  Formed in Toronto, Myles & Lenny consisted of Montreal native singer Myles Cohen and Lenny Soloman, who was studying piano and violin before he was a teenager. While Cohen was a self-taught guitarist, Soloman’s love for the violin came naturally, as his father Stanley Soloman performed with the Toronto Symphony.Cohen had dabbled in a few bands while growing up, and first began playing with Soloman while they were still in high school in Toronto. Their first ‘official’ time on stage together was at a songwriters conference that was held in conjunction with the 1969 Mariposa Folk Festival. From there they started mixing folk standards with their own material while playing the local area coffee houses, and then made a few trips out west. They eventually caught the attention of reps at GRT Records, who signed the duo to a deal in ’72. The single “Time To Know Your Friends” b/w “Friends” was released later that year to a fairly good local response. But when GRT dropped them from the label, they went shopping for a new deal while still doing shows around the Toronto area. They signed with Columbia Records in ’74 and assembled a sessions band that consisted of Saul Keshen on bass and drummer Brian Leonard, and released the single, “Can You Give It All To Me,” a haunting ballad that peaked at #19 in Canada. Encouraged, Columbia released their self-titled debut album that summer. Soloman also handled the viola and mandolin on the record, and hoping to break the duo internationally, the label then released the single internationally, although to a lesser degree of success. They’d also switched the b-side from “Don’t Come Crying To Me” to “In The Sky.” The second single, “Hold On Lovers,” was released early the next year and also broke the top 40 at home. Things were looking up, and after a cross-Canada tour with The Beach Boys and Savoy Brown, they settled back into the studio to work on their sophomore album. IT ISN’T THE SAME was released in ’75 and again they surrounded themselves with some of the top studio players in the area, including Hagood Hardy, Doug Riley (a They won the Most Promising Group award at the ’76 Juno celebrations, but disappointed in sales, Columbia dropped the duo, and a few months later, they went their seperate ways to do individual projects. Cohen embarked on a solo career, releasing a couple of pop albums. He then moved to California while releasing a total of eight albums as an adult contemporary artist. Soloman studied music at McGill University, then later performed with the National Youth Orchestra and was the featured soloist on several releases by other artists. Along with playing classical, pop, and jazz on others’ projects, he also formed a five-piece jazz group called Quintessence, then Trio Norte, releasing one album. He also worked on a musical version of Monty Python’s “Spamalot” that played in Toronto, then founded an international stage production called “Bowfire – THe Total Violin Experience,” playing to packed houses across North America, Europe, and the Orient.
|
