#MicroblogMondays: "I need something to make me feel better" *

Another musical icon from my youth, gone. :(

If you're not Canadian (or even a Canadian of a certain vintage), the names Kenny Shields & Streetheart might not mean anything to you.  But Streetheart was huge when I was in high school & university in the late 1970s/early 1980s Prairies, starting with their first album "Meanwhile Back in Paris," and they remain a staple of classic rock radio in Canada today.

They were from the Prairies, with roots in Regina and later based in Winnipeg, and Kenny was the charismatic lead singer, with a one-of-a-kind voice. (The original guitarist, Paul Dean, and drummer, Matt Frenette, later went on to even greater success as members of Loverboy.)  I found a 1979 video of their cover of  the Stones' "Under My Thumb" (which I probably heard before the Stones' version), in which he's wearing just one glove, years before Michael Jackson did. My sister (who served him once at the bank branch where she worked in the late 1980s) & I went to see them in concert in Winnipeg in the spring of 1979, and I can tell you to this day exactly what I wore, right down to the shade of blusher I was wearing (Revlon's Tawny Red Frost).

I read the news of his death at age 69 in a Winnipeg hospital on Facebook on Friday morning, just as I was packing to head home to Prairies. Seemed fitting, somehow... Thanks for the music, Kenny!

*  Lyric from "What Kind of Love is This?"

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.