Need to know

What: April Wine

When: Thursday, Feb. 25, 8 p.m.

Where: The Studio at Hamilton Place

Tickets: $37.50 at Copps Coliseum box office or by phone at 905-527-7666 and on line at ticketmaster.ca

You'd think after being around for 40 years, April Wine would have won at least one Juno award.

But no, not even one. When Myles Goodwyn and Brian Greenway step on stage in April to be inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame, it'll mark the first time the Montreal-based band has ever received anything from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

April Wine -- with hits like You Could Have Been a Lady, Bad Side of the Moon and I'm Fire For You Baby still getting extensive play on oldies radio -- have been nominated 11 times. But they've never won.

So when CARAS announced that April Wine would be inducted into the Hall of Fame April 18 at the Juno Awards in St. John's, the news was received gratefully by the band's long-suffering fans.

"The fans went right nuts when they found out that we were going to get into the Hall of Fame because they've been writing CARAS for years trying to get it for us," says Greenway, April Wine's lead guitarist since 1977.

"Yes, it was a campaign. They presented a binder -- it must have been a couple of inches thick with all the letters from radio stations, press and fans -- to CARAS."

Greenway has been a part of April Wine longer than anyone except lead singer Goodwyn, who founded the band in Halifax in 1969. All told, the group has gone through 12 members in four decades.

The band -- now consisting of Goodwyn, Greenway, Breen LeBoeuf on bass and Blair MacKay on drums -- still has a rigorous touring schedule that comes to the The Studio at Hamilton Place Thursday.

Greenway joined three months after April Wine had opened for the Rolling Stones at the famous "secret" concert at the El Mocambo in Toronto (the Stones were on the bill as "The Cockroaches").

The guitarist had just finished a stint with Montreal's Mashmakhan, known for the 1971 hit As the Years Go By.

At the time, April Wine was looking for a harder edge. Greenway was happy to provide it. The new sound was evident in the band's seventh LP, First Glance. The hit single Roller, expanded April Wine's audience into the United States, scoring platinum sales there as well as in Canada.

"In '77 we started doing guitar harmonies," Greenway recalls. "That was the flavour of the time -- three guitars. 'No waiting,' as we called it."

International hits continued in the '80s with albums Harder ... Faster and Nature of the Beast.

April Wine's set list even started to include old prog-rock numbers like the 1969 King Crimson classic 21st Century Schizoid Man.

Greenway remembers being coached on the vocals by Nick Blagona, a world-class sound engineer now living in Dundas.

"It turns out that Nick Blagona, who was our coproducer and studio engineer, had been sat in on the original King Crimson session. He said 'I know how to do this.'

"I said 'This is a very processed vocal how do you want me to do this, Nick?' He said, 'I want you to sound like teeth,' whatever that meant. 'Give me teeth,' he said. So I gave him teeth."

Greenway admits, however, that the April Wine songs that still resonate the most with fans are the earliest hits, originally recorded before his time.

Although Goodwyn is an accomplished songwriter, back in the early '70s the band's biggest hits were often covers of songs written by other artists.

Bad Side of the Moon (1971), for example was an Elton John song. And, surprisingly enough, You Could Have Been a Lady came from the English reggae/funk band Hot Chocolate, best known for the song You Sexy Thing.

"It was a hit in Britain and Ralph Murphy, who was producing the band at that time, got a hold of that song, secured the rights for it and brought it into the studio," Greenway explains.

Since joining April Wine, Greenway has played the song countless times. It is the unquestioned fan favourite.

Yet, Greenway admits, he's never heard the original Hot Chocolate version.

"No I have not," he laughs. "It probably sounded different. I think Ralph got the 'na-na-na-na-na-nas' in there."

grockingham@thespec.com

905-526-3331