Born in Leeds, England, Toronto singer/songwriter Tony Kosinec was one of the rare '60's artists to live out his musical career in the footlights of American stages. Though he performed quite often, his most prevalent work occurred in New York.
He spent the '60's and '70's doing opening slots for folk acts like Seals And Croft, Laura Nyro, Poco and moved into the R & B limelight with Procal Harum and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
His first two releases, 'Processes' and 'Bad Girl Songs' for Columbia, were produced by Peter Asher (Peter & Gordon) and produced his first semi-successful single "48 DeSoto" in 1971.
By 1972 he had moved back to Toronto and signed to Dave Coutts' indie label, Smile Records, to release his most acclaimed album 'Consider The Heart' and its bona fide hit "All Things Come From God".
By 1976 he had switched labels again, this time to GRT, and released several singles including "Love Hurts" and "So Long".
Kosinec also dabbled in acting and his career stalled out as his focus became geared toward radio commercials and jingles. He recorded the album 'Almost Pretty' for Mercury in 1980, but the label opted not to release it. In 2003 it finally made an appearance on CD in Japan. Kosinec decided to take control of the management of his output and released one more album which he licenced to True North called 'The Passerby' in 1985.
These days, Kosinec is best known for the Toronto Blue Jays theme song that is played at every game and his award-winning 'Radio Heartbeat' segments - a slice of life anecdotal sound bite of people talking about their lives - which was syndicated to 75 radio stations nationally.
He recently scored the historical epic CBS mini-series "Joan Of Arc" starring Peter O’Toole, Shirley MacLean, and Olympia Dukakis...120 minutes of symphonic music. Kosinec's 'Bad Girl Songs' has met with a new wave of enthusiasm as a CD re-issue through Sony Japan. Kosinec still does music production work in Toronto and has been recording material for a new solo CD with additional plans to release a 'best of' in the year 2000.
with notes from Larry Saidman, David Bash, Tony Kosinec, and James Collins.
Singles
1969 Simple Emotion (Columbia)
1969 Processes (Images Of A Girl)/You Got Me Crazy (Columbia) 4-4942
1971 48 DeSoto (Columbia)
1971 Me And My Friends (Columbia)
1972 All Things Come From God/Banging On A Nail (Smile) SLE-102
1974 Love Hurts (CBC)
1974 A Little Road And A Stone To Roll (CBC)
1974 So Long (CBC)
1985 Who's Love (True North/CBS)
1985 Listen To The Hukilau (True North/CBS)
Albums
1969 Processes (Columbia/CBS - US) CS-9832
1970 Bad Girl Songs (Columbia/CBS) CS-30277
1973 Consider The Heart (Smile/London) SMS-1
1976 Hometown Boy (CBC)
1980 Almost Pretty [unreleased] (Mercury - US)
1985 The Passerby (True North/CBS) TN-62
1998 Bad Girl Songs [CD re-issue] (Sony - Japan)
2003 Almost Pretty [CD] (?? - Japan)
Video
Compilation Tracks
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