Alan Frew

by Charlotte DillonGuitarist and singer/songwriter Alan Frew is probably best known for the years he spent as a member of the award-winning rock group Glass Tiger. He has also completed a few solo recordings, and held on to a music career after the band fell apart.
Alan Frew was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and mostly raised there. When he was 16 he moved with his family to Canada. Singing for family and friends motivated him to begin performing in local bars and soon he was practicing on the guitar and writing his own songs, preparing to make an attempt at a career in music.
In 1980 he joined a Newmarket, Ontario, alternative pop/rock-style band called Tokyo, as its lead singer. Other members were guitarist Al Connelly, keyboardist and singer Sam Reid, drummer and singer Michael Hanson, bassist Wayne Parker, and later drummer Randall Coryell. The group spent four years playing clubs in Toronto building a fan base before manager Derek Sutton found them. The result was a deal with Capital Records, a name change from Tokyo to Glass Tiger, and a 1986 debut album, The Thin Red Line.
Over the next three years, Frew recorded a long list of singles and a number of albums as part of Glass Tiger. The group also won three Juno Awards for its work, and a couple of Grammy nominations as well. Tours through Canada, the United States, and Europe brought the band, and Frew, plenty of exposure.
There is always bad to go with the good, and in the early '90s the band called it quits. Undaunted by the spilt, Alan Frew went solo and completed two albums under the EMI label: Hold On in 1994 and Wonderland in 2000.