The Return of The (True) Guess Who
Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings reunite for summer tour
It was a decidedly auspicious occasion when two prime movers in one of the most prominent bands of the ‘60s and ‘70s, that being The Guess Who, announced that they’ve reconvened and will mark the occasion with a major North American tour, aptly titled the “Takin’ It Back Tour.”
After kicking off in Canada this summer, the outing will take them to Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles along with several other high-profile stops.
It does, in fact, mark The Guess Who’s first official tour in 23 years, having been made possible by the fact that after lengthy court battles, the band’s main players, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, recently settled their lawsuit with two other original members, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson, and, in the process, acquired the trademark to the band’s name, ending a years-long bitter dispute. The U.S. dates kick off June 25, and will feature support from former Eagles guitarist Don Felder.
Formed in 1965, and dubbed by some as “the Canadian Beatles,” the group released 11 charting studio albums — among them, 1970s American Woman, which went to No. 1 in Canada and No. 9 in the U.S. Their iconic singles clinched their immortal standing, courtesy of such indelible anthems as “American Woman,” “These Eyes,” No Sugar Tonight” and “No Time,” some of the more than 14 singles that hit the U.S. Top 40.
AUDIO: The Guess Who “No Time”
The upcoming tour could be called a victory lap of sorts, and it’s obvious when chatting with Bachman and Cummings that they’re proud of not only securing the Guess Who name, but also the opportunity to securing their place on rock’s highest plateau.
“We’re back to reclaim the legacy of The Guess Who and polish the gold,” Bachman told Rock & Roll Globe. “For a long time, fans were seeing versions of the band that didn’t include the guys who actually wrote and recorded the songs. Once that was straightened out legally, Burton and I said, ‘Okay, let’s do this right.’ The fans made it clear they wanted the real thing. So now we’re back doing what we always did — playing those songs the way people remember them. Once the lawyers sorted it out, the path was clear for us.”
The two alleged in their lawsuit last October that the fake band had used recordings that Bachman and Cummings wrote and performed in order to clarify that they themselves have the right to use The Guess Who name. The dispute goes back years. The band had apparently never filed a trademark claim for the name during the height of its fame in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, leading Kale to file a trademark request for The Guess Who name in 1986. Kale arranged tours with a heavily rotating lineup in the years since, and enlisted Peterson in the late ‘80s. Kale retired in 2016, leaving Peterson as the sole original member in the band, and even then, Peterson played infrequently with the band, leaving The Guess Who with no original members for some shows.
(This reporter attended a show that was billed as The Guess Who only to learn later that Peterson was using the name to legitimatize what was, in fact, simply a cover band. Ironically, Peterson didn’t show up that particular night and his place was taken by a substitute drummer.)
With Bachman and Cummings back at the helm, that’s hardly the case today. In addition to the two frontmen, the current members of the Guess Who band include drummer Sean Fitzsimons, bassist Jeff Jones, percussionist Nick Sinopoli and guitarists Tim Bovaconti and Joe Augello.
“We’re looking forward to it all,” Bachman says. “Playing live has always been the best part of being in a band. We rehearse, keep our chops up, and make sure everything is tight. Once we hit the stage and hear the crowd sing along, that’s when it really comes alive. I’m grateful Burton and I are both healthy and can still do it.”
“Randy and I were talking, but it was because we hated what the fake band had done,” Cummings says. “It was just silly and stupid already. These guys were pretending they were something that they weren’t. So now the fake band is out of the way. Randy and I did do some Bachman-Cummings shows when the fake band was still out there pretending to be the Guess Who. So it was obvious to Randy and me, even way back then, that we needed to do something about the name. And then our great lawyer, Helen Yu, figured out the logistics of it all, and now it’s all over with. We’ve got the name back, and we’re out rocking and rolling. That’s the happy ending to the story.”
Cummings also knows that when a band with such an illustrious backstory reconvenes and adds a new chapter to its legacy, the expectations can be enormous. Nevertheless, that’s a factor they were forced to deal with throughout their career — not only from fans, but from their record label honchos as well.
“There’s always pressure,” he conceded. “After we had a hit with ‘These Eyes,’ we didn’t want to release another ballad. “It was 1968, 69, and everybody wanted to be Led Zeppelin, so we felt the pressure immediately. The label wanted another ballad. Don Burkhimer, the head of A&R at RCA, New York, took Randy and me to lunch, and said, ‘Please, guys, give us another ballad like ‘These Eyes.’’ We weren’t planning to do that, but we wrote ‘Laughing’ at his behest. And sure enough, ‘Laughing’ also went through the roof. There’s always tremendous pressure. I think that’s true. It’s what people say: getting to the top is one thing, staying there is much harder and much more difficult.”
AUDIO: The Guess Who “Laughing”
Bachman insists that the newly reconstituted band will have no trouble fulfilling fans’ desires. “We’ve always sounded like the records,” he says. “We’ve never stopped playing and we still love it and we totally rock. The Guess Who is tied to the songs Burton and I created.”
Still, he admits there is a certain high bar that they need to live up to.
“Of course there is,” he maintains. “That comes with playing the songs and sounding like the original recordings. People have memories tied to those songs. When they hear the songs live, they want that same feeling they had the first time they heard them. That’s what we aim to deliver.”
When asked why the band broke up in the first place, Bachman has a ready answer. “Like a lot of bands, we had been touring and recording nonstop for years, and everyone started wanting to explore other ideas. Burton and I both had other music we wanted to try.”
Nevertheless, he added that despite their various solo projects, he and Cummings never lost touch. “We even toured as ‘Bachman-Cummings,,” he points out. “When Burton starts singing and I start playing those riffs, it’s the same magic that was there in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The Bachman-Cummings shows really showed us that the music still means something to people. Together and on our own, Burton and I created a Canadian identity and a catalogue of hit songs and anthems. We celebrate that. The fans have kept this music alive for decades. That’s the reason we’re still here playing it. We’re grateful for that support, and we’re excited to get back out there and celebrate those songs with everyone again.”
So too, it’s especially significant to find the two original frontmen back at the helm again, something that was lacking when Bachman left the band at the height of their popularity.
“It’s funny, but Randy left after American Woman, and yet the biggest album we ever had was the next album, Share the Land, even though Randy wasn’t on it,” Cummings reflects. “It’s a pretty good record. It was also the biggest, most successful album The Guess Who ever had. It had the hit ‘Share the Land’ on it, as well as ’Bus Rider’ and ‘Hand Me Down World.’”
AUDIO: The Guess Who “Share The Land”
He noted that the latter song was frequently misinterpreted as a protest anthem when it originally appeared, but that it was not Cummings’ intent when he originally wrote it.
“Here’s what happened,” he explains. “We had been touring the States for a long time on the strength of ‘These Eyes’ and ‘Laughing’ and ‘Undun,’ and I noticed a difference when we came back to Canada to play. The girls weren’t trying to grow up so fast. They weren’t wearing as much makeup at a younger age, and they weren’t dressing quite as sexually. We were playing these shows after all these American gigs, and I really began to notice the difference. So Randy started playing this riff. It was all made up on stage, and those lyrics came spontaneously on stage as well. Randy started playing, and I just started making up what was in my head. I was thinking, ‘Canadian woman, I prefer you,’ but what came out of my head, it was ‘American woman, stay away from me.’ And after that, I was just trying to make things rhyme — ‘war machines, ghetto scenes, colored lights can hypnotize, sparkle someone else’s eyes.’ All of that was made up on stage, one of those Bob Dylan deals. And here’s the thing. In 1970 when the record came out, the Vietnam War was at a particularly bad point of escalation, so everyone read political inferences into the song. I never meant it politically at all, but that’s what happened with the public. It was another example of timing, just at the right time the record came out. Deep down, I never meant it politically. I never did.”
Surprisingly enough, Cummings never considered it a pivotal song in the band’s collective career. “We had ‘These Eyes’ and ‘Laughing’ and ‘Undun’ out before. Those were softer songs, but then, when ‘No Time’ hit the charts, we really got started. We started getting taken more seriously as a rock band. And here’s another thing… I heard ‘No Time’ on the radio the other day, and it didn’t sound 50 years old. It sounded like it could have been fairly new. It’s stood up over the years.”
Not surprisingly perhaps, Bachman cites American Woman as his favorite Guess Who album. He also insists that the band made its own distinct impression in the rock universe. “We were the first Canadian rock band that wrote our own songs, played and sang them and we rocked the world,” he maintains.
The inevitable question remains. Are there are any plans for a new Guess Who album? For his part, Cummings demurs.
“That would be way too much right now,” he replied when asked. “Here’s the thing. We don’t want to do everything all at once. First, we’re reestablishing the fact that there’s an authentic Guess Who out there. Bachman and I basically were the ones that kind of started the whole thing. So that’s the first step. That step is going very well. The live shows have been tremendous. We’re happy right now. Maybe a year from now, or a year and a half from now, we can consider that. But we’re getting older. I’m going to be 79 this year, so I don’t plan for years and years ahead anymore. That said, we probably will do some new stuff, but just not right away. That’s not what we’re thinking.”
Bachman agrees, but for different reasons. “There are no real record labels or stores anymore,” he argues. “And radio only plays classic hits, and not new songs. That would be a game changer.”
Still, he hasn’t been idle in that arena either. “I’m currently working on mixing BTO Budokan Live for the 50th anniversary,” he mentions. “It’ll be a double vinyl live album plus extras, including lost gems from the past and new songs for the fans as well.”
“We both have different things that we do,” Cummings concurs. “But right now, we’re just focusing on The Guess Who.”
Despite what he sees as the road ahead age-wise, Cummings says he’s not quite ready to slow down. “I’m kind of friendly with Mark Lindsay, the lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders,” he notes. “He and I talk a lot on Facebook. We used to hang out a bit when we lived in LA. He turned 80 not long ago, and he was joking about it online. He said there was a time when he didn’t think he’d reached the big three-o, much less the big eight-o. It’s certainly more common now. Ringo Starr is still out touring and he’s 85. So yeah, it’s a longer journey than it used to be.”
Nevertheless, revisiting the past gives Cummings a certain joy, a feeling of satisfaction he’s all too eager to share.
“I’m very happy,” he insists. “One thing that makes me very happy is when people tell me over and over again, I still sound like the guy on the records. My most important accomplishment lies in going out there and sounding like those records. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re going out and recreating some great music, recreating the records very close to how the fans found them originally. We’re really proud of all this. The band is rocking. In fact, it’s really rocking. We have three lead guitarists. I can’t think of any band other than Lynyrd Skynyrd that could claim that.”
He adds that performing the music has been an easy task.
“A lot of it did come naturally,” he continues. “But now we have a seven piece band, so we’ve been rehearsing and bringing it up to scratch. However now, the toughest rehearsing is over with. The early shows were more or less dress rehearsals. Now we’re gonna get to play every night. The real shows are coming up now. It’s all about the shows. We’re taking back the legacy from the fake band. There’s no more fake Guess Who. So today, if you see a show advertising the Guess Who. it will have two of the principal songwriters and the guy who sang all the songs and the guy that played on the records. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
When first asked about what might come next for what they refer to as “the cover band,” Cummings and Bachman made their response via a press statement. “I’m not concerned with the other band. Don’t even know who they are, it doesn’t matter to me,” Bachman said. “When you’re a football player, you’re not thinking about who gets traded for you when you get signed by a team. As far as I know, they’ve been earning a living for decades, trading off the Guess Who name and playing the songs that Burton and I wrote, pretending they were us.”
VIDEO: The Guess Who perform “American Woman” on The Midnight Special
Cummings added, “Randy and I are incredibly grateful that our music has endured all these years. Knowing that people still want to hear these songs live means everything to us, and when we go out on stage, our goal is to truly honor the music.”
Bachman agreed. “I’m really excited about reuniting with Burton and touring again as the Guess Who. We created an amazing body of work together, along with memories that have lasted for decades, and those songs are still as strong as ever. I can’t wait to sing them for everyone very soon.”
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February 27, 2019
So happy for this tour. I love The Guess Who music so much their sound is timeless. I saw Burton Cummings on tour 3 times last year and have already purchased my ticket for the show in Phoenix Arizona. I can’t wait.