He formed a band that would play at over a dozen weddings and events in an 18 month time span. It consisted of a keyboard, an alto/tenor saxophone, a stand-up bass, a drummer and a jazz guitarist. They even help a Big Band dance in the infamous, now torn down, “St Pat Hall”.
From 2000 till present time Tony has mainly stuck to focusing on his solo work and has built following while playing at local Ottawa Legions. After years of playing an instrument while playing Tony has turned to modern technology to perform and has built up a large base of over 700 song on CD, that he sings over and uses for backing tracks. This has allowed him to expand the styles of music he can perform. So now not only does Tony sing Country and Rock and Roll music you can find him doing the greatest Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darrin hits.
In January of 2004 Tony started another band called “Rant N Roar”. They do Country, 50’s- current Rock and Roll and a selection of Celtic music.
Tony is the youngest of 4 children and there is a significant age gap between him and his older brothers. They listened to 50’s – 70’s rock and roll when Tony was growing up so this is where the sounds of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and a myriad of artists from those eras come from in his music.
Tony’s other musical influences like Big Band, crooner type music and Celtic sounds come from being around a wide variety of musicians and artists over the years.
There are a few new things in works but none of it is confirmed so we’d best not start any rumours.
