  Jean Charbonneau (guitars and vocals) and Bob Dufour (bass and vocals) grew up in Laval, Quebec with a lot of the same musical influences – generally the bulk of the heavy part of the British Invasion. They formed Blind Ravage in the fall of 1969 with drummer Danny Gorman, and began doing Deep Purple, Cream, and Rod Stewart covers in and around the Montreal area clubs.Within the first six months, Gorman was gone, and Andre Deguire joined, a drummer who was sitting in with the headlining house band during one of their shows. After doing a few gigs together, it was decided to augment their raw heavy blues sound, and Serge Fleury joined, an organist Deguire played with a couple of years earlier in The Furys. Fleury was doing mostly R&B at the time, and was also a high school music teacher. It wasn’t long before The Beatles, Spencer Davis, and Zeppelin were added to the mix, and their popularity began to grow. A few of their own songs made it into the repetoire, and they were signed in early ’71 by Crescent Street Records. Producer Ken Ayoub was brought in, who’d worked with Deguire and Fleury in the Flurys. The result was their self-titled debut, and only record later that year. With the exception of the cover of Dale Hawkins’ “Suzie Q” leading the way, the album was mainly full of psychadelic garage originals, mostly written by Charbonneau and Dufour. The exceptions were Deguire’s “My Life” and Fleury’s “Strange Power.” The single “Loser” b/w “My Life”, both groove-driven numbers and less trippy than the rest of the album was released, but it never gained traction and quickly disappeared. Still, they continued touring for over the next year throughout eastern Canada and the American north east. But by ’73, things fell apart without a label, and Charbonneau left to do his own thing. The remaining members re-emerged a year or so later as Clockwork. A progressive rock band in the style of Yes or early Genesis, they were popular throughout Quebec for awhile, and released the single “Cybernaut” b/w “Mean Lady” independently. Nothing came of it, and everyone eventually went their separate ways to do their own things. Dufour reconnected with Charbonneau to do a country/rock gig called Mirage for a few years. The individual members got together now and again for special events, and Fleury and Dufour got into the blues. Deguire passed away in 1997, and Charbonneau followed in late 2006. The album was picked up by Gear Fab Records in ’07, an American label specializing in hard to find, out of print re-releases. It was released again in 2015, this time on vinyl, by the Spanish label, Outside Records. In neither case was any new or unreleased material included. |
