Biography

The Laurie Bower Singers carried on in a limited capacity throughout the 1980's until their retirement in 1990.

He spent his youth in a musical household, nursing a deep love for pop and big band sounds.

Considered a workhorse in the city's tight-knit music business, Bower recorded jingles for thousands of television and radio commercials, ranging from local businesses to Fortune 500 companies - anything that required a big-band sound. And if any of those recordings required whistling, his were the lips to do it.

The Laurie Bower Singers became known for their silky smooth harmonies and sugary sweet interpretations of some of the most popular songs of the day; covering everyone from Neil Diamond, to Michael Jackson, to even Supertramp, as the years went on.

In the early 1980s, Laurie Bower co-founded the Spitfire Band with singer Jackie Rae, who got the name from the British war planes he flew in the Second World War, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross. It was intended as a studio orchestra that played big-band standards. But following the success of the group's first record, the 18 members hit the road, with Laurie Bower on trombone and as vocal arranger. The Spitfires, pronounced "a success story" by Globe jazz critic Mark Miller, played at conventions, fundraisers and public concerts, and earned a coveted residency in the late 1980s at the Imperial Room of Toronto's Royal York Hotel.