MEET GARRY PETERSON

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Born on May 26, 1945 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Garry Peterson, best-known as the drummer and original member of The Guess Who is the longest surviving member of the band still performing since bass player Jim Kale retired from active duty on the road. Peterson is well-respected as a versatile and talent drummer.

Garry's father Ferdie Peterson was a well-known dance band drummer with many of Winnipeg's best known big bands. Garry began playing drums at age 5. Ferdie brought his 5-year-old son onto the stage of the Metropolitan Theatre. The theatre was filled with people from the Good Deed Club. Garry played an amazing drum solo.He would go on to join the Winnipeg Junior Symphony. He and Edmund Partridge Junior High School friend guitarist Randy Bachman, two years older than Garry, formed The Embers, playing their one and only gig at a school Christmas event. Garry later joined Randy in Mickey Brown & the Velvetones, a popular community club teen dance group. When Randy was invited to join Allan's Silvertones featuring Allan Kowbel on guitar and vocals, Jim Kale on bass and Bob Ashley on piano, Randy arranged for the group to dump their current drummer and recruit Garry. A late night audition at Garry's parents house in West Kildonan sealed the deal and Garry joined the group in 1962.

Allan's Silvertones would become Chad Allan & the Reflections, releasing their debut single, "Tribute To Buddy Holly" in early 1963. Following further singles they would be forced to change the band name to Chad Allan & the Expressions after a Detroit group called The Reflections scored an international hit with "Just Like Romeo and Juliet". But they weren't to keep that name for long. In January 1965 Quality Records in Canada released the Expressions latest single "Shakin' All Over" under the title Guess Who. The record became a hit and The Guess Who was born.

Garry endured the lean times with The Guess Who, who were now fronted by Burton Cummings, between 1966 and 1969 but the latter year the group bounced back big time with the million-selling single "These Eyes". Further gold records and albums followed. In 1970, The Guess Who stood at #1 on the Billboard singles chart with "American Woman", a song propelled by Garry's solid drumming. When Randy Bachman left that year the group continued with several personnel changes until folding in 1975.

Garry put a big group together until the name Delphia but they were unable to land a recording contract and folded quickly. He toured and recorded with Burton Cummings backing band and between times was forced to sell his Park Boulevard mansion and art collection to pay back taxes. He took a humbling job as the night manager of the Dakota Hotel. Garry was brought back to the drums when he joined a latter day version of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, touring and recording. In the 1990s he joined Jim Kale's version of The Guess Who and continued to tour for more than two decades, interrupted by the reunion of the hitmaking Guess Who lineup - Peterson, Bachman, Kale and Cummings from 1999 to 2003.

Garry Peterson has endured all the ups and downs of the music business but remains a cheerful and engaging individual. He has a story to tell and maybe someday he will.

One of the finest drummers to come out of Canada.

~ Ref: John Einarson

In the summer of 1974 Chad Allan, Randy Bachman and Jim Kale were playing downtown every night in the Gold Coach Lounge at the Town and Country nightclub. Chad and I were taking a University summer school course together so I spent many nights enjoying their T&C performances. Garry Peterson wasn't allowed to play with them in the lounge because he was underage, but for some reason he was given permission to play in the house band upstairs in the main dinner theatre.

~ Ref: Bill Hillman

Garry Shares the Back Story on the Creation of the American Woman Hit The song was basically an onstage jam . We had just come back to Canada from a long tour of the States. We'd seen many of the political things that were going on in that country at the time — race problems and the Vietnam War and all of that stuff that was germane to that age, the late '60 and '70s.

We were playing two shows, and we took a break. When we got back, we couldn't find our singer, Burton Cummings. We started jamming, so that wherever Burton was, he would hear us and rejoin us. Lately, I had been listening to Buddy Miles' double-bass drumming technique, which I applied to the impromptu jam.

I started to play that American Woman rhythm. Then, Burton came on and started to sing some lyrics about being home and the troubles we saw in the United States. The audience loved it, so we kept on doing it. It morphed every night. So it really had its rehearsal and training ground in front of the audience. They'll tell you what they like.

~ Ref: Garry Peterson