“...My great guitarist Armick sold his guitar to buy some heroin, so we fired him. We asked Sandy (Pearlman, producer Blue Oyster Cult, The Dictators, Shakin Street) if he knew of a great lead guitarist so, yeah he called Ross the Boss... and that was the beginning of our grand success.”
Singer Fabienne Shine formed Shakin’ Street in Paris, France in 1975. They had already recorded an album (Vampire Rock) and had modest success in France before Ross the Boss joined them in 1979.
With Ross on board, they recorded "Solid as a Rock" and toured Europe and the US in 1980 on the legendary "Black and Blue Tour" with Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult.
“One of the best albums of the 80’s. Melodic metal, with few peers. Really impressive female wolf yelps, and Ross The Boss the guitar god. He fired notes off a Les Paul, like an M-16 spits copper-coated death.”
The live album "Live and Raw" was recorded on this tour where Ross the Boss met Joey DeMaio and formulated the idea for his for his next band, Manowar. Ross left Shakin’ Street shortly thereafter.
In June 2004 Shakin’ Street played a reunion show at the Olympia in Paris. Old friendships were rekindled and Fabienne recorded her second solo album with Ross, and Albert and Joe Bouchard, of Blue Oyster Cult fame.
The two Shakin' Street albums Ross played on were re-released together in 2004 as "Solid as a Rock - Live and Raw" by the French label, Bad Reputation.
The band reunited briefly in 2008 to play a reunion show at the Sweden Rock Fest, Released full length albums "21st Century Love Channel" in 2009 and "Psychic" in 2014.
Sweden Rock Fest photo courtesy of metaltraveller.com
In 2019, Ross and Fabienne did an 11 show run with dates in France and NYC as Shakin’ Street along with Nono from Trust, JP Thunderbolt Patterson and Dean Rispler from The Dictators and NYC Legend Freddie Katz.
Currently there are tentative plans to do more live shows in the future.