DARYL GUTHEIL BIO

DARYL GUTHEIL


Growing up in a musical family in Regina, Daryl’s first instruction was on the trumpet at the age of seven. Soon after, his singing skills began to surface when he joined a semi-professional boy’s vocal group that included his older brother Don. The experience proved invaluable, as the group performed around Western Canada, made numerous appearances on television, recorded music for educational radio broadcasts, and released a number of record albums.

While continuing on the trumpet with local concert and jazz bands, Daryl’s interest in rock music was solidified at age 13 when his parents gave him an electric guitar. Within a few months he and his brother were playing with the Andantes, one of the city’s top young rock bands. Over the next few years the group performed at high school dances, town halls, and summer resorts around the prairies, eventually recording a single and touring the Midwest and Pacific Northwest states.

Becoming interested in the keyboard at age 16, it quickly became his main instrument, and in 1970 he joined Wascana, a six piece group featuring a full horn section. The band went on to enjoy success as session musicians and on the college and club circuit throughout Western Canada and the American Midwest, and Daryl began to gain experience creating horn arrangements for radio and television ads, and writing songs for the band. It was also during this period that Daryl came in contact with bassist Spider Sinnaeve and vocalist Kenny Shields. The three were soon working together in a reincarnation of Kenny’s former band Witness.

In October 1976 Streetheart was born when Daryl, Spider, and Kenny, along with guitarist Paul Dean and drummer Matt Frenette met in Regina to begin two months of writing and rehearsing. The all-night sessions led to a major recording contract and in the fall of 1977 the band entered a Toronto studio to begin production of their debut album, the classic ‘Meanwhile Back in Paris…’. Writing and co-writing material on all of the band’s releases, Daryl’s soaring backing vocals and rhythmically refined keyboard approach have left a lasting imprint on the Streetheart sound.

In recent years, in addition to raising three kids with his wife Kathy, Daryl has continued performing with Streetheart, has toured Canada, the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, and has guested on keyboards, trumpet, guitar, and vocals on more than two dozen albums. In 2003, Daryl Gutheil and his fellow Streetheart bandmates were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Association Hall of Fame.