Greg Hambleton is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has spent his life in the Canadian and international music business as a songwriter, recording engineer, producer and music publisher.
Born in Toronto, Greg Hambleton was the eldest of four brothers and a sister. Greg studied violin but by the age of 18 also took an interest in the guitar and started writing songs while still in high school. Performing in Toronto’s mid 1960’s Yorkville coffee house scene and guesting on a CBC-TV series led to recording several singles in Toronto and London, England. After his English sessions, a single release by EMI in the UK and a cross-Canada tour, Greg decided to take time off from his performing career while he educated himself on the recording and production process. He worked for several years as an independent recording engineer in Toronto at Sound Canada and RCA’s Studios before signing and producing Artists for his own labels.
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Greg’s Tuesday Music Productions and publishing companies, Axe Music (including Bluenose Music) and Belsize Park Music started signing artists and writers and licensing masters to a variety of distributors. Finally Steel River, a 5 man R&B band from Toronto’s east end hit with their first single “Ten Pound Note” (1970). It became an instant radio and sales hit across Canada and a regional hit in the States with releases all over the world. Albums and other signings and releases followed such as Madrigal’s “I Believe In Sunshine” (one of the top singles of 1972).
Axe Records was founded in 1972 by Greg Hambleton as a Canadian-based multi-genre label featuring recordings by an eclectic variety of Artists. Label signings included Thundermug, Rain with Charity Brown, Major Hoople’s Boarding House and Gary And Dave culminating in their #1 single “Could You Ever Love Me Again”.
At first, Greg published songs he wrote for artists he was recording and then published songs written by the artist’s themselves and indie songwriters. Over time, Axe Music and Belsize Park Music became a well-known active catalogue with several notable ‘standards’. During the 1980s, Greg joined PeerMusic (a multi-national music publisher) as Managing Director of their Toronto office.
He served as a director on the boards of Canadian industry associations such as CMRRA and CAPAC (now SOCAN) and was president of the Canadian Music Publishers Association in the late 1980’s. He was also a founding director of CARAS, which presents the JUNO Awards, and a founder and the first president of CIRPA (now CIMA).
Greg wrote and recorded “Summer Songs” in 2012 accompanied by bassist Victor Bateman & Julia Hambleton (clarinet) – presenting for the first time recorded versions of many early songs. “Between The Sea And The Sky”, in 2017, featured Chris Banks on bass, Jason Kenemy”s piano, cellist Monica Fedrigo, Julia Hambleton (clarinet) and David French on tenor sax.
At his family’s urging, Greg started performing his own songs again doing sets at Toronto’s Tranzac Club, The Cameron House, The Dora Keogh Pub and the East End GAS. His albums are available on his Axe Records label plus most of the world-wide streaming and download services such as Apple Music (iTunes), Spotify & Amazon. Greg has two married daughters and a grandson.
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