Date:

Author:
Category:

The Guess Who: All about the rock band - full history and interesting facts

"The Guess Who proved to everyone and themselves that it's okay to be Canadian! They showed the world that you don't have to leave your native shores to achieve great success.... They have had a huge influence on virtually every Canadian performer who has followed them..."

The story of The Guess Who: the hard journey of Canadian rock legends!

The Guess Who is a legendary Canadian rock band formed in the 60s in the city of Winnipeg. Not many people remember this band today, but music lovers are surely familiar with their hit song "American Woman": released in 1970, it was the first Canadian track to break the US charts! In addition, songs such as "Laughing", "These Eyes", "Undun" and "Share the Land" contributed to the band's success. Notably, The Guess Who initially positioned themselves as a garage rock band, but over time their musical style has expanded into pop rock and psychedelic rock!

Early years

Canadian rock band The Guess Who.
Canadian rock band The Guess Who.

The Guess Who are a key Canadian rock band of the late 60's and early 70's! Moreover, they are the first rock superstars of this country! They have such timeless hits as "Laughing", "These Eyes", "Undun", "Share the Land" and of course "American Woman" - the first Canadian number one in America!

Although The Guess Who was formed in the mid 60's, the band's story begins much earlier, in the late 50's... It was during that time that Chad Allan and his friends from Winnipeg put together their own band called The Silvertones. The line-up included bassist Jim Cale, and later joined by Randy Beckman and Harry Peterson. The band was renamed Chad Allan & The Reflections before keyboardist Bob Ashley added to the line-up. Thus came The Guess Who (the name would be changed a little later)! As the musicians themselves admitted, they released their first 2 albums and a few singles under the strong influence of the "British Invasion"... The most interesting thing is that the band had a hard time breaking into national radio: most radio stations in Canada simply refused to play Canadian material. It sounds really strange, but it was.

When the band recorded a cover of the influential British hit "Shakin 'All Over" in 1965, the producer of Quality Records released it on a radio station under the name "Guess Who?": in this way he hoped that DJs would be more favourable to the track... The marketing move worked, and "Guess Who?" became the band's first number one in their home country! In the US, the track reached number 22. A tour with The Kingsmen, The Belmonts and The Turtles followed. The line-up soon changed: Ashley was replaced by 18 year old Burton Cummings, who after Allan's departure became the new lead singer of the band! It's Time, their third studio album, was released with the track "His Girl" as the single. In support of the track The Guess Who went on a UK tour, which unfortunately failed... To pay off the debts of the ill-fated trip to the UK, the band had to perform for 2 years as a house band on CBC TV's music/pop programme Let's Go.

During this period, the band released several albums, as well as a series of singles. However, only A Wild Pair, a split album with The Staccatos (which soon became Five Man Electrical Band), which was part of a Coca-Cola promotion, achieved success. The record brought The Guess Who great success in Canada!

International success with American Woman!

The Guess Who, American Woman album cover.
The Guess Who, American Woman album cover.

The Guess Who soon began a productive working relationship with the man who would become another integral member of the team: the producer of A Wild Pair, Jack Richardson. As a result, These Eyes sold millions of copies! The LP not only reached the top 10 in Canada and America, but also strengthened the fruitful and long-lasting relationship between the band and the producer... Successful singles "Laughing" and "Undun" followed, followed by the album Canned Wheat. However, the real success for The Guess Who came with their next work....

1970 saw the release of American Woman, the band's sixth studio album, which took The Guess Who to the Olympus of fame! Its title single, "American Woman", has a rather curious story: the song was born at a concert in Southern Ontario. Randy Beckman was improvising a riff while tuning his guitar after breaking a string. The rest of the band joined in, and Cummings immediately came up with the lyrics "American, stay away from me." Cummings later added a lyric before the band performed the song the next night... The result was that the audience just fell in love with the track! Thus, "American Woman" became the first Canadian rock song to top the US Billboard Hot 100! The composition remained at the top of the chart for 3 weeks. Later, in 1999, it won Lenny Kravitz a Grammy for Best Male Rock Performance. As for the album, American Woman reached #9 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, making it the only Guess Who album to reach the top ten.

Disintegration and... reunification

Rock band The Guess Who
Rock band The Guess Who

The growing popularity of The Guess Who meant that the band was fully committed to the rock 'n' roll lifestyle! However, this conflicted with the beliefs and lifestyle of Randy Beckman, who after marrying his first wife Lorraine Stevenson had converted to Mormonism... On top of this, Beckman had gallbladder problems. After the last show at the Fillmore East in New York City, he left the band. It seemed that the departure of one of the founding members had no effect on the success of The Guess Who: new members joined the band, and the singles "Hand Me Down World", "Bus Rider" and "Hang on to Your Life" were soon released. But with the release of So Long, Bannatyne (1971) Greg Leskiu left the band: the musician decided to devote himself to solo work... He was replaced by Donny McDougle: with his participation the legendary live album Live at the Paramount (1972) was released! The record reached the top 10 in Canada! It was followed by Rockin', Artificial Paradise, #10... But it failed to achieve the same commercial success.

It wasn't until the 1974 album Road Food that The Guess Who was reborn! The record included strong hits such as "Clap for the Wolfman" and "Star Baby"! The tracks found success not only in their home country, but also in the USA! For example, "Star Baby" spent 19 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, which was a record for the band! However, after the release of the next record, Flavors, Burton Cummings left the band: he left in the middle of a tour to pursue a successful solo career. His departure marked the end of The Guess Who. The Way They Were was released solely because of contractual obligations to RCA. Thus, the story of The Guess Who began to be gradually forgotten....

The Guess Who...
The Guess Who...

Beckman and Cummings reunited with Cale and Peterson on a 1983 tour that resulted in the live album Together Again, as well as the gorgeous single "Let's Watch The Sun Go Down". They later reunited in 1987, and even later in the new decade... The two main members of the band reunited and joined Peterson, McDougle and Wallace on the "Running Back Thru Canada Tour" - one of the most profitable tours in Canadian music history! The resulting double live album, released in 2000, achieved gold status in Canada, and eventually went double platinum.

Conclusion...

While the record company struggled to disguise them as a British band, The Guess Who continued to proudly position themselves as a purely Canadian band. Their rich sonic canvas included variations of rock, pop, psychedelia and even jazz! As Canadian critics wrote:

"The Guess Who proved to everyone and themselves that it's okay to be Canadian at all! They showed the world that you don't have to leave your native shores to achieve great success... They have had a huge influence on virtually every Canadian performer who has followed them..."

LEAVE ANSWER

Please enter your comment!
please enter your name here

- 3 = 2

"Man From Utopia: Frank Zappa's innovative approach in his 1983 album

Cover: Courtesy of Universal Music /* TFP - udiscovermusic.com - Above */ (function() { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100006177, detect_artist: true, div_id: "cf_async_" + Math.floor((Math.random() *...
Recommended

"Man From Utopia: Frank Zappa's innovative approach in his 1983 album

Cover: Courtesy of Universal Music /* TFP - udiscovermusic.com - Above */ (function() { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100006177, detect_artist: true, div_id: "cf_async_" + Math.floor((Math.random() *...

Top 25 indispensable songbirds: a countdown of memorable hits

Illustration: uDiscoverMusic /* TFP - udiscovermusic.com - Above */ (function() { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100006177, detect_artist: true, div_id: "cf_async_" + Math.floor((Math.random() * 999999999)) }; document.write(''+'>');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf...

Queen's first hit that got the band on the radio

Queen - "Seven Seas of Rhye": All about the song, history and facts, translation The Kingdom of Rhye was surrounded by seven seas, where fairies and other... lived together.

What's SHAMAN's Little Brother, or the PR stunt that worked: The Neverlove Story

Neverlove band: history, vocalist Yaroslav Stepanov, tracks and clips Perhaps you have already seen a video on YouTube (and by the way, it is far from one), which...

Best Song From The Rolling Stones' Worst Album

The Rolling Stones - "She's a Rainbow": all about the song, story and meaning, recording This song isn't quite like what you expect to hear....