{"id":2774,"date":"2023-03-03T01:31:57","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T01:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2774"},"modified":"2023-03-03T01:35:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T01:35:10","slug":"from-the-vaults-randy-bachman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2774","title":{"rendered":"From the Vaults: Randy Bachman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Canadian guitarist Randy Bachman is probably best known as a founding member of both The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive.\u00a0 While most music fans are not as familiar with the band he formed between those two mega album selling groups, Brave Belt was a bridge between them.\u00a0 Bachman\u2019s roots ran deep in all three bands.\u00a0 In a recent broadcast with the Professor of Rock (hereafter to be called Dr. Rock for simplicity sake), Randy shared some anecdotes from his career.\u00a0 Bachman comes off more like an \u2018every man\u2019 than a rock star which makes some of his tales all the more believable.\u00a0 Perhaps we should start with how he became a guitarist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bachman told Dr. Rock he was fascinated with Scotty Moore from Elvis\u2019s band as well as Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and Eddie Cochran.\u00a0 Randy said, \u201cIf you picked up a little from each of those guys, you had the chance to become a pretty good guitar player.\u201d\u00a0 As one hears in his career spanning catalog of songs, Randy also became a darn good songwriter along the way.\u00a0 Bachman has a great affinity for the late George Harrison as heard on his 2021 solo LP <\/span>By George<\/span><\/i> where he put his own spin on The Beatles guitarist\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Born on September 27, 1943 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (making him my birthday twin albeit ten years my senior), his ancestry was German on his father\u2019s side and Ukrainian on his maternal side (the later lineage will pop up again in a later anecdote).\u00a0 His musicality surfaced early when he won radio station CKY\u2019s \u2018King of the Saddle\u2019 singing contest at age three.\u00a0 By age five, he had begun studying violin as part of the Royal Toronto Conservatory system, lessons he continued until age twelve.\u00a0 Bachman couldn\u2019t read music but he discovered he had a phonographic memory, meaning he could play any piece of music after hearing it once.\u00a0 Seeing Elvis playing guitar on TV, the 15 year old Randy was inspired to pursue guitar.\u00a0 His cousin taught him three chords and he began practicing on a modified Hawaiian dobro guitar.\u00a0 Lenny Breau entered his life when Bachman was 16 and taught him how to finger pick and introduced him to the music of Chet Atkins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Randy was disappointed when he was not allowed to see Les Paul perform at a supper club in Winnipeg in 1959 (he was too young and denied entry).\u00a0 He was, however, able to help the Milwaukee guitar hero setup and break down before and after the show.\u00a0 Asked by the young guitarist to show him a guitar lick, Paul taught him his own version of <\/span>How High the Moon.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Obsessed with his new found instrument, Bachman let his school studies slide as he focused on music.\u00a0 While he passed Grade 9, he ended up repeating both Grade 10 and 11 before finally being expelled for \u2018lack of studiousness\u2019.\u00a0 He did finish his education at Garden City Collegiate before he went on to study business at Red River College (although he did not graduate).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Teaming up with Chad Allen in 1960, they became Al and the Silvertones, then Chad Allan and the Expressions before later changing names again to The Guess Who.\u00a0 They first cracked the Canadian Record Charts with\u00a0 their No. 1 cover of Johnny Kidd\u2019s <\/span>Shakin\u2019 All Over <\/span><\/i>(which also reached No. 22 in the US).\u00a0 When Allen left the band in 1966, Burton Cummings became the keyboard player, lead vocalist, and Bachman\u2019s sometime writing partner.\u00a0 They were well known in their home country and finally crossed over in the United States with the single <\/span>These Eyes.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Relentless touring and the success of their single helped them sell a lot of copies of <\/span>Wheatfield Soul <\/span><\/i>(1969), <\/span>Canned Wheat <\/span><\/i>(1969), and <\/span>American Woman<\/span><\/i> (1970).\u00a0 We have previously told the story of how <\/span>American Woman<\/span><\/i> came to be (FTV:\u00a0 GW & the Bootlegger 1-25-23) and it was a notable record.\u00a0 <\/span>American Woman<\/span><\/i> hit No. 1 on the US Hot 100, a first for a band from Canada.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shortly after the success of <\/span>American Woman, <\/span><\/i>Bachman left the band at the height of their popularity because he wanted to spend more time with his family.\u00a0 He was also having difficulty coming to terms with the lifestyle choices of some of his bandmates.\u00a0 Randy was suffering some health issues of his own with a chronic gallbladder problem so he made the difficult choice to leave the group he had helped found a decade earlier.\u00a0 Having already recorded a solo instrumental album before he departed The Guess Who (<\/span>Axe <\/span><\/i>on RCA), one would not expect him to sit on the sidelines very long.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t as he and his former bandmate Chad Allen formed the country rock band Brave Belt the following year.\u00a0 With his 18 year old younger brother Robbie on drums (Robbie passed away at the age of 69 as this article was being researched), they eventually recruited bassist\/vocalist Fred Turner into the band.\u00a0 Their heavier sound with Turner on board\u00a0 led Allen to leave the band to be replaced by another Bachman brother, Tim, as a second guitarist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The new lineup of Brave Belt signed a record deal with Mercury records but they were not exactly thriving as a live act.\u00a0 Bachman told Dr. Rock they were playing at a club in Thunder Bay, Ontario when the owner told them he was going to have to fire them and hire a better dance band to finish the weekend.\u00a0 They had continued to play a set heavy on the country rock tunes they had been doing with Chad Allen in the band, but people in the clubs didn\u2019t really want to sit and listen to the softer fare.\u00a0 Club owners wanted the customers up dancing to work up an appetite, order more food, and drink more from the bar.\u00a0 Randy decided on the spot a change was in order so they finished the night playing old rock and roll standards designed to make the crowd (and thus, the club owner) happy.\u00a0 The reaction set Bachman\u2019s mind into motion and he began to plot out a new direction for Brave Belt, but not before they worked out the kinks in a song he had previously tried to record with The Guess Who but had never finished..<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bachman told Dr. Rock an interesting story about recording in New York City when The Guess Who were climbing the charts.\u00a0 The recording studio owner\u2019s son was the engineer on the job and he just happened to be blind.\u00a0 Talking to him, Randy learned that the engineer took the train into Grand Central Station every morning, worked at the studio until 10 am, and then boarded the train for home.\u00a0 Bachman was fascinated and with no previous experience working with a blind person, he asked if he could accompany the young man to the station to see how it was possible for him to navigate in a busy city without help.\u00a0 The engineer agreed but only if Bachman did not talk to him on the walk to the station.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When they left the studio, the engineer counted the number of steps to a busy intersection.\u00a0 When the crosswalk sign chirped it was okay to cross (an accommodation for sightless people waiting to cross), he then counted the number of steps to the front door of the rail station. \u00a0 Randy was fascinated and as they talked waiting for the train, the seed of a song popped into his head.\u00a0 The engineer always wore a buttoned down white shirt and the title of the song Bachman heard in his head was <\/span>White Collar Worker<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 As he explained it, the young man said he always came in to the station on the 8:15 train, \u201cBecause all the young girls would be in the restrooms doing their makeup to make them look pretty.\u201d\u00a0 He left the studio each day at 10 am because the streets were deserted until the morning theater shows were over at 10:30.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As Bachman explained it, the rest of The Guess Who hated the song.\u00a0 He admits it was his attempt to copy The Beatles <\/span>Paperback Writer<\/span><\/i>, right down to the part in the chorus where they do the call and echo refrain of <\/span>Paperback writer, writer writer,<\/span><\/i> only in his song it would have been <\/span>White collar worker, worker, worker.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The rest of the lyrics about <\/span>Get up in the morning to the alarm clock warning, take the 8:15 into the city<\/span><\/i> were pretty well done, but the song sat on the shelf until the night they changed up their set to a more dance friendly formula.\u00a0 On the way to the gig, Randy heard a disk jockey on the radio mention he was, \u201cTaking care of business,\u201d which he filed away as a great idea for a song title.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During the last set at the aforementioned club, Bachman began playing his unfinished song <\/span>White Collar Worker<\/span><\/i> but when he got to the chorus, he dropped in <\/span>Taking Care of Business <\/span><\/i>instead of the original lyric.\u00a0 The crowd loved it and Brave Belt was on the cusp of a new direction.\u00a0 Bachman said he isn\u2019t much of a singer (\u201cI do gang vocals and harmony but have never been much of a vocalist\u201d) but that night at the club, he had no choice.\u00a0 Fred Turner lost his voice and Randy had to sing the last set.\u00a0 As a result, they jammed their new tune in the making for twenty five minutes.\u00a0 They not only had the outline of a new sound, but a new name in the offing:\u00a0 Bachman – Turner Overdrive.\u00a0 When it came time to record <\/span>Taking Care of Business,<\/span><\/i> the band insisted he take the lead vocal.\u00a0 When the record company heard the song, they weren\u2019t sure of its potential and picked <\/span>Let It Ride<\/span><\/i> as the lead single instead.\u00a0 Bachman could not put his finger on it, but the track seemed to be missing something.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The rest of the story he related to Dr. Rock sounds like a bit of serendipity in action.\u00a0 Near the end of a fourteen hour recording session, there was a knock at the studio door.\u00a0 There stood a bushy haired, bearded pizza delivery guy dressed in camo wondering if they had ordered the pies.\u00a0 They said, \u201cNope, it wasn\u2019t us\u201d and they sent him down the hall to see if it was the Steve Miller Band or War (who were in the process of recording <\/span>Fly Like an Eagle<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Why Can\u2019t We Be Friends <\/span><\/i>albums in other studios).\u00a0 A while later, a second knock came – it was the camo guy again who said, \u201cYou know, that song you are working on needs some piano.\u00a0 I don\u2019t just deliver pizzas, I am also a piano player.\u201d\u00a0 It took a little convincing but in the end, they let him add piano to the track and then called it a night.\u00a0 Think about the song <\/span>Taking Care of Business<\/span><\/i> and try to imagine it without the rollicking \u2018plink, plink plink\u2019 piano part.\u00a0 The band had just planned on\u00a0 forgetting the piano part, but when the producer heard it the next day, he was really excited about what it added to the song.\u00a0 They had neglected to even ask the camo\/pizza\/piano guy\u2019s name, so now they had to track him down to get his permission to use it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The pizza delivery had gone to the War session but nobody remembered where they had ordered the pizza from.\u00a0 After some detective work spent calling every pizza joint in the immediate vicinity, they got a name and made contact with him, thus earning him a spot on one of the biggest records released in 1974.\u00a0 Ironically, Randy said the next time they ran into him was at a gig they did at the Greek Theater where the Los Angeles Philharmonic regularly perform.\u00a0 Sure enough, camo\/pizza\/piano guy, Norman Durkee, was now playing with the L.A. orchestra so he was telling the truth when he said he wasn\u2019t just a pizza delivery guy.\u00a0 With <\/span>Taking Care of Business<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Let It Ride<\/span><\/i> reaching Nos. 12 and 23 in the US Charts, <\/span>Bachman – Turner Overdrive II <\/span><\/i>was a huge commercial success.\u00a0 When their third album, <\/span>Not Fragile<\/span><\/i> came out in 1974, it garnered massive radio play and the albums flew off the shelf.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the time Barry and I were putting together a new band in the late summer of 1974, our song selections leaned heavily on The Doobie Brothers and BTO.\u00a0 Considering we named the new band \u2018Sledgehammer\u2019 (a track from <\/span>Not Fragile<\/span><\/i>) and covered five tracks from that album gives one a pretty good idea of what our set list sounded like.\u00a0 Ironically, <\/span>Sledgehammer<\/span><\/i> is one of the tunes we decided not to play.\u00a0 When Mike (bass) and Lindsey (guitar) joined the band, they were all for our heavier sound, but both soon got tired of playing <\/span>Taking Care of Business.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Their favorite trick was to sing the chorus backward (<\/span>Business taking care of<\/span><\/i>) to see if anyone noticed.\u00a0 They got their butts chewed by a bar owner one night when they dropped in a less than overt drug reference into <\/span>Smoke On The Water <\/span><\/i>(they sang the chorus as \u2018<\/span>Toke on a number\u2019<\/span><\/i>) and that pretty much put an end to singing goofy lyrics to popular songs.\u00a0 For my part, I never got tired of playing any of our songs, especially the ones that got people on the dance floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bachman has been married twice and can now count 26 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren as part of his clan.\u00a0 His son Tal is a noted guitarist in his own right and they do shows together whenever they get the chance.\u00a0 His daughter Lorelei is also a writer\/musician.\u00a0 Among the health problems Randy has battled, perhaps the most severe was his morbid obesity.\u00a0 When a doctor said he was \u2018morbidly obese\u2019 he realized that the \u2018morbid\u2019 part meant \u2018death\u2019.\u00a0 Through diet and exercise, he was able to shave 60 pounds from his 380 frame, but during the downtime caused by the 9\/11 terrorist attack, his overeating caused him to (again) gain a great deal of weight.\u00a0 After hearing about his friend Brian Wilson\u2019s daughter undergoing gastric-bypass surgery, he consulted with a physician to have the same procedure.\u00a0 By 2006, he had reached his 225 target weight which he says allowed him to continue to perform.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bachman left BTO in 1977 and eventually signed over his rights to the band\u2019s name to other band members.\u00a0 I had seen BTO perform at Hedgecock Fieldhouse at NMU after guitarist Blair Thorton had replaced Tim Bachman in the lineup.\u00a0 They were a great live band but I wondered how they would carry on when he left the band.\u00a0 The last time BTO came through Marquette, drummer Robbie Bachman was the only remaining original member.\u00a0 Not one to burn his bridges, Randy has collaborated and toured with members of his past bands including The Guess Who, Burton Cummings, Fred Turner, and any number of all-star units (like Ringo Starr\u2019s All Starr Band).\u00a0 A listing of his recorded work would require more room than we have here so I will simply refer you to his web site on whatever digital device you prefer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Two of the funniest stories Bachman told Dr. Rock also went back to the night Brave Belt converted into a covers band.\u00a0 One of the first songs they started jamming was Santana\u2019s <\/span>Oye Como Va <\/span><\/i>which Bachman says he loved the guitar riff for, but he didn\u2019t know any of the Spanish lyrics.\u00a0 How does one sing a song with Spanish lyrics if one does not speak the lingo?\u00a0 Randy credits his Ukrainian heritage:\u00a0 \u201cIf anyone was listening, I was inserting the names of ethnic Ukrainian foods that kind of sounded Spanish.\u201d\u00a0 As for copying <\/span>Paperback Writer<\/span><\/i> for his <\/span>White Collar Worker\/ Taking Care of Business<\/span><\/i> song, he reminded Dr. Rock that The Beatles had more or less borrowed the framework for <\/span>Paperback Writer<\/span><\/i> from Chuck Berry\u2019s <\/span>Johnny B. Goode.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 How can we do BTO without\u00a0Taking Care of Business<\/em> – for fun try the chorus as\u00a0white Collar worker, worker, worker<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Canadian guitarist Randy Bachman is probably best known as a founding member of both The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive.\u00a0 While most music fans are not as familiar with the band he formed between those two mega album selling groups, Brave Belt was a bridge between them.\u00a0 Bachman\u2019s roots ran deep in all three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,12,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2774"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2777,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions\/2777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}