Happy Birthday Lawrence Gowan

Lawrence Gowan is a Scottish-born Canadian musician. Gowan has been both a solo artist and the current lead vocalist and keyboardist of the band Styx since May 1999. His musical style is usually classified in the category of progressive rock.

In 1997, during Styx's tour, Gowan performed as a supporting act for Styx at Montreal's Molson Centre and Quebec City's Colisée.

Tommy Shaw admired his talent and vibrant stage charisma, and called him in May 1999 asking him to tour with them for 53 dates, replacing their lead singer Dennis DeYoung. Since then, Gowan's classic hit, "A Criminal Mind", is often played by Styx.

Styx had long been plagued by differences in artistic inclination. DeYoung's absence created an opportunity for a more permanent restructuring of Styx. Gowan subsequently became the band's permanent vocalist.

Styx's 2003 album Cyclorama was Gowan's first studio album with the band. Gowan sings two songs on Cyclorama, "Fields of the Brave" and "More Love for the Money", both of which have an easily recognizable Gowan signature. He then continued recording with Styx for their 2005 album, Big Bang Theory.

Gowan continues with Styx to the present and is featured on many live releases from the band. The band released studio recordings of older Styx songs with the new line-up, titled Regeneration (released in two volumes in 2010 and 2011), and Gowan sings lead vocals on several tracks that were originally recorded by Dennis DeYoung.

In May 2017, Styx announced their new album The Mission and revealed the first single "Gone, Gone, Gone" featuring Gowan on lead vocals. On the album, Gowan also does lead vocals for "The Greater Good", "Time May Bend", and "The Outpost". He also composed an instrumental piece that he told the other band members doesn't have a name yet. He was playing it for his dad one time, and he asked Larry what the name was, and he said it doesn't have a name yet, and when he looked down he saw a picture of the ship that his dad was in when he was in the royal navy in World War II and the name of the ship was Khedive which meant Egyptian ruler. He said it was a fitting name so he gave it that name, and decided to release it on The Mission.