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:
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:
