It was 1976 when former Guess Who lead singer and composer Burton Cummings released “Stand Tall”.
This is another one of those Seventies songs that I knew, and always instantly recognise, but I didn’t really connect the name of Burton Cummings with The Guess Who.
In fact I must confess that, while I knew the music, I probably wouldn’t have known the face at the time.
This is the original recording of “Stand Tall” from 1976, the year after he left The Guess Who:
And here’s a slightly more dynamic video of “Stand Tall” played by Burton Cummings on the piano in 1977:
Slightly spastic expression at the end… 😉
“I’m Scared” came out in 1977:
Here’s a Burton Cummings song from 1978 he performed in 2006, “Break It To Them Gently”:
I did actually find a (live) video of this track from 1978, but as he tells the story of the song and how he wrote it in this one I figured I’d share it with you.
Finally, here’s another recent rendering of a Seventies song by Burton Cummings, “Timeless Love” from 1977, played with his touring band The Carpet Frogs (and Guess Who colleague Randy Bachman) at a concert in the summer of 2009:
It may have hit the charts in 1971, but when I heard “Burning Bridges” by The Mike Curb Congregation earlier this evening, I still knew the words…
My family were watching a video of the Clint Eastwood/Donald Sutherland/Telly Savalas film “Kelly’s Heroes” from 1970 – one of a big box of videos we recently acquired.
“Burning Bridges” was written by Argentinian Lalo Schifrin, who was also responsible for the themes of the TV series “Mission: Impossible”, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Starsky and Hutch” among others, as well as dozens of movies, such as the Clint Eastwood films “Coogan’s Bluff” (1968) and “Dirty Harry” and the Steve McQueen classic “Bullitt”. (You can see all the movie themes by Lalo Schifrin here.)
Here is a video of “Burning Bridges” with the opening scenes from “Kelly’s Heroes”, plus further shots accompanied by an instrumental version without the singing (uh, how was that for a redundant phrase…):
Jon English has been a leading light of the Australian music scene for decades, but I mainly remember him for his version of “Turn The Page” (by Bob Seger) in 1975.
I also remember him playing Judas Iscariot in the Australian version of the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the Seventies.
Although Australian, English was actually originally, well, English, emigrating shortly before turning 12. In fact he had his 12th birthday just before the family reached Australia.
Jon English has been playing music since his early teens, and apart from performing solo and in bands has also been involved in creating and producing larger productions himself.
Most recently he performed on Australia Day at the January 2010 Celebrate Australia! event.
This is Jon English singing “Turn The Page”:
I also found this Jon English cover of The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes”:
Not sure when he recorded this, but some people seem to think his was the original version (The Who released their first version in 1971).
Whatever. Like I said, I primarily associate Jon English with “Turn The Page” – and “Turn The Page” with Jon English…
Two songs from JJ Cale that stand out for me are “Cocaine” and “After Midnight”, both of which have been most famously covered by Eric Clapton.
In fact I was just reading that it was Clapton’s 1970 cover of “After Midnight”, at a time when Cale was “languishing in obscurity” and not doing very well financially, that inspired the artist to capitalise on its success and record an album with his own version, practically kickstarting his career. Since then, many famous artists have covered his songs.
When I come to think of it, “After Midnight” (though actually the Clapton version) is one of my favourite songs.
I remember sitting listening to it – after midnight – in a car or van outside a gig in south Germany in the village of Sand am Main by a band I used to write stuff with in the early Eighties. It was a cassette (anybody remember those?) with Eric Clapton on one side and George Thorogood and the Destroyers on the other.
Having said that, listening to this live version of “After Midnight” by the author himself, which is in a totally different style, I must say I like it a lot too, really funky:
And here’s JJ Cale with his studio version of “Cocaine”:
This live verison of “Cocaine” sounds very laid back:
JJ Cale also wrote a track made famous by rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd, “They Call Me The Breeze”.
I found this video of it together with “Don’t Wait” (love the harmonica – and banjo? – in that one) as sound track to a motorcycle ride along the country roads of the Channel Island Guernsey – one of my favourite places, I did this on a bicycle 22 years ago:
The driving beat and grinding vocals of The Guess Who track “American Woman” is something that sticks in your mind for a long time.
I don’t remember when I first heard it, but I associate this and other Guess Who songs with the year 1975, and lying ill in bed at boarding school when everybody had the flu.
Songs like “No Sugar”, “Hand Me Down World”, “Runnin’ Back To Saskatoon”, “Share The Land”, “Seems Like I Can’t Live With You, But I Can’t Live Without You”, “Laughing”, “These Eyes” and “No Time”.
The Guess Who were the first Canadian band to have a Number One hit in the United States.
Here are two totally different looking performances of the same song by The Guess Who in the same year – totaly different in particular in how the band looks, hardly recognise some of the band members from one clip to the other…
“American Woman” live in 1970:
And again “American Woman” live in 1970, with a considerably shorter haired Burton Cummings, and more focus on lead guitarist Kurt Winter (died 1997), who had replaced original member Randy Bachman (who went on to further success with Bachman-Turner Overdrive):
The B side of that hit single, also on the album, was the Randy Bachman song “No Sugar” (coupled with Cummings’ “New Mother Nature” to make it longer for the record company):
Yet another song I thought I didn’t know… until I heard it again. 🙂
Shortly after replacing Bachman in The Guess Who, Kurt Winter was soon writing for the band, e.g. “Hand Me Down World”, here in the studio version from 1970:
Together with Burton Cummings he co-wrote the very Canadian track “Runnin’ Back To Saskatoon” from 1972, here coupled with the Cummings song “Share The Land”, from 1970:
From the 1974 album “Flavours” (the only one I actually have), here is “Seems Like I Can’t Live With You, But I Can’t Live Without You”:
Many of the Guess Who songs that I associate with the Seventies were actually written in the Sixties already, and most of them have remained evergreens to this day.
With “These Eyes” the band reached the US Top Ten for the first time in 1969, reaching No. 6:
“These Eyes” has remained a classic into the 21st century:
In 1969 “Laughing” (here from 1968) peaked at No. 10 in the US and reached No. 1 in Canada:
“No Time” featured on two albums, here is the earlier version from the “Canned Wheat album of 1969:
This appears to be the re-recorded, more up tempo and better known version of “No Time” from the “American Woman” album:
