About Jimmy and the Shakers 1988-1990
From the pen of Jim (Jimmy) Kravanja:
I first met Glenn in Feb 1988 through an ad looking for guitar player bargain finder. Dominic music and myself were in a Slovenian band which played mostly in western Canada. We auditioned a lot of guitar players with gear, looks, attitude but we knew within 5 mins not what we were looking for. One night this gentleman with scotch tape all over his down filled coat to cover the rips, also had scotch tape holding his glasses together and a tiny Amp 6″ x 6″. I had never seen an amp so small and I thought to myself this will be another waste of time. When he plugged in within 30 seconds, I was flabbergasted at how amazing his talents were. At that point I told him I don’t think you will be interested in us. We jammed that evening and he asked me if I played bars, if I had an agent, demo tape, promo shots. I told him I didn’t and bars is where I really wanted to play. Glenn took me under his wing set everything up including our first bar gig. Dominic quit and he owned all the pa. I let Glenn know we would have to cancel. Glenn told me to just show up to the bar. When I arrived I thought I was in the wrong place — bigger pa and light show than I had ever played in front of. Glenn made a deal with Vic (from Lillo’s Music). We would pay percent of gigs to pay for lights and pa.
We played all types of music, you had to be prepared to play for any type of crowd – Rolling Stones, The Doors, Buddy Holly Elvis, Hendrix, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Honeymoon Suite, Billy Idol, Tears for Fears, country, 50s 60s and current rock, blues wide variety music. Our favourite to play was rock and blues, but we would try anything. After Glenn joined the next new member was Steve Mallot who has also passed away. Steve was a very accomplished keyboard player who was in the Grant MacEwan music program. Through Steve we acquired Paul Roberts original drummer of Jimmy and the Shakers and Ken Te amazing bass player, who were also in the Grant MacEwan music program. Paul now runs jams at the blues on white and plays with a few bands. Ken plays also plays with a number of bands and teaches english in Taiwan.
Yes we played a lot, I didn’t even know how to go about getting gigs but Glenn was a pro. He had us make a demo tape and we had posters made and he got me involved with Fisher Music Agency. Without him I would not have been able to do this. When he left, the band was quite successful and a lot of good guitar players wanted in so it was easy at that point. I was fortunate enough to thank him for all that last time we talked.
