THE GUESS WHO
''POWER IN THE MUSIC''
JULY 1975
42:25
********************
1 Down And Woman 03:35
2 Woman 03:23
3 When The Band Was Singin' 03:32
4 Dreams 04:57
5 Rich World-Poor World 06:13
6 Rosanne 04:17
7 Coors For Sunday 04:23
8 Shopping Bag Lady 05:28
9 Power In The Music 06:33
All Tracks By Burton Cummings & Domenic Troiano
********************
Burton Cummings – Lead vocals, keyboards
Garry Peterson – Drums, backing vocals
Domenic Troiano – Guitars, backing vocals
Bill Wallace – Bass Guitar, backing vocals
********************
REVIEW/AMG
Joe Viglione
When Burton Cummings was looking to change the sound of the Guess Who, he partnered up with Domenic Troiano for 1974's Flavours and this 1975 conclusion to this phase of the group, Power in the Music. Self-indulgence pervades the proceedings, with Cummings rewriting history. "When the Band Was Singing (Shakin' All Over)" is a perfect example of a song that could have but doesn't. Gone are the magic guitar lines of "Share the Land" and the intensity of "These Eyes." Jack Richardson's production along with engineer Brian Christian's pristine sound set the table, but Cummings and Troiano give the world appetizers instead of a main course. Richardson and drummer Garry Peterson are the only holdovers here with Cummings; latter-day bassist Bill Wallace is not allowed to contribute to the songwriting, though he provided input on six of the ten titles found on 1973's Artificial Paradise, the same number as frontman Cummings on that disc. "Dreams" is brilliant, though, an anomaly, the classic Cummings/Guess Who voice coming back for a great reprise. It's just too bad he couldn't deliver ten of these per album, put his heart and soul into it, and keep in mind the thing that made the Guess Who so radio-friendly. "Rich World -- Poor World" descends into the new dimension of what should have been called "The Burton Cummings/Domenic Troiano Project." Little jazz flavors make this about as much the Guess Who as Jim Kale and Garry Peterson's 1995 album Lonely One. Recorded in March of 1975 at Toronto's Sound Stage, the music on "Rich World -- Poor World" starts surfacing as something that could be salvaged into a new Guess Who hit, but Cummings goes into a Frank Zappa satire. Their last hit, "Dancin' Fool" from 1974's Flavours, had more in common with Zappa than "American Woman," and therein lies the problem. It's something that did not go unnoticed by Zappa; he released his own "Dancin' Fool" on 1979's Sheik Yerbouti album. The frustrating thing here, though, is that Domenic Troiano, the guest guitarist from Randy Bachman's 1970 Axe LP, on this second musical partnership with Bachman's ex-comrade, is way too experimental to be considered true Guess Who. The highs of "Shopping Bag Lady," including guitars straight from Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help From My Friends," get lost in the translation, while the brilliance of "Coors for Sunday" feels out of place on an album by four dudes calling themselves the Guess Who. "Coors for Sunday" sounds like Burton Cummings was listening to Lou Reed's Sally Can't Dance and Coney Island Baby albums. Heck, they were also on RCA and the rhythm section to Reed's Rock 'n' Roll Animal band were part of a Troiano ensemble, so the styles are not as disparate as one would think. The title track veers off into high experimentation, while songs like "Down and out Woman," "Roseanne," and "Women" are all so very sexist. The focus of "Undun," "Hand Me Down World," and even minor FM hits like "Glamour Boy," "Broken," and "Guns, Guns, Guns" are traded in for music that, while interesting, is way off course. The highly influential band who Aerosmith and Zappa may have found to be a guilty pleasure doesn't conclude with a thud here, just confusion and an asterisk: "to be continued."
********************
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Steve Huey
While the Guess Who did have several hits in America, they were superstars in their home country of Canada during the 1960s and early '70s. The band grew out of vocalist/guitarist Chad Allan (born Allan Kobel) and guitarist Randy Bachman's Winnipeg-based group Chad Allan and the Expressions, originally known as first the Silvertones and then the Reflections. The remainder of the lineup featured bassist Jim Kale, pianist Bob Ashley, and drummer Garry Peterson. The Expressions recorded a cover of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over" in 1965, which became a surprise hit in Canada and reached the U.S. Top 40. When the Expressions recorded an entire album of the same name, its record company, Quality, listed their name as "Guess Who?" on the jacket, hoping to fool record buyers into thinking that the British Invasion-influenced music was actually by a more famous group in disguise. Ashley had been replaced by keyboardist/vocalist Burton Cummings, who became lead vocalist when Allan departed in 1966. the Guess Who embarked on an unsuccessful tour of England and returned home to record commercials and appear on the television program Let's Go, hosted by Chad Allan. However, further American success eluded the Guess Who until the 1969 Top Ten hit "These Eyes"; the recording session for the accompanying album, Wheatfield Soul, was paid for by producer Jack Richardson, who mortgaged his house to do so. Canned Wheat Packed by the Guess Who produced three Top 40 singles later that year. In 1970, the Guess Who released the cuttingly sarcastic riff-rocker "American Woman," which, given its anti-American putdowns, ironically became their only U.S. chart-topper. The album of the same name became their first U.S. Top Ten and first gold album, and the group performed for President and Mrs. Nixon and Prince Charles at the White House. (Pat Nixon requested that "American Woman" be dropped from the set list.)
Trouble was brewing on the horizon, though. Guitarist Bachman, having recently converted to Mormonism, took issue with the band's typical rock & roll lifestyle, leading to clashes with Cummings. Finding the atmosphere unbearable, Bachman left the group in July 1970 and formed Brave Belt with Chad Allan, which later evolved into Bachman-Turner Overdrive. His place in the Guess Who was taken by Kurt Winter and Greg Leskiw, and the title track from their next album, "Share the Land," climbed into the Top Ten later that year, and several more singles charted afterwards. The group returned to the Top Ten one last time in 1974 with the novelty single "Clap for the Wolfman," featuring dialogue by deejay Wolfman Jack. Burdened by shifting personnel and loss of direction, Cummings broke up the band in 1975 and tried a solo career. The lineup from the Guess Who's glory years reunited in 1983, and a version of the group with constantly shifting musicians (occasionally original members) continues to tour.
********************
BIO/WIKIPEDIA
********************
TO THE TOP
********************
''POWER IN THE MUSIC''
JULY 1975
42:25
********************
1 Down And Woman 03:35
2 Woman 03:23
3 When The Band Was Singin' 03:32
4 Dreams 04:57
5 Rich World-Poor World 06:13
6 Rosanne 04:17
7 Coors For Sunday 04:23
8 Shopping Bag Lady 05:28
9 Power In The Music 06:33
All Tracks By Burton Cummings & Domenic Troiano
********************
Burton Cummings – Lead vocals, keyboards
Garry Peterson – Drums, backing vocals
Domenic Troiano – Guitars, backing vocals
Bill Wallace – Bass Guitar, backing vocals
********************
REVIEW/AMG
Joe Viglione
When Burton Cummings was looking to change the sound of the Guess Who, he partnered up with Domenic Troiano for 1974's Flavours and this 1975 conclusion to this phase of the group, Power in the Music. Self-indulgence pervades the proceedings, with Cummings rewriting history. "When the Band Was Singing (Shakin' All Over)" is a perfect example of a song that could have but doesn't. Gone are the magic guitar lines of "Share the Land" and the intensity of "These Eyes." Jack Richardson's production along with engineer Brian Christian's pristine sound set the table, but Cummings and Troiano give the world appetizers instead of a main course. Richardson and drummer Garry Peterson are the only holdovers here with Cummings; latter-day bassist Bill Wallace is not allowed to contribute to the songwriting, though he provided input on six of the ten titles found on 1973's Artificial Paradise, the same number as frontman Cummings on that disc. "Dreams" is brilliant, though, an anomaly, the classic Cummings/Guess Who voice coming back for a great reprise. It's just too bad he couldn't deliver ten of these per album, put his heart and soul into it, and keep in mind the thing that made the Guess Who so radio-friendly. "Rich World -- Poor World" descends into the new dimension of what should have been called "The Burton Cummings/Domenic Troiano Project." Little jazz flavors make this about as much the Guess Who as Jim Kale and Garry Peterson's 1995 album Lonely One. Recorded in March of 1975 at Toronto's Sound Stage, the music on "Rich World -- Poor World" starts surfacing as something that could be salvaged into a new Guess Who hit, but Cummings goes into a Frank Zappa satire. Their last hit, "Dancin' Fool" from 1974's Flavours, had more in common with Zappa than "American Woman," and therein lies the problem. It's something that did not go unnoticed by Zappa; he released his own "Dancin' Fool" on 1979's Sheik Yerbouti album. The frustrating thing here, though, is that Domenic Troiano, the guest guitarist from Randy Bachman's 1970 Axe LP, on this second musical partnership with Bachman's ex-comrade, is way too experimental to be considered true Guess Who. The highs of "Shopping Bag Lady," including guitars straight from Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help From My Friends," get lost in the translation, while the brilliance of "Coors for Sunday" feels out of place on an album by four dudes calling themselves the Guess Who. "Coors for Sunday" sounds like Burton Cummings was listening to Lou Reed's Sally Can't Dance and Coney Island Baby albums. Heck, they were also on RCA and the rhythm section to Reed's Rock 'n' Roll Animal band were part of a Troiano ensemble, so the styles are not as disparate as one would think. The title track veers off into high experimentation, while songs like "Down and out Woman," "Roseanne," and "Women" are all so very sexist. The focus of "Undun," "Hand Me Down World," and even minor FM hits like "Glamour Boy," "Broken," and "Guns, Guns, Guns" are traded in for music that, while interesting, is way off course. The highly influential band who Aerosmith and Zappa may have found to be a guilty pleasure doesn't conclude with a thud here, just confusion and an asterisk: "to be continued."
********************
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Steve Huey
While the Guess Who did have several hits in America, they were superstars in their home country of Canada during the 1960s and early '70s. The band grew out of vocalist/guitarist Chad Allan (born Allan Kobel) and guitarist Randy Bachman's Winnipeg-based group Chad Allan and the Expressions, originally known as first the Silvertones and then the Reflections. The remainder of the lineup featured bassist Jim Kale, pianist Bob Ashley, and drummer Garry Peterson. The Expressions recorded a cover of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over" in 1965, which became a surprise hit in Canada and reached the U.S. Top 40. When the Expressions recorded an entire album of the same name, its record company, Quality, listed their name as "Guess Who?" on the jacket, hoping to fool record buyers into thinking that the British Invasion-influenced music was actually by a more famous group in disguise. Ashley had been replaced by keyboardist/vocalist Burton Cummings, who became lead vocalist when Allan departed in 1966. the Guess Who embarked on an unsuccessful tour of England and returned home to record commercials and appear on the television program Let's Go, hosted by Chad Allan. However, further American success eluded the Guess Who until the 1969 Top Ten hit "These Eyes"; the recording session for the accompanying album, Wheatfield Soul, was paid for by producer Jack Richardson, who mortgaged his house to do so. Canned Wheat Packed by the Guess Who produced three Top 40 singles later that year. In 1970, the Guess Who released the cuttingly sarcastic riff-rocker "American Woman," which, given its anti-American putdowns, ironically became their only U.S. chart-topper. The album of the same name became their first U.S. Top Ten and first gold album, and the group performed for President and Mrs. Nixon and Prince Charles at the White House. (Pat Nixon requested that "American Woman" be dropped from the set list.)
Trouble was brewing on the horizon, though. Guitarist Bachman, having recently converted to Mormonism, took issue with the band's typical rock & roll lifestyle, leading to clashes with Cummings. Finding the atmosphere unbearable, Bachman left the group in July 1970 and formed Brave Belt with Chad Allan, which later evolved into Bachman-Turner Overdrive. His place in the Guess Who was taken by Kurt Winter and Greg Leskiw, and the title track from their next album, "Share the Land," climbed into the Top Ten later that year, and several more singles charted afterwards. The group returned to the Top Ten one last time in 1974 with the novelty single "Clap for the Wolfman," featuring dialogue by deejay Wolfman Jack. Burdened by shifting personnel and loss of direction, Cummings broke up the band in 1975 and tried a solo career. The lineup from the Guess Who's glory years reunited in 1983, and a version of the group with constantly shifting musicians (occasionally original members) continues to tour.
********************
BIO/WIKIPEDIA
********************
TO THE TOP
********************
