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Tony Kosinec
Processes
Columbia - 1969
Michael Panontin
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Tony Kosinec may not exactly be a household name. But he is author of one of the most enduring songs in Canadian history: the 'Okay Blue Jays' song, co-written with Jack Lenz in the early eighties and played during the seventh-inning stretch of every Toronto Blue Jays home game since.
Kosinec was born in Leeds UK and came to Toronto as a child. But it wasn't long before the budding songwriter found himself in New York City, where he shared the stage with many well-known singers of the late sixties. Billboard, for instance, reviewed a July 30th, 1969 show he did with Linda Ronsdadt at the Bottom Line, writing that Kosinec "seemed at home in the small club" and that "his music is improving and his singing needs no improvement".
Kosinec signed with Columbia, who assembled an all-star cast for his debut LP, Processes. That crew included Lighthouse guitarist Ralph Cole, former Electric Flag bassist Harvey Brooks and backing singers Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles, as well as fellow Canucks - and Lighthouse co-founders - Paul Hoffert and Skip Prokop on keyboards and drums, respectively. And surprisingly, Columbia entrusted the production end to Hoffert and Prokop, who at that time were pretty well both neophytes in the control booth.
That '69 Billboard piece was not all glowing, however. It described Kosinec's material as "tedious as well as verbose", which probably accounts for arranger Hoffert's use of sweeping strings and potent brass as embellishments throughout the record. You can hear that right off the bat with the opener, 'Down on Words', a relatively ho-hum tune that is transformed into a snappy jazz-rock number. Ditto for the title cut, which is here augmented by Hoffert's spry piano and some deftly placed horns, and the single. 'You Got Me Crazy', a freewheeling slice of cabaret/rock that unfortunately did not chart at all.
Processes was a commercial flop, though not for lack of trying. Columbia took out a full-page ad in Billboard touting new LPs by Kosinec, Leonard Cohen and Blood, Sweat and Tears ("What do these artists have in common? They're Canadian [sic] of course.") Kosinec seemed to find his way on the follow-ups, 1970's stripped-down Bad Girl Songs, produced by Peter Asher (of Peter and Gordon fame) and 1973's Consider the Heart, which contained his biggest hit, the deeply spiritual single 'All Things Come from God'. All three of those early Kosinec discs were pressed up on CD in Japan, with Bad Girl Songs, generally considered his high-water album, having been reissued three times.
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