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Singers Burton Cummings
Burton Cummings faces the big 6-0
Published Saturday November 17th, 2007
SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. - Burton Cummings is still finding his own way to rock. But these days the former Guess Who frontman is more likely to rock about personal struggles and growing older than he is about heartbreak and ache.
The soon-to-be 60-year-old musician and songwriter from Winnipeg said with age his lyrics have become ... less corny.
"I'm more conscious now of my lyrics and how they can't be lame. I'm a little more existential. The perspective changes as you get older," Cummings said in a phone interview from Toronto.
While he might be more Zen in his fourth decade of music-making, Cummings said he understands fans want to relive a little teenage angst now and again.
Cummings spoke ahead of a stop in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., with longtime partner in rhyme Randy Bachman to do a benefit concert for the new Sault Area Hospital. Their show came midway through a short Ontario tour this month.
"It's a 2 1/2-hour show and it's all hit records. We know why (the fans) are coming to see us. We're not trying to shove too much new material in their faces."
As for getting tired of belting out classic songs such as "American Woman" and "Laughing" show after show, year after year, Cummings said he doesn't.
"When you're a kid in your first band you dream of having one or two songs on the radio. We've had so many. And when, for example, we do 'These Eyes,' and I do the little piano intro, the applause goes up. How could anybody ever get tired of that?"
Cummings and Bachman first met in the mid-1960s as bandmates of Winnipeg-based The Guess Who. The band scored its first international hit in 1969 with "These Eyes," co-written by Bachman and Cummings. In 1970 the band made its mark with "American Woman," reaching No. 1 on music charts in Canada and, perhaps most significantly, the United States.
A rift between the artists, which saw Bachman bail as The Guess Who reached the zenith of rockdom, led to a collaborative songwriting hiatus.
Bachman formed the short-lived Bravebelt, followed by the tour de force Bachman-Turner Overdrive, producing monster hits such as "Takin' Care of Business" and "Let It Ride."
After leaving The Guess Who in 1975, Cummings pursued a solo career charting hits in both Canada and the U.S., such as "Break It to Them Gently" and "Stand Tall."
The Guess Who's four original members reunited briefly in the mid-1980s, but it wasn't until a reunion to play the 1999 Winnipeg Pan Am Games closing ceremonies that they decided to give it another shot.
"It was only four songs, and as Randy kept saying, 'It was over too quick,'" said Cummings.
The next year, the unit toured as The Guess Who, with some original members in tow. Cummings and Bachman have continued to tour and collaborate on new projects since then under their own names.
A fan favourite is "The Thunderbird Trax" album, originally recorded in 1987 in Bachman's tool shed and released last year for the first time. The album is only available on the artists' website and at their concerts.
When asked why they waited more than 20 years to put out the offering, Cummings laughed.
"The funny thing was, we had lost the master tapes and so when we finally came across them again, we thought, 'We're doing this great tour again; let's make something special for the fans.'"
The artists' most recent endeavour is a 28-minute behind-the-scenes documentary to accompany "Jukebox," a tribute album to those classic songwriters Cummings and Bachman looked up to as kids.
Cummings said he is working on an extended version of the documentary.
Burton Cummings faces the big 60 !
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