A welcome reprise ‘Musician’s musician’ instrumental in Streetheart’s ’70s success thrilled to be picking up the tempo again with bandmates By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024

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This article was published 24/08/2024 (748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Veteran radio personality Howard Mandshein gets straight to the point while discussing Daryl Gutheil, who along with the rest of Streetheart will be performing directly outside the Burton Cummings Theatre on Sunday night as part of this year’s open-air Burt Block Party.

“He may not be the charismatic lead singer, he may not be the electrifying guitarist but make no mistake about it, he’s the guy you build a band around,” says Mandshein of Streetheart’s keyboardist and co-author of many of the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductees’ best-known numbers, including Action, What Kind of Love is This and Look in Your Eyes.

Mandshein was one of the first jocks in the country to sing Streetheart’s praises over the airwaves in 1978 following the release of the bands debut album Meanwhile Back in Paris…. It never fails, he says; when he’s taking in a Streetheart concert, which through the years he has done more times than he can count, his eyes are always drawn to what Gutheil is up to behind the keys.

“I just feel the power that’s emanating from his soul and driving the band when he’s on stage,” says Mandshein, who, as host of 92 CITI-FM’s Sunday Morning Resurrection, continues to spin Streetheart classics such as Hollywood and One More Time on a regular basis.

“The smarts this guy has? The musical intelligence? Daryl is a rock musician’s musician and is the glue that keeps that band together.”

“Oh, that,” Gutheil, 73, says with a chuckle, upon answering the door of his and his wife Kathy’s tastefully decorated Fort Garry abode, and being quizzed about a front sidewalk plastered with colourful chalk illustrations of rainbows and unicorns.

Their grandchildren are visiting from Phoenix and the drawings are their doing, he explains, mentioning they’re out for the afternoon so we needn’t fret that our mountain bike will be a different shade when we hop back onto it in an hour or so.

“Last summer, they along with our two grandkids from Winnipeg came with us to Regina, where Streetheart was booked for a gig just outside of town,” he continues as he leads us downstairs, where a wall opposite a spare bedroom boasts an impressive array of framed gold and platinum records and CDs. “They’re ages five to 10 and it was the first time they saw me play. Afterwards they kept saying, ‘Wow, Grandpa’s cool,’ which was nice to hear, whether it’s true or not.”

Music was a constant in the Gutheil household when he was growing up in Lakeview, a character neighbourhood in southwest Regina. Around operating his own business, his father Floyd was a member of the Paul Perry Orchestra while his mother Melrose was an accomplished vocalist.

Gutheil, the second-eldest of seven siblings, figures he was eight years old when he took up the trumpet, and 11 years old when he and his older brother Don were recruited for a vocal group dubbed the Melody Lads that sang folk tunes popularized by the likes of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary.

He enjoyed the Melody Lads — the troupe even travelled to Winnipeg for a show when he was in Grade 6 — but he knew deep down that style of music wasn’t for him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what his preference would be, but he received his answer on Feb. 9, 1964, when four long-haired lads from Liverpool made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Seconds after the Beatles launched into All My Loving, he and Don looked at one another and exclaimed in unison, “That’s what I wanna do!”

“We approached our parents that same night, telling them that we both wanted guitars,” he recalls. “They told us, OK, June’s coming and if we kept our marks up we could talk further, though I have a feeling they intended to get them for us, anyways.”

By 1965, the brothers had helped form the Andantes, a five-piece unit that delivered spot-on renditions of Hollies, Rolling Stones and Yardbirds hits at community club and high school dances across Regina. Gutheil was 15 years old and still handling guitar duties for the Andantes in January 1967 when the Doors’ Light My Fire started its ascent up the pop charts. His bandmates suggested they learn to play Light My Fire, only there was one problem: how would they recreate the extended keyboard solo that dominates its middle portion?

“Maybe it was because I was the youngest guy in the band, but they were like, ‘Daryl, you’re up,’” he says. “I began with a rented keyboard but before too long, I’d bought a Hammond organ and have been playing keys pretty much, ever since.”

The Andantes broke up in 1969. The next year Gutheil joined Wascana, a horn-heavy troupe in the vein of Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Wascana’s bass guitarist was Ken Sinnaeve, nicknamed Spider, whom Gutheil had met briefly in grade school, when the two belonged to the same marching band. Around the same time, a rock group called Witness Inc., led by its enigmatic lead singer Kenny Shields, was making noise in and around Saskatchewan’s capital.

Witness, Inc. had released a number of singles and was starting to establish itself outside the province when Shields was involved in a serious car accident that sidelined him for three years, Gutheil says. “I’d gotten to know Kenny when he was living next door to my brother, and after Wascana broke up in 1975, Spider and I approached him, to ask if he wanted to pick it up again.”

The newly formed band billed itself as Witness, minus the Inc. Witness was getting its fair share of bookings but because its set lists consisted primarily of other artists’ songs, Gutheil, Sinnaeve and Shields agreed they would need to start writing and performing original material, if they wanted to be in it for the long haul.

In the summer of 1976 the three of them approached guitarist Paul Dean and drummer Matt Frenette, both of whom were late of Edmonton rockers the Great Canadian River Race. Dean and Frenette agreed to hook up with them in Regina to see if there was any chemistry. Within a matter of months, the newly named Streetheart, a twist on sweetheart, had penned close to 25 original songs, and were drawing standing-room-only crowds, not to mention the attention of record company execs.

By now, the story of Streetheart has been well-documented. How their debut record led to a Juno Award as the country’s most promising group, and how Dean and Frenette left to form Loverboy, ahead of the release of Under Heaven Over Hell, Streetheart’s sophomore effort.

Also, how the popularity of Streetheart’s seminal version of the Rolling Stones’ Under My Thumb led to cross-country tours, plus opening slots for rock ’n’ roll heavyweights AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult and Styx.

In 1981, Streetheart relocated to Winnipeg to be closer to Century 21, the group’s recording studio of choice. The band had its greatest success with its eponymously-titled 1982 effort, which was certified double-platinum for sales of 200,000-plus. Despite that accomplishment, Streetheart broke up the following year, a few months before Buried Treasure, a collection of unreleased tracks, was issued on Capital Records.

“I simply think we ran out of gas or steam or whatever you want to call it,” Gutheil says matter-of-factly. “For six years, we’d been putting out more than a record a year in between touring, which was a heck of a lot of work. In a way it was sad but in another way it was a relief that it was over.”

Not one to rest on his laurels, Gutheil returned to school, to study creative communications at Red River College Polytechnic. That led to a position as a technical writer for a Winnipeg manufacturing firm, a job he balanced until his retirement with playing music on the side. (For years, the father of three grown children has been a member of the Marvells, a four-piece ensemble that dabbles in everything from Sam Cooke to ABBA to Shania Twain, and primarily performs at Royal Canadian legions.)

“I firmly believe time is a great teacher and personally wish I was more in the frame of mind I am now when it comes writing original material — relaxed, feeling zero pressure — than I was 40-odd years ago.”–Daryl Gutheil

Streetheart eventually reformed in the early 2000s, and was still going strong in 2017, playing multiple casino dates a year, when Shields died at age 69, ahead of a planned 40th anniversary tour. Gutheil was convinced Shields’ death meant curtains for the band.

“We did do the memorial show at the Goldeyes’ park that same summer, with Paul (McNair) filling in for Kenny,” he says. “That worked out fantastically and pretty soon, we were getting calls from promoters, saying ‘We want you guys,’ and were we planning to continue?’”

Sunday’s show will mark the five-year anniversary of the latest iteration of Streetheart. COVID-19 may have kept the guys from performing publicly for almost 24 months, but Gutheil, Sinnaeve, McNair and long-time guitarist Jeff Neill used their time wisely. Streetheart currently has the makings of close to 60 new tunes, Gutheil reports, describing the lot as 15 that are 90 per cent completed, 15 that are half-recorded, 15 that are written but not recorded, and 10 or 15 that are half-written.

“The last few years, I’ve felt way more inspired and just sort of more skilled at songwriting,” he says, noodling around with a guitar. “I firmly believe time is a great teacher and personally wish I was more in the frame of mind I am now when it comes writing original material — relaxed, feeling zero pressure — than I was 40-odd years ago.”

Given that, should fans taking in Sunday night’s show expect Gutheil to step up to the mic at some point to announce, “And now, here’s one from our forthcoming new album?”

“We’ll see,” he says with a wink. “I go to lots of shows, too, and if it’s one of my heroes playing a song I grew up with, I’m like, ‘Yeah, man, does that ever take me back.’ So I understand anybody coming to see Streetheart only wanting to hear the hits like Tin Soldier and Snow White. That’d probably be me, too.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca