Billy Cowsill (guitar, vocals)
J.B. "Jay" Johnson (drums)
Jeffrey Hatcher (guitar, vocals)
Elmar Spanier (bass)
Barry Muir (bass) (replaced Elmar Spanier)

Former childhood superstar Billy Cowsill of Cowsills fame, toured Canada for a few years in the '80s with the band Blue Northern, putting out one album. He then led his own act, The Billy Cowsill Band, which was merely him and Spanier (The Bonus Boys) playing traditional country songs.

They expanded to a four-piece with the addition of Jay Johnson (The Bonus Boys) and Jeffery Hatcher (also a veteran of the Winnipeg scene with such bands as The Fuse, The Six and Jeffrey Hatcher & The Big Beat. The latter released one album, Cross Our Hearts, around 1986, distributed by Sony; the title track is a Who-like run through a Phil Ochs tune.

As The Blue Shadows they landed a deal with Sony Music and released 'On The Floor Of Heaven' in 1993 to great reviews. Just prior to that release, bassist Spanier left the band. He was replaced by Barry Muir, who had been a member of the Payolas and Barney Bentall's Legendary Hearts and, for all intents and purposes, was the Blue Shadows' bassist for the majority of their career.

The Blue Shadows were managed by Bumstead, the same company that handled K.D. Lang. In fact, 'On The Floor Of Heaven' was technically on Bumstead Records, distributed by Columbia/Sony.

The second album 'Lucky To Me' received the same accolades as The Blue Shadows found themselves leading an almost underground traditional C & W movement.

The band broke up in the winter of 1996. Hatcher and the rest of the group teamed up with Vancouver singer Wendy Bird as The Sugar Beats. They later changed their name to The Reachers and recorded an album that remains unreleased. That group has since split.

Hatcher and Bird now perform as a duo around Vancouver. Cowsill lives in Calgary and is supposedly putting together songs for a solo album.
- with files from Paul Cantin

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