Category: Randy Bachman

St. Jacobs: St. Jacobs is one of those little towns that have gone tourist by offering a supposed unchanged in 100 years world. The downtown offers everything from an old mill that’s been renovated into a shopping outlet to a century house B&B. The perfect place to find something like old records. Sadly, I have never had luck in St. Jacobs proper.

Outside of town is a farmers market/outlet centre. A great place to shop, buy fresh produce and meats, or get a cheap pair of jeans or watch strap. Beside this, there is an Antique Market, the Waterloo County Antique Warehouse. It seems like it might have records.

It is one of those place that have become so familiar, with many vendors selling their wares by way of stalls. You take merchandise from many stalls to a cash, and the guys who operate the Warehouse pays the vendors. It seems like a good business plan, but alas, they are going out of business in a month, and the last chance sale is on. Too bad too, because it does have records, and there’s no hunting and pecking to find them either. The first couple of stalls have a box or two of albums, probably the fifth has a small box of singles. Lots here, but not much of interest: Glenn Miller, Pat Boone, Bobby Goldsboro. More my speed, Huey Lewis and Harry Chapin. There’s even Tears Are Not Enough, the last Singles Scene I did. Other than that the Canadiana is limited to a David Foster song and Hagood Hardy’s The Homecoming. I grab The Homecoming and move on, hoping I don’t have to come back for the David Foster.

I don’t. A couple of stalls along I find “The Record Stall,” one of three spread around the place. I don’t need the other two as it turns out. They have stacks and stacks of albums, and a wall, A WALL of 45’s. Mostly country, this discourages me, but it shouldn’t. I’m here for Canadian music, not Canadian music that I like. They even have a section of Canadian country that must be 500 strong. Problem is, I’m not a big country fan, and don’t have any clue who I should be looking for. I take the cowards way and look for Showdown’s Rodeo Song without success. There’s lots, and I do mean lots of Hank Snow, so I grab one that sounds interesting, The Wreck of the Old 97. I otherwise settle on Murray McLaughlan’s The Farmer’s Song.

Three songs, that’s my usual haul, but this time I have gotten lucky: really lucky. Right beside the Country Canadian section is a rock section. Half the size of Canadian country, it yields a treasure of great memories.

Who remembers Shooter? I do, and I love the song I Can Dance. The Stampeders, another classic band, BTO’s first single and Dan Hill with a b/side titled Canada. Great haul, and at the exit I discover the going out of business sale has me paying about half of the $2.00/record.

So I leave the Waterloo County Antique Warehouse with my greatest haul yet, seven singles and two LPS, including a Canadian entry, The Payola$ No Stranger to Danger, a really worthwhile trip.

On listening I start with the first song picked up, Hagood Hardy’s The Homecoming. At 2: 29, this comes in fairly short and easy to listen to. A simple, mostly piano piece it reminds me that I haven’t had a cup of tea yet today (and haven’t had Red Rose in years). The Homecoming is an alright easy listening piece that inspires neither devotion or revulsion, which I guess is good when you are writing a song for a commercial.

I have little enough to say about Hank Snow, as it’s not my kind of music. On Oh Brother Where Art Thou they would have called this old timey music. Wreck of the Old 97 is plain, straight forward acoustic country blues. A guitar, peddle steel and fiddle song about a train. The b/side, Hobo Bill’s Last Ride is the same, if not even more of a country music cliche than the first. Not bad music, mark you, just a classic hobo riding the rails that someone mocking a country song write.

The Murray McLauchlan single Lose We b/w The Farmer’s Song is more interesting. The Farmer’s Song is one of McLauchlan’s more famous pieces, but on this single, it’s listed as the b side. A quick look around the internet, and it appears that Lose Me was released as a single before The Farmer’s Song. So Lose Me gets listened to first. It’s easy to understand why the record company thought this was the single: uptempo, more folk than country, very much of a style that people where having hits with at the time. Furthermore, McLauchlan is a quality writer, singer, musician, above many others. This song easily could have been a hit. The Farmer’s Song, on the other hand, is drearier, more ballad tempo than Lose Me. It is a good song, probably a better song than Lose Me, but it’s not an obvious hit. McLauchlan’s ability to have a hit with such a song is a testament to his quality mentioned above.

Hold On is pre-Sometimes When We Touch Dan Hill, the first single off the album of the same name. A nice example of Hill the songwriter/guitar player, this song could be very good, but production and arrangement get in the way. One of those guys who’s best when he just plays and sings, Hill lets whomever produced this mess to add far to much harmony vocals and assorted background noise. The b/side, Canada, is more along the lines. One guitar, one voice, one poignant, pretty song with no added production except a haunting background vocal on the fade out. I would take this song over the “hit” on the other side every time.

While I like Murray McLauchlan and Dan Hill, we now move on to the portion of the days find that I am looking forward to. We start the rock portion of this review with where I started as a music fan - BTO. It is not intentional that I haven’t found a BTO single before now, in fact, I’ve been quite surprised not to find them up to now. Not just my beginning either, their beginning. Blue Collar was their first, and only single off their first album. It got the ball rolling, but it was not until their second album, released the same year, with Takin’ Care of Business and Let It Ride that BTO became big. For now though, they were just another new band, with an album and a single.

Blue Collar is a curious choice for a single too. Soft, slow and jazzy, it’s not an obvious hit, not in 1973, not now. That doesn’t mean it’s not a great song, truly a high quality musical piece that indicates this isn’t just another band. But a single? If in charge, admittedly with the full perspective of hindsight, I would have chosen Give Me Your Money Please off of this album. But I wasn’t, and they chose a four-and-a-half minute jazzy piece as their lead off single. A fine song that never had a chance.

I actually saw BTO twice in their heyday. One of the time I saw them, good time party band Shooter opened for them. They arrived at the outdoor CNE stage in old limo, dressed like gangsters and firing off Tommy guns. A great intro and I have remembered Shooter like I have remembered no other minor opening act through the years. So it was a treat to find their one hit, Leo Sayer’s I Can Dance (Long Tall Glasses). In Leo Sayer’s hands it is a Vaudeville song, lacking seriousness or masculinity. Shooter take the Boogie Woogie piano, pairs it with a banjo, and turn this into a fun romp. A great little number about a traveller who happens upon a feats to find he can’t eat until he dances. As the title suggests, he can’t dance. He does, however, to discover he can dance, and it beats eating. Good fun, good music, good buy.

I finish off the days shopping with The Stampeder’s 1974 hit, Ramona. Those un-familiar with The Stampeders and who know them only from their mega-hit Sweet City Women would be surprised by this song. A hard 70’s guitar rocker, this was The Stampeders in their element. Sweet City Woman was the hit, Ramona is what they did, their day in day out music. They were, furthermore, good at it and a significant band who never made the final jump to stars. Why is anyones guess, and listening to all these years later, I have no more of an answer than before.

I leave the Waterloo County Antique Warehouse with seven Canadian singles in arguably four, maybe five different styles. My original intent of this site was to find the heart of Canadian music in the old single bins wherever they are, and what a joy to find it beating in the middle of Mennonite country.

Parry Sound: my wife’s maternal home, although it should be said Parry Sound is not her childhood home. My mother-in-law moved up there about ten years ago. In a large log cabin overlooking a lake she has maintained a modern day settlers lifestyle: chopping wood and watching CNN; clearing a woodlot and planting daisies; wood burning stove and flush toilets. In short, the perfect getaway.

In one corner is one of those modern touches we all have: the entertainment centre. A corner cabinet within which sits a 27 inch TV, a small stereo, a VCR and DVD player and a pile of CD’s/DVD’s. Buried in the back of the bottom shelf is a gorgeous carved wooden box that’s about 7″ x 7″: single sized. It’s full of singles from just about every generation of singles, good stuff too: Elvis, The Beatles, Dave Clarke 5, The Police. Seventy-five or so singles from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Unfortunately none of them have protective sleeves, which means that even if some of those Elvis or Beatles one’s may have some value (I repeat, may), that value is eliminated by the small surface scratches on everyone of them.

My mother-in-law cites herself as a great fan of Canadiana. She watches CBC, reads Margaret Atwood, listens to Gordon Lightfoot because it’s what good Canadians do. So how come all these singles and there’s only one Canadian one? Another question: how am I supposed to listen to any of them? Seventy-five or a hundred records and no turntable. Their turntable is, in fact, hooked up a pre-amp and then the surround sound system in my basement 300KM away.

So I grab a few that strike my fancy to take home and listen too: Hermen’s Hermits I’m Into Something Good, Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, Boney M’s Rasputin and the lone Canadian single, The Guess Who’s These Eye’s. These Eye’s was originally released in 1968. This single is the original, with Lightfoot on the b side.

I’ve heard this so many times through the years there’s no surprise in it. As I noted back in June, I saw Bachman Cummings sing this song this summer. It was, I remember thinking at the time, a simple but brilliant song, the reason these two are still successful all these years later. The elegant intro chords were originally a non piano playing Randy Bachman composition. Burton Cummings has since said they were so simple that no self-respecting piano player would ever come up with such a thing (I could be paraphrasing here). It’s true. The whole song is simple, pretty, and good.

The b side, Lightfoot, another song from the Wheatfield Soul album is a country-ish acoustic piece. The single is too scratchy to enjoy it, but it was not a hit and it probably doesn’t deserve to be one. An alright song, but an add-on none the less.

A couple of days in Parry Sound of R & R and the best I can do is one Canadian single. It’s too bad, but at least it’s a classic of the genre, one of the best Canadian songs. A pretty good find all in all.

Heading to the Ontario Place/CNE area to see Randy Bachman perform You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, Hey You and Takin’ Care of Business was, for me, like going home again. My first concert as a 12 year old budding rock fan back in 1975 was BTO at the old CNE Stadium.They were touring on Not Fragile and it cemented my burgeoning love of rock and roll as well as the guitar. A year later the same band at the same venue, this time on the strength of Four Wheel Drive, would host my second concert.

So here it is some 32 years later and I’m in the same area, this time for Bachman Cummings Overdrive at Ontario Place’s Molson Amphitheatre last Thursday to re-love those early rock and roll nights, with a fair doppling of Guess Who thrown in for good measure.

Opening with American Woman 2007 the new, funkier version of the classic hit American Woman that Bachman Cummings used to close their last album, Jukebox, the set comprised eleven Guess Who numbers, four BTO and two covers fro the Bachman Cummings Jukebox. In all, seventeen songs, seventeen well known hits, 15 by the artists on stage.

If it’s just hits you want there’s many a bar with an unknown band playing lots of them every Friday and Saturday night. Bachman Cummings, however, are better than that. They played through the set with ease and agility, Bachman’s renowned guitar playing shining through and Cummings’ sharp beautiful voice still sounding great, even if it has grown nasally through the years.

Cummings’ voice may, in fact, have been the shows one weakness. While he sounded fine, he shared the singing duties almost evenly with Bachman, leading one to think he may not have the vocal strength the carry an entire show any more. Since Cummings was lead singer on all those classic Guess Who songs, his solo work was completely ignored. It says a lot about these guys that they played wall to wall hits for 90 minutes and could leave songs like My Own Way to Rock, Break it to Them Gently and I’m Scared un-played. But the show would have been stronger with a few of them none the less.

I’m nitpicking: starting with American Woman 2007, which is better live than on disc, the show progressed to You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet with Bachman showing an improved voice, to surprising audience favourite Clap For the Wolfman, complete with audience hand clap. The fun included Bachman calling for cowbell playing Cummings to give him “more cowbell” Christopher Walken style, during Hey You.

Fun is the operative word. There was nothing fancy to this night: the lights were basic, there where no fire works, no over long solos. Just two talented performers, backed by a very competent band (The Carpet Frogs) having fun. And in turn the audience had fun, which is what a concert is supposed to be about.

A full review to come, but meanwhile, here’s the setlist and some pictures:

American Woman
Who Do You Love
Albert Flasher
These Eyes
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
Clap For The Wolfman
Let It Ride
Hand Me Down World
No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature
— Band Intros —
Hey You
Laughing
Undone
Little Queenie
Star Baby
No Time

Encore

Share The Land
Takin’ Care Of Business

Bachman Cummings new CD, Jukebox, hit the stores yesterday morning. The CD is a collection of older material, “a new album of old songs,” songs that Messrs Bachman and Cummings would have heard on the jukeboxes in their youth. This is the music these two legends began their career playing, and the album pays homage to the songs they loved.

The concern when producing such an album is to pick the right songs, the songs that work best for your voice and band. Rush did an excellent job of this in their 2005 collection Feedback. It is also where Jukebox falls down.

Opening track , The Equals Baby Come Back, starts promising enough, with Bachman establishing a solid groove. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, Bachman also takes vocal duties. It is a weak effort, that Cummings almost certainly could have done much better. The song needed it.

Who do You Love fares better. Bachman’s vocals are better suited, drummer Sean Fitzsimons takes the classic Bo Diddley rhythm to new heights, and the insertion of Bo Diddley and Don’t Fade Away into the song is effective and fun.

Here’s a quote from the liner notes:

To go through the Beatles songs and try to find one that hasn’t been done and done adn done by eveybody was really hard.

Be that as it may, some songs stay Undone for a reason, and based on this jazzed up arrangement I’m Happy Just to dance With You, is one of them.

Whenever I hear a cover, whether a CD’s worth or a single song, I’m looking for the band to own the song. Jimmy McCracklin’s The Walk, is the first song on Jukebox that Bachman Cummings own. Not coincidentally, it’s the first Cummings vocal vehicle. This version could be an original Burton Cummings song, which is what I’m looking for. The boys capture a great groove, and Cummings sings the song note perfect. Great rock and roll.

The same applies to Cliff Richard’s Don’t Talk to Him. A great rockabilly piece that, again, could be a Cummings original. In the liner notes Cummings writes that this is a tough song to sing and he was sweating it, but he did a great job, and it’s a great piece.

The Shadows were Cliff Richards back up band, but they also had a string of instrumental hits on their own, and became highly influential in guitarist circles. Thankfully, their bad surf movie guitar songs went out of style 45 years ago. Sadly, Bachman resurrects “Man of Mystery” thus showing this style as worthy of going out of style.

Fats Domino’s Ain’t That just Like A Woman on the other hand sounds fresh and great. Cummings boogie-woogie piano and vocals make this sound fresh and new. And kudos to Bachman quoting Glenn Miller’s Chatanooga Choo-Choo in his short solo.

If they were worried about using an overdone Beatles song, Chuck Berry’s Little Queenie is a curious choice, considering how often it’s been done, and better. Both Bob Seger and REO Speedwagon have live versions of this song that are great, giving new energy and life to Chuck Berry’s classic boogie/blues playing. This version goes back to the Chuck Berry version, and suffers from a lack of that power and energy that others have found there.

Sam Cooke’s Good Times is a great song that suffers, this time from Cummings vocal performance. Some songs just don’t suit some singers, this is one that Cummings should have left off this album for that reason. Nicely done, just doesn’t work here.

The surprise of the album is probably the downright punkish/Wild Thing version of Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, with Randy Bachman’s best vocal performance of the album and a Neil Youngish solo.

John Fred and the Playboys’ Judy in Diguise (With Glasses), is a classic R&B tune that here sounds great. Huey “Piano” Smith’s Boogie Woogie Don’t You Just Know It, is one of those 50’s childish style tings, like Charlie Brown or See You Later Alligator. It sounds OK, but it should have stayed in the50’s.

Georgie Fame’s Yeh, Yeh is just a good old Rock and Roll song as is Edwin Starr’s Agent Double-O Soul. Both songs sound good and are carried well.

The Box Tops’ classic The Letter is given a BTO style rock up and works very well, as should be expected when Randy Bachman BTO’s a song. IN fact, BTO demoed this song in 1971 , and released itin 1993 Anthology CD, and this version sounds more like BTO than the early BTO version did. Kudos again to drummer Sean Fitzsimons who gave some Robbie Bachman like tom-tom work to drive this song forward.

What a collection of 50’s and 60’s rock and roll songs would be without some Elvis, I don’t know and fortunately, I don’t have to find out quite yet. Ain’t That loving You Baby is the kind of thing you expect on a tribute album by some guys who profess deep love for the music their doing - a song they sound like their having real fun playing. You can almost hear the swing in Burton Cummings hips, and Bachman gives some great rockabilly licks throughout. This is a real treat, sounding honestly like Elvis while giving a fresh modern sound.

The CD finishes with a cover of a song written by some guys called Bachman and Cummings. American Woman 2007 isn’t really new, as this re-working was done for their last tour, and can be heard on the last years DVD “First Time Around.” As well there is an acoustic version of the same arrangement floating around. None the less, this is a good work up of the song, it sounds great on Bachman’s 57 Les Paul and it is interesting and new without hurting the original song. A great finish to a very good CD.

Overall, some performances here lacked, and some song choices where suspect, but this is a good CD. If you are a fan of Bachman Cummings, or of the old rock and roll, you probably want it.

4 out of 5

Here’s the cover for tomorrows Bachman Cummings CD, Jukebox.

For those who find their way here looking for information on the new Bachman-Cummings album of cover songs, Jukebox, here’s what I have:

The release date is apparently June 12th (next Tuesday). There will be a regular CD, and a deluxe CD/DVD. Here’s a track listing:

1. Baby Come Back
2. Who Do You Love
3. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
4. The Walk
5. Don’t Talk To Him
6. Man Of Mystery
7. Ain’t That Just Like A Woman
8. Little Queenie
9. Good Times
10. Like A Rolling Stone
11. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)
12. Don’t You Just Know It
13. Yeh, Yeh
14. Agent Double-O Soul
15. The Letter
16. Ain’t That Loving You Baby
17. American Woman 2007

I will offer a review at the first available opportunity. If the folks at Sony want to send me a copy, I will happily review it ahead of release, otherwise, you may have to wait a few days.