Tuff E nuff (Johnny Otis) (LP 134 - 135)

The Guess Who Wild One (Vinyl - Pickwick, 1972 ) ** 
The Guess Who The Way They Were (Vinyl - RCA, 1976 ) ***  

Genre: Canadian pop/ rock

Places I remember: Wild One - Real Groovy Records (Auckland); TWTW - Music Box Record Exchange (Hastings)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Species Hawk




Gear costume: Tuff E Nuff is a load of hunky fun, as is This Could Be Love with youthful Burton Cummings vocals. On TWTW, Silver Bird and Palmyra hinted at greatness to come. The Answer road tests the distinctive harmonies.

Active compensatory factors: These two are bracketed because they both pre date Wheatfield Soul, their first 'real' album.

Wild One features the Chad Allan led version of the band. Strictly speaking, it's a compilation of material done between 1965 and 1967 but because of the narrow focus it sounds like a bona fide studio album. 

Weirdly, their first hit, a 1965 rendition of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates' Shakin' All Over is not included in the package. Nor are other singles of this era!

Just to weird it out some more, Chad left in 1966 and so the band effectively continued as a quartet for the next four years with:

• Burton Cummings (keyboards/ vocals)
• Randy Bachman (guitars, backing vocals)
• Jim Kale (bass, backing vocals)
• Garry Peterson (drums, backing vocals)

The Way They Were is also an oddity, including as it does some good stuff recorded before Wheatfield Soul with Jack Richardson but not released until 1976 (after the original band called it a day).

Hope you're keeping up! 

That's the background. What about the music?

Wild One's sound is nowhere near the Burton Cummings' led band that we all know and love. Instead it's a tentative series of songs in thrall to American rock of the mid sixties, looking for a distinctive voice. As such, it sounds a lot like New Zealand music of the time. Outsiders both.

Chad Allan sounds like the American teen idol that, I guess, he wanted to be. Randy Bachman tries out surf guitar and some psychedelic licks at times, but it would have been going out on a limb to think these guys would evolve to mega stardom.

By the time they recorded the material on The Way They Were the band had taken a quantum leap forward. Burton had become a much more assured vocalist and Randy's guitar style had also undergone a transformation into a more distinctive heavy riffing style.

And the songs had improved! No more covers - Cummings/Bachman had become a thing.

Where do they all belong? Wheatfield Soul would prove itself to be a game changer.

Rock is my life (BTO) (LP 61)

Bachman Turner Overdrive Not Fragile (Vinyl - Mercury, 1974) ****

Genre: Canadian pop/rock

Places I remember: Slow Boat Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Roll On Down the Highway gets me up and air guitaring every time. Every time!




Gear costume: Phew - so many great tracks - the always terrific You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, but Not Fragile, and Freewheelin' are also on side one!!

Active compensatory factors: These guys ruled in the seventies at my school (and every school!). Their hits sound tracked our lives.

I distinctly remember travelling to football games with these songs playing on the radio. Turn it up!! time.

Randy Bachman came to BTO via The (wonderful) Guess Who. He left after the American Woman album and lit out for other Canadian pastures with his brothers and friends that eventually led to BTO.

Where do they all belong? You need to go back to Guess Who - you really do.

Would you let it ride? (BTO)

Another Keegan compilation CD didn't rate with him unfortunately. It was my Heavy Metal/Rock CD.

Here's the track listing of the CD I called the...

The Heavy Rock one

Waste your tears – The Answer

Let it ride – Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Easy peasy – Black Spiders

White trash millionaire – Black Stone Cherry

Burnin' for you – Blue Oyster Cult

Fever – Bullet For My Valentine

Soap on a rope – Chickenfoot

The book of heavy metal – Dream Evil

Save us – Dream Evil

Heavy metal in the night – Dream Evil

Oh well – Fleetwood Mac

Iced Earth – Iced Earth

One more time – James LaBrie (from Dream Theater)

Curl of the burl – Mastodon

Spectrelight – Mastodon

Blood and thunder – Mastodon

 

Trampled underhoof – Mastodon

The profusion of Mastodon tracks is because Keegan requested a sample of their work. The Dream Evils are there cos I love their stuff.

I have noticed that Randy Bachman and Fred Turner are still touring together!! Amazing.

I loved the stuff they did as Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I didn't pick You ain't seen nuthin' yet, not because I don't love it, but Keegan would surely know it (who doesn't?) and they did other great songs worthy of inclusion.

When Randy Bachman left The (mighty) Guess Who he started out again with a band called Brave Belt. This eventually morphed into Bachman-Turner Overdrive and included at one time THREE Bachman brothers - main man Randy, drummer Robin (a.k.a. Robbie) and second guitarist Tim. C.F. 'Fred' Turner was on bass and vocals. 

Let it Ride, a Bachman/Turner composition) was a single off the second BTO album, with vocals from Fred.

For me, their sound transports me back to the seventies - riding around in my mum's Chevette - with the stereo blasting. Turn this one up!