We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago……
They were a hit making machine from the wilds of western Canada and in the late 60’s and early 70’s had 14 Top 40 hits in the US and a bunch of swell sounding LPs. They were the Guess Who fronted by one of the great voices in rock music…Burton Cummings.
By 1971 Randy Bachman had left the band to form BTO but, in my opinion, was ably replaced by Kurt Winter, whose tasty licks are all over the LP “So, Long Bannatyne”. It was the 8th studio LP released by the band but before we take a look at that we should also mention that earlier in the year the band released a “Best of ” album that is probably one of the best “best of” albums ever. I played the grooves off this thing when it first came out. I include it here so you can relive all those great records…
Now, about “So Long, Bannatyne”. It was an interesting record in spots but would have been helped greatly if the record company would have included the two sided single ‘Albert Flasher/Broken” on it. They finally did for the later re-issue and it makes the album much stronger.
One of my favorite cuts from the band (of many). This is just a great pop record!
Rain Dance and Sour Suite were the singles…good, but certainly not up to what came before them. Winter delivers a nice solo on “Pain Train” and “Life in The Bloodstream” features a 50’s feel and some good barralhouse piano from Cummings. “Grey Day” is a revelation with Cummings piano standing out and some nice drumming from Garry Peterson. Peterson sounds like his contemporary Danny Seraphine of Chicago on alot of these cuts. “She Might Have Been A Nice Girl” has some good wordplay and the band gets bluesy for the title track. The only misses are a couple of weird tracks “Fiddlin” and “One Man Army”.
They would still have some hits going forward but not to the extent of the past couple of years. Dig in to an LP you might have missed first time around.
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