The Great Canadian Music Hunt

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

I first saw Jeff Healey play on the New Music back in the early 80’s. John Roberts was J.D., and he did a story on a blind teenage phenom who played blues guitar with the guitar across his lap. He cited Jimi Hendrix as an influence and played in a very Hendrix style.

Five or six years later, in 1988, Jeff Healey was on the charts with the album See The Light. It included the hit songs Confidence Man, the title track and perhaps Healey’s biggest hit, a wonderful version of John Hiatt’s Angel Eyes. His second album two years later, Hell To Pay, featured a stunning version of George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps. It takes a man among guitar players to tackle a classic Eric Clapton solo but Healey pulled it off.

Sadly, Jeff Healey has fought cancer all his life, losing his sight to Retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer, at age one. Last January (2007) it was announced that Healey had had been diagnosed with lung cancer surgery the previous December, and had undergone surgery to remove the cancerous tissue.

Jeff Healey passed away last evening at St. Joseph’s Hospital Toronto. He was 41 years old and leaves a wife and two children, 13-year-old daughter Rachel and three-year-old son Derek. At Home in Hespeler offers condolences to the family of Jeff Healey, a great Canadian talent gone far too young.

Moxy is an relatively obscure name in Canadian music, but they needn’t be. They once verged on greatness and, at a time just before an explosion of Canadian rock on the landscape, they produced a pair of great rock and roll albums. Moxy and Moxy II (known as the black and red albums respectively) were solid guitar rock albums that may be better than anything produced in the hard rock genre in Canada before or since.

Moxy II, released in 1976, contained nine tracks, a number of which belong on any album. The opening song ‘Cause There’s Another was probably the groups biggest hit, and a great song. It starts off in a very hard rock style, but quickly slips into acoustic guitar with melodic lead line combination that would have made April Wine proud, although it may be more reminiscent of Teenage Head’s Something On My Mind (or rather, Teenage Heads… would be reminiscent of ‘Cause There’s Another).

There’s an old saw in golf, “hit for show, putt for dough”. A similar statement can be made in guitar - left hand for show, right for dough. The left hand is what people notice, the one that moves around and gets the credit, but any good guitarist can tell you, the musicality comes from the right hand. Sound, tone and rhythm are all products of the right. Listening to the acoustic guitar in ‘Cause There’s Another, there’s some amazing stuff going on. Moxy have eschewed a basic little rhythm over something much more complex and interesting. It is musicality of the kind that moves the song from good to great, and sets the tone for a wonderful album.

Second song Take it or Leave it is solid 70’s funk that predates Wild Cherry’s Play that Funky Music and David Bowie’s Fame, both of which sound as though they borrow from this. Take it or Leave it is, to my ear, however, superior to both those songs. Kids, this is what we danced to in the 70’s and it was great dancing music.

While the albums best two songs are the first two, the rest of the album is good, very good. Through the Storm is very heavy and hard rock in the Spinal Tap vein; One More Heartbreak an up tempo rocker; Change In My Life a solid ballad laced with appregiating guitars and thick sound (Moxy was a two Les Paul band).

Lead singer Buzz Shearman would self destruct after this album, and would be replaced by Mike Reno, then known as Mike Renowski, now known as “the chubby guy who used to sing for Loverboy.” They would never recapture being this good, and it’s too bad: the Canadian rock and roll scene would explode within a couple of years, and if Moxy had held it together there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as Rush, Triumph or Loverboy. A great band who never attained that greatness - too bad.

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.

Congratulations to Nickelback, newest honorees of the Canadian Walk of Fame. The ceremony will take place tomorrow, June 9th at a gala hosted by Eugene Levy.

Other inductees at the gala will be actor Jill Hennessy, director Ivan Reitman and news-anchor Lloyd Robertson.

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.

Feist is a Canadian singer/songwriter with roots in both the east coast and the west, and the 2005 new artist of the year Juno winner. Her new album, The Reminder, is her third studio album, and first since the Juno winning Let it Die, was released yesterday. Recorded in a 200 year old Parisian manor, The Reminder has been called a “beautifully whimsical collection of luxuriant pop about love.” So many adjectives, how did they miss eclectic?

Feist has one of those lovely soprano pop voices that works well in folksy acoustic artists. Fortunately, Feist doesn’t contain her talent in folksy acoustic music. The second song I Feel It All, lets you know that. After the slow, breezy, jazzy So Sorry, I Feel It All comes on hard with a solid acoustic pop song. The acoustic is then eschewed altogether for the funky, bassy My Moon, My Man.

It is, actually, the fourth song by the time we get an acoustic song, the truly lovely The Park. With birds chirping in the background (real birds, by my understanding) this is a pretty ballad:

Why would he come back through the park
You thought that you saw him, but no you did not
It’s not him coming across the sea to surprise you
Not him who would know where in London to find you

Sadness so real that it populates
The city and leaves you homeless again
Steam from a cup and snow on the path
The seasons have changed from the present to past

The past…
There’s hope to have
In the past…

Lovelily poetic, beautifully sung and a simple guitar plus a spartan arrangement. The Park is a wonderful piece of music.

Feist follows up The Park with a slower, keyboard based ballad, The Water. And so it goes, another song, another tempo, another style: Nina Simone’s Sea lion Woman has an African hand-clapping rhythm throughout; The lively, countried up, slide guitar based Past and Present; The Limit To Your Love, over arranged pop, lush, bold and gorgeous; The hit, 1234, pure pop wonderfully done.

Feist moves effortlessly through different styles and instrumentations handily each with confidence and skill. This is a lively, wonderful CD that should be on every music lovers list.

You can hear for yourself and sample before you buy at her myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/feist.

4 out of 5.

Burnaby singer Michael Bublé’s 8th studio CD, Call Me Irresponsible, runs hot and cold. When he’s doing what he does well, singing Jazz standards, it is a very good CD. When, however, he lets himself out of his element, the CD suffers. The opening track, The Best is Yet to Come, promises better but doesn’t deliver, as this is probably the CD best track. Me and Mrs. Jones and I’m your Man are other early songs that work well.

It is when the title track, Call Me Irresponsible comes up that the CD starts to fall apart. Bublé doesn’t, to my ear, take this standard seriously, singing what sounds like a smirking version of the Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen song. Bublé’s good, but if Sinatra can take this song seriously, I fail to see how he’s above the task.

Bublé follows up Call Me Irresponsible with a truly terrible duet of Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight with Ivan Lins. It not only fails to deliver a reasonable accounting of an otherwise beautiful piece, but it also falls into, and out of, another language, presumably Lins’ native Brazillian. Either way it’s an abomination and drags the CD down terribly.

Again, follow up doesn’t help, as Bublé follows Wonderful Tonight with another pop sounding piece, Everything. Rod Stewart proved that rockers should stay away from the crooner’s songs, and Bublé returns the favour with these two songs: Crooners should stay away from Rock music (unless your name is Johnny Favourite).

He further proves the rule with a version of Always on my Mind that, while not bad, doesn’t work all that well. However, that is followed up with the Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon song That’s Life. It’s the kind of light jazz standard that Bublé does so well, and it may save the CD, getting it back on track for the final three solid tracks.

Overall, this is not a bad CD, but some questionable choices leave it with a hole in the middle that would have been better served by songs more suitable to Bublé’s voice and style.

3 out of 5