The Guess Who Album: “Lets Go - The Cbc Years”

Burton Cummings must have been a teenager when he recorded the tracks on this LP, and the other band members were, what, 20 or 21? But they were cooking! His voice, with its amazing range and tonal surety, had the youthful appeal of a Stevie Winwood, crossed with something more mature and darker, which comes across on these early tapes like hard rain. Randy Bachman on guitar shows some of the flair that he later put to such good use, and you can see why out of all the bands in Canada, this one, the Guess Who, had such unconditional success. In America we wondered at the versatility of the Guess Who's first big hits, for each one had a different sound--"These Eyes," "Laughing," the jazzy samba of "Undun," the blistering rockout "American Woman," but that's because we didn't know that the band originally played on a Canadian pop show and had to learn dozens of new songs every month to keep up, and you can hear the sweaty energy and the explosion of new sounds on these tapes. And the division between different kinds of rock collapses. No wonder they called themselves the Guess Who, for they could fade in and out of an already existing sound almost at will.

The show was called "Let's Go," and from what I understand was constructed a little bit like the British Top of the Pops, with some American Bandstand thrown in. The Guess Who played a wide range of soul, rock, blues and pop standards, including "Blackbird," :You Keep Me Hanging On," Jim Morrison's "Touch Me," and "Along Came Mary" by the underrated Association. You know you have to have balls to even *think* of attempting to cover the gonzo "Touch Me." On this LP there's a different version of "White Room" than you got in the previous covers LP THIS TIME LONG AGO. Sometimes the band apparently got to pioneer some originals, so between these two LPs you get quite a bit of the music that wound up on their first LPs, and here for example is "No Time." It's a great bargain for fans of one of the more imitated bands in Canadian pop history.

I'm a diehard Guess Who fan, so this was a good find. I didn't know that they were such a good cover band. The originals are pretty good too.

This CD is all sung by Randy Bachman. A bit of a misnomer to call it The Guess Who without Burton Cummings. Still, a fun CD to listen to.

When first I heard this material, my reaction was to shudder and say "why, o why, o why" would such a great band allow something like this get out? Then, calming down a bit, I realized that each and everyone of us has to start somewhere, and as well, the Recording companies had control over the bands back then. My reaction was so severe because of the listening history I have with The Guess Who. I first heard Wheatfield Soul in Viet Nam in 1968, procured the wax platter and proceed to play it exclusively until the needle had scraped all the sound out of the grooves. These guys were/are the greatest White Soul band to ever exist. My great fortune stumbled me into a Holiday Inn in Hamilton Ontario many years later where an impromptu reunion was taking place with the major players! The hotel was almost empty that night and we tore the place up until the O.P.P. showed up around 4 am and apologetically said "Sorry boys, but regs are regs, you're going to have to pull the plug. They claimed noise complaints were coming in from the USA.

Anyhow, as to this record, I would feel it is essential to any collector who feels the need to have the entirety or a full representation of a bands development and growth. But if you may be thinking you are finding some new great unreleased stuff, like so much of is surfacing from the 60's forget it. Give a ten or a twenty to a homeless person and you will be doing a much better thing.