4. Randy Bachman in Guitar World

The 80-year-old Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive pioneer is hitting the road with extra energy after hearing remastered live recordings: “We were on fire! We went to Japan and played as good as Led Zeppelin”

With The Guess Who, Randy Bachman was an unassuming Canadian guitar hero who authored the riff-heavy, slow-burning, solo-filled cut American Woman, which hit No. 1 before he split the scene for health-related reasons at the height of the group’s fame.

Most thought he was crazy – and perhaps he was. But he later formed Bachman-Turner Overdrive alongside Fred Turner, leading to further success via tracks like Let it Ride, Takin’ Care of Business, and You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. The latter of the three, a ‘throwaway track,’ also landed at No. 1.

Bachman didn’t stick with BTO either, but he’s weaved his way in and out of the band’s history, just as with The Guess Who. These days, he’s pulling double duty with both groups, even though BTO’s ranks have thinned with the deaths of Robbie Bachman in January 2023 and Tim Bachman three months later.

The band hasn’t released any new music since 1984’s Bachman-Turner Overdrive – but that’s about to change. “We’re working on a new album because the fans are asking for it,” Bachman tells Guitar World. “We’ve got labels interested so we’re talking. It will be a great year after being shut down.”

At age 80, he’s also planning to part with his collection of 200 guitars. “The big thing is that my ’57 Gretsch, which was stolen in 1978, was recovered,” he says. “A guy in Japan had it, and I traded him one of my other guitars to get it back.

“Getting that guitar back and playing it so much got me thinking about the other guitars in my possession, so I’m working with Julien’s Auctions in New York City, and we’ll sell some. One will be my ’59 Les Paul, which is too heavy for me now. A few of my Strats are going too. I was gonna leave my kids in charge of it all, but they said, ‘Dad, we don’t want all these guitars!’”

Despite recent health scares, Bachman isn’t slowing down – BTO’s legacy means too much to him. But he recognizes that time is no longer on his side. “I was recently looking back at some shows we did at Budokan in Japan that we’ll be remastering,” he reports.

“Man, we were on fire! We went to Japan and played as good as Led Zeppelin. We were just incredible back then. Seeing that and hearing how we played makes me so happy that I can still go out and do it again. I’m looking forward to this year.”

“My parents figured the only way for me to get out of the ghetto we lived in was to play sports or pick up an instrument. I wanted to play drums, but they felt they were too loud, so I said, ‘How about violin?’

“I started with the local children’s classical conservatory with 85 kids, and quickly found that things didn’t make sense to me. I went home and told my parents, ‘I quit. I never want to play the violin again. I can’t read the music.’

“The following Sunday, Elvis Presley came on TV, and I was so taken aback by this new thing called rock ’n’ roll. I’d never seen anyone move like that, and I loved the guitar he was holding. I later found out that it was Scotty Moore’s fingerstyle playing that I was attracted to.”

“Lenny was a year older than me; we became friends when I was around 15, when his family moved to Winnipeg, Canada from Maine. They lived in a trailer and he would play at local spots. He was a little guy – maybe 5ft 6in – but his playing was massive. He was another guy who played with his fingers.

“I said to him, ‘Whatever you’re doing, I wanna do it too.’ Lenny said, ‘Get a record by Chet Atkins, and once you can sing that in your head, you’ll find the notes and you can play them.’ He was right – it turns out that I can play most of what I hear.”

“That was a riff I struggled with. I was used to being able to find all the notes myself, but that one left me unsure. Les Paul had a gig at a local nightclub in Winnipeg when I was about 16. I was able to get a ticket – but they told me I wasn’t allowed in because I was underage. The only way to get in was if my parents were there and we ordered dinner.

“So I’m standing outside, and a big black Cadillac pulls up, the window rolls down, and it’s Les – who said, ‘Hey, kid, what are you doing out here?’ He saw I was holding his record under my arm and said, ‘Are you here for the show?’

“I said, ‘They won’t let me in.’ He says, ‘I’ll get you in. Come with me.’ And he hands me his guitar, I carry it to the door, and Les tells the guy, ‘This is my little helper.’ So he got me in and I watched from behind.

“After the show he said, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ And I said, ‘Can you teach me How High the Moon?’ So he did.”

“My first real guitar was a Silvertone from a Sears catalog. I still have it. But I wanted a big orange Gretsch 66120, like Chet Atkins played. Those stood out compared to the sunburst Fender Strat and Les Pauls. So I got one of those, and eventually got a ’59 Gibson Les Paul 'Burst, on which I wrote a lot of The Guess Who's stuff. But that guitar was almost 14 pounds, so I only played it in the studio.”

“A big part of the sound was me harkening back to my violin days, and the way I approached it was a very early version of what people call the ‘woman tone.’ I used these sorts of violin lines, and the lead of American Woman was this big, fat, slow sound with great tone. I used the ’59 Les Paul – which wrecked my shoulder!”

“Using that Les Paul led me to finally cave and buy a Strat, which I used on most of the rhythm tracks in Bachman Turner Overdrive for different tonality and texture. I’d still use the Les Paul and the Gretsch for solos, but everyone needs a Strat in their toolbox.

“My approach with BTO was different because if I was going to leave The Guess Who – which people told me I was crazy for doing since we had a No. 1 record – I needed the band to be different. The sound of BTO was always supposed to be heavy-duty rock ’n’ roll because Fred Turner has this big voice.

“A big part of the sound was my switch to Strats. That was a much lighter guitar. And the other thing was Norm Sundholm, the bassist from The Kingsmen, gifted me an early Sunn Model T amp, which had these tubes with huge boosts in them.”

“That song dates to my Guess Who days, when it was called White Collar Worker. It was supposed to be like The Beatles’ Paperback Writer or Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode – telling the story of an everyday guy. The guys in The Guess Who hated it, but I ended up revisiting it with BTO; I based the lyrics on following a guy around New York City, but it was still called White Collar Worker.

“It became Takin’ Care of Business one night when Fred couldn’t sing, so I had to sing some songs at our show. I didn’t know many songs, so we ended up doing this White Collar Worker thing, and on the spot, the line ‘takin’ care of business’ was added. So it was a steady evolution.”

”I used a small Garnet Herzog amp, which was like my secret weapon. It was this little 30 watt amp, and I paired it with my orange Gretsch. That’s why it has that sort of echo-like sound – the hollow body of the Gretsch combined with that little amp facing the wall made some cool sounds.”

“For Let it Ride I picked up my Stratocaster. It had a much cleaner sound. I’d used my ’62 hardtail Strat for the rhythms on Takin’ Care of Business, and I wanted some of that sound for Let it Ride.

“I plugged the Strat directly into the mixing board, then I brought my Martin D-35 in for some layering, which gave the track this great, big, booming sound. I used the Sunn amp rather than the Garnet.”

Was your setup mostly the same when you recorded You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet later in the ‘70s?

“I had a very similar rig for that. It was the same guitar combination because I felt like I’d stumbled upon this magical sound radiating off people’s turntables. There was just something about my Strat and Gretsch together that had this sound of one guitar, even when it was two.

“It was recorded quickly and my guitar isn’t even in tune! You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet wasn’t even supposed to be recorded, but the label wanted something for top 40 radio, so we added what we thought was a throwaway cut – and it became a No, 1 song that sold two million copies.”

How do you measure the importance of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive on guitar-driven rock music?

“I came on the scene at a very cool time. The Guess Who was during the pop music era, then it evolved into ‘60s psychedelic rock. And as I got into BTO, we’d all been learning from people like Chuck Berry and the British Invasion guys, so we matured that sound as we went into the ‘70s.

“We were lucky to be part of an incredible music genre known as classic rock, which evolved to become even heavier and louder. American Woman was part of the start of the heavy riff thing and an example of using heavy guitar lines and a big, muscular tone. I took that to another level with my solos in BTO.

“I’m proud of that stuff, and I’m happy to be playing it now. We’ve gotten accolades from The Doobie Brothers, Metallica and ZZ Top – it’s been pretty cool.”

Bachman-Turner Overdrive are on tour from February to August. 2024
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RANDY:
I originally wanted a Rickenbacker to look like George Harrison with a big cutaway but I wanted blonde. I also liked the mahogany colour from Lowe’s music in Winnipeg where I took violin lessons as a kid. When it came in I was a little disappointed because they had changed the shape 365. It had a good clean sound though. I played until the neck broke because an amp fell on it, and once repaired, I sold it to Duncan Wilson of The Mongrels who I produced. It has one of the best necks of any guitar. Great on rhythm especially songs by The Byrds and the Beatles.

Photo: My Rickenbacker guitar. Pretty sure it was the first one in Canada. With the Guess Who playing a fashion show in a mall, 1966. Photo of the replacement 375

BILL HILLMAN
After one of thie Guess Who nightly shows in the Gold Coach Lounge at the Town and Country nightclub Chad invited me over to his home where he and Randy were about to open two large packages from California. The guys were really excited since the parcels contained two new Rickenbacker guitars -- guitars made famouis by George Harrison of the Beatles. They looked great but Randy was a bit disappointed since they were't the same models made famous by the Beatles. On top of that they were much smaller than the large hollow body Gretches he was used to. Strapped onto two huskly Canucks they weren't too impressive. Both guys did many shows and recording with these guitars until Randy's was accidentally broken and he replaced it with the larger model that he wanted.

JOHN EINARSON REMEMBERS
On this fateful date, May 16, 1970, founding member Randy Bachman and the Guess Who parted company after the other three band members - Burton Cummings, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson - fired him from the band. Divisions within the band had been simmering for many months but came to a head the afternoon of the 16th during an emotionally-charged confrontation in a New York City hotel room prior to the band's triumphant gig that night at the Fillmore East.

The events that transpired over the weekend of May 16, 1970 remain both controversial and a source of deep, longstanding, and very personal friction between the two camps, Randy on the one side, and Burton, Jim, and Garry on the other. Both view what happened from entirely differing perspectives with much invested personally and professionally in maintaining their particular stance. Who's right and who's wrong seems purely academic at this point forty-nine years on. The outcome, however, remains without doubt: Randy Bachman was no longer a member of The Guess Who. Here they were at the pinnacle of success and their leader and principle songwriter departs. Though he went on to prove them wrong a few years later, most observers at the time termed the move insane. Did he jump, was he pushed, or was it a bit of both? Only those four know for certain.

With ill-health forcing him to sit out the remaining tour commitments in early May, Randy used the rest time to attend to his own business matters. The others, meanwhile, went back on the road without him. Burton relates the story from his perspective: "We had played in Philadelphia earlier and this young guy Bobby Sabellico came down to the dressing room after the gig. He knew all our songs and really impressed us. We were having problems with Randy who had to go home due to illness, but we still had the tour to do, so we asked Bobby right on the spot. We had a day and a half to put it together and we finished the gigs. If we had canceled, we'd have been sued." Matters came to a head in New York the next weekend.

It was the weekend of the closing of the Fillmore East and The Guess Who topped a bill with Cold Blood and Buddy Miles Express. That night Randy pulled out all the stops, playing with an intensity and fire that ignited the audience, who awarded the group an unprecedented three standing ovations, calling them back for three encores. "I played my ass off that night," states Randy emphatically. "I had been so hungry on the plane because I was afraid to eat. Every time I ate, the attacks would hit me. In the Fillmore bathroom — you've never seen anything more disgusting in your life; pick the worst A & W in Transcona after a biker gang party and this topped it — I had to go in there on my hands and knees and throw up blood just before our set. Doctors say having a gall bladder attack is the same as having a baby, the pain is similar. But having a gall bladder attack is like having a baby every night. When you have that much pain, your body kicks out so much adrenaline to mask the pain.

I came out of the bathroom high on my body's adrenaline and I went and prayed to God to help me get through this because I knew it was my last night with the band and to help me play like I've never played before. We went on stage and I take a solo and when my solo is supposed to end, I don't. Cummings is looking at me and I go into another solo. I'm doing sixty bar solos in these songs and I look over and Peterson's digging it, pushing me and driving me along. The audience was going crazy and the adrenaline was pushing me further. We played until the wee hours of the morning and they're still screaming for more. We didn't want to play These Eyes, but we're back stage and they're yelling These Eyes, These Eyes! We look out and there's all these stoned hippies. Here was their teenage love song, so we went out and did it and they all sang along." But when the curtain finally fell it was all over for that line-up.

"I had a son that I had not seen being born and a daughter about to be born. My wife needed me home with her," admits Randy. "I figured I had enough money coming in from my songs that I could exist for a period of time. I wasn't quite sure about leaving the band, but I told my wife before I left for New York that I really didn't like being on the road with these guys anymore. I had been with Garry for ten years. I didn't like the thought of leaving, but I didn't see any choice: they were not the same guys they used to be, and I wasn't the same guy I used to be. It reached a point where with the issue of the drugs and my gall bladder problem, which required me to take two or three months off for medical reasons, I went to the band and told them I had to leave. We had hit number one and were commanding $10,000 a night. They couldn't turn that down. So I said, maybe it's time that I should leave."

Burton and Jim, kindred spirits in excess, were already on side in resisting Randy's control of the group. The surprise came when Garry threw his support to their cause that May weekend, allowing Burton and Jim the leverage they needed to oust Randy. Back at their hotel following the gig, a meeting between the three was convened where they voted to sack their leader. Randy was informed of their decision later.

"Randy says he left the group; I say we threw him out," confirms Burton adamantly. "Ask Jim and Garry. We threw him out." In a candid interview with Cameron Crowe in Zoo World magazine in April, 1973, Burton laid bare his version of events that weekend: "Randy was manipulating the band to coincide with his own personal business schedule. He was trying to get some production/writing/publishing company going with Steve Cropper in Memphis, so he was always shooting out to Memphis, and when Don Hunter would call asking about bookings and things, Randy would check out his own schedule and then tell Hunter when we could work. Meanwhile we knew nothing about it. We got a kid to replace him on the road while he was at home having surgery — or so we were led to believe. So we came to New York to play the Fillmore East and find out that Randy's been in New York on his own business. Meanwhile we were out on the road trying to save the band with the bookers and not cancel out. So that was the end of that. We told him to get out of the band."

For the three, loyalty to the band was paramount. "The band came first," confirms Jim. “Let’s face it,” responds Jack Richardson, “whether Burton liked it or not, Randy had more contact with the brass at RCA as leader of the group. He was perceived as the prominent figure in the Guess Who. He was more business-oriented than the others and that became an issue as to how he handled that. So it only seemed natural for him to be able to negotiate a contract to do his own album, a natural evolution. There was nothing subversive about it."

Longtime road manager Jim 'Jumbo' Martin vehemently denies the assertion that Randy manipulated the group. As road manager he knew in advance the group’s scheduling. “No one was telling the agents where we should and shouldn’t work. The dates came and we went and did them. We worked our asses of during that period.” But there is no denying that Randy did have his own agenda though whether that jeopardized the group is speculative.

Nevertheless, the claim by several band members that Randy was somehow secretly negotiating a publishing deal for himself was perceived by the others. Battle lines were drawn and sides taken.

What transpired next remains a point of deep division between the four members of the group still today. The other three along with Jim Martin are adamant that while Randy was away from the group ostensibly for health reasons they discovered, much to their consternation, that he had flown to New York to negotiate personal music business on behalf of Sabalora, namely a recording contract for Winnipeg group the Mongrels. Randy maintains he was in New York to settle business matters for the imminent release of his AXE album. Needless to say, the shit hit the fan. In the confusion that followed, Randy’s last ally and oldest friend in the group, Garry Peterson, threw in his lot with Burton and Jim to oust Randy from the Guess Who.

“I believe Randy made a lot of mistakes,” opines Garry, thoughtfully. “The truth of why he left the band has truly never been told, the honest truth. It was his own fault. Maybe one day I would like to hear him say, and I don’t say this with any malice because he is still my childhood friend, ‘I’m sorry, what I did was wrong.’ Because it was wrong. He was a businessman and he wanted to produce records but he started to do it at the expense of the band, his friends and business partners who had all invested in the band together. All the guys in the band were thinking ‘I can’t believe he’s doing this.’

“This is the true story. He didn’t leave the band, he was fired. I didn’t really have anything to do with it, I was asleep. Because of Randy’s manipulating, wanting to be home with his family and trying to create his own publishing empire in Winnipeg by signing up bands and writers, he and Lorne Saifer with Sabalora, Cummings and Kale got all hammered up one night when we were out with Sabellico and called Randy’s house. Lorayne answered.

‘Where’s that asshole Randy?’

“Now she, for whatever reason, did not lie or anything.”

‘He’s in New York making a record deal for the Mongrels.’

“Oh god, that was it. I got blasted out of bed, I think we were in Springfield, Massachusetts within driving distance of New York. They got me up and they knew exactly where he was staying in New York at the City Squire Inn so I assume Lorayne gave them all the information. We drove there, arrived around nine in the morning and went straight to the hotel. He had already gone to the meeting so we sat there in the lobby waiting for him to come back.

“He walked in, we went upstairs and Burton said ‘Randy, we don’t want you in the band anymore.’ And he said ‘That’s okay, I was thinking of leaving.’ He was fired before he could say he was quitting. He had no idea we were coming there. That is the honest story whether Randy will admit to that or not.”

The decision was taken with a heavy heart by Garry. “I believe Randy violated a trust to everybody in the band. And not only business-wise. I hope Randy understands this one day. He was our leader and all of us looked up to him. So we felt personally betrayed. Here we were on tour struggling with this young kid and Randy, who was supposed to be sick and having a gall bladder operation, is in New York making a record deal. So you can understand the feelings we felt. It was very tough on me because we were the closest, Randy and I. But he never came to me and confided in me. I was very hurt but I had to stick with the entity that got us where we were. I always sacrificed everything for the band. I didn’t get nasty with him, though, because I didn’t feel that way. If Randy would have said ‘I’m sorry. I made a mistake. What I did was wrong’ I think Burton and Jim would have accepted that and we could have carried on.”

"I came to a decision to quit the Guess Who and they came to a decision to boot me out," states Randy. "It happened at the same instant. They said they had enough of my religion and all this stuff and were throwing me out. I said ‘That's fine, I quit.” By the time you're boss fires you, you're ready to look him in the eyes and say, ‘I quit.’ The departure came by mutual consent. They went their way, I went mine.

"Don Hunter knew I was going to New York a day ahead. I was in touch with him every day while I was home. He let me get ambushed. He knew I was going to New York to rest the day before the Fillmore gig and was leaving the day after. Lorne Saifer knew this too and asked me, since I was going to meet with Don Burkhimer about the publishing for my Axe album, could I speak to him about the Mongrels. I said sure. I wasn’t negotiating a publishing deal for myself. I had to sign over the publishing for the songs on Axe to Dunbar Music, RCA’s publishing arm. But it was perceived later by the other guys as me signing some multi-million dollar publishing deal. Hardly.

"When the band came to the hotel, they had fire in their eyes and a nasty confrontation ensued. Immediately beforehand, Lorayne had called my room to warn me that Jim Kale had called the night before looking for me and they were angry."

Jim Martin confirms Garry’s version of events but supports Randy’s assertion that he had already made up his mind to leave. “Randy knew it wasn’t right for him any longer. In reality, he had set in his own mind that this wasn’t where he wanted to be anymore. He was having health problems and maybe that was an excuse for what else he was doing but he wanted out at the same time that they wanted him out. That’s how it went down."

Perhaps the highly charged atmosphere might have been diffused by a cooler head, maybe manager Don Hunter or RCA’s Don Burkhimer acting as mediator, but in the absence of any rational response emotion ruled the confrontation. Burton and Jim lashed out in anger feeling a sense of betrayal and seeing no other recourse but to fire their leader. It was a rash decision, an over-reaction on their part without considering the whole picture. To them, there was no gray area, it was all black and white: Randy transgressed, he’s out. Done deal. Confronted, Randy turned defensive and, despite having made a decision that for personal reasons relating to lifestyle and health, his days with the group were numbered, he determined that that was the very moment to quit. Possibly the group’s story could have turned out differently had someone intervened and mollified both sides. In the event that did not happen and the meeting turned explosive.'

At the gala party hosted by RCA to celebrate the band’s Fillmore triumph and #1 record, Don Burkhimer and the other RCA executives were informed of Randy’s departure. “I was aware there was a dichotomy of lifestyles within the group,” states Don Burkhimer, “Randy being a Mormon and the others not adhering to the same scruples. But I didn’t think it would affect the continuation of the band as it was because they were having so darn much success. Then I found out Randy was leaving the band and I couldn’t believe it. It came as quite a shock to me. I was informed at Sardi’s. I had a great deal of concern for the future of the Guess Who at that moment because I knew how important Randy was to the group with his great musical sense. His guitar playing and writing gave the band an identity. With him gone I knew it was very questionable about the group’s continued success. I talked to Randy that night trying to convince him to stay but it was a done deal. I was destroyed. I just wanted to get drunk.

“In my opinion Randy was an integral part of the group’s sound. And I was proven correct. The Guess Who never scored the same success afterwards that they had with Randy in the band. It was never the same. When Randy left, the magic was gone. He was an enormous talent. The band lost and I knew it was gone when Randy left. After that the personnel in the band kept changing and I don’t think the capability to write hits was there.”

Jack Richardson viewed Randy’s departure more pragmatically. “The band called me, I was down for the gig, and I went over to their hotel. There was a lot of bad blood at that point between Randy and them. They informed me that Randy had left the band, it wasn’t presented as them kicking him out. I called my partners, Al MacMillan and Ben McPeek, about the situation and told them that as long as Burton was there we still had a Guess Who which is what I told RCA as well. Burton’s voice was the distinctive feature in that band. There was no doubting that. The three of them talked it out with me and I said ‘Okay guys, let’s see what we can do beyond this point in time.’"

Writing in Creem magazine the following month, Canadian music journalist Ritchie Yorke summed up the stunned reaction in the music world to Randy’s abrupt exit. "You could compare it to John Lennon having left the Beatles two weeks before Rubber Soul was released. In terms of musical potential and financial prospects, Bachman's action was one of sheer madness. Nobody but a fool would change teams halfway through a football game when the team he was then on was 30 points ahead. Yet Bachman did it, and full points to him for guts if nothing else. One day we will find out why Randy Bachman left the group, thus committing what one can only describe as the major folly of rock music in 1970. Why?"

CHAD ALLAN:	1. Anecdotes	2. Interview	3. Discography	4. Reflections	5. Clippings
PHOTOS/SCRAPS:	6. Photos I	7. Photos II	8. Photos III	15. Photos IV	20. Photos V
ORIGINALS:	11. Jim Kale	12. Kale/Peterson	13. Randy Bachman	14. Randy's Guitars	15. Randy's Rewards
PRESS	16. GW Bios Clips	17. Press 1	18. Press 2	19. Press 3: Chad's Story	20. Winnipeg Rocked
ACCOMPLISHMENTS	21. GW Degrees	22. Shakin' All Over Story	23 Mosaics/Discs	24. Peterson	25. Chad: Order of Manitoba
	Einarson's Tribute	CHAD ALLAN	1943-2023	Randy's Rigs	Don McDougall