Copperpenny

Copperpenny was a Canadian band that came together in 1966 and were previously know as The Penny Farthings. In 1968 they had a minor hit, "Nice Girl" under the Columbia label. They had two other singles with Columbia but without any success Columbia dropped them. In 1970 they released their debut album under RCA. The song, "Stop (Wait A Minute)" made it to the top 100 chart. When their second album, Sitting On A Poor Mans Throne was released in 1973 they had signed to Sweet Plum Records, a subsidiary of London Records. There was also a change in the line up, Blake Barrett was on drums, Bill Mononen on guitar and Ron Hiller covered bass. This was their most successful album with the songs, "Rock And Roll Boogie Woogie And Wine", "You're Still The One", "Where Is The Answer" and "Sitting On A Poor Man's Throne" all making the charts. They signed on with Capitol Records and their final album, Fuse was released in 1975 under the name Rich Wamil & Copperpenny. It contained no original material and the line up had again changed with Barry Keane on drums and percussion, Brian Russell and Al Mix on guitar, Paul Zaza on bass, Eric Robertson on keyboards and Bert Hermiston on sax. "Disco Queen", "Good Time Sally" and "Suspicious Love" all made the charts but the band finally split up in 1976. During their career they shared the stage with Led Zeppelin, The Guess Who, The Five Man Electrical Band, Uriah Heep and Bob Seger. They briefly had their own variety show that launched the career of Doug Henning.
Kenny Hollis went solo and had success with the single "Goin' Hollywood" he then became emcee and PR manager at Lulu's Roadhouse in Kitchener, Ontario. Hollis died from a heart attack in 2002 after being hit by a truck. Ron Hiller played in a gospel music band called Sonlight. Later he was a studio musician and did children's projects under the name Ronno and Friends. Rich Wamil now works at an insurance brokerage in Ontario. Paul Reibling owns and operates Reibling Audio & Design Services. Vern McDonald played in the band, Yukon.