And now it's here!!!
Check out our special Burton Cummings Concert Review ...
Along with EXCLUSIVE FORGOTTEN HITS photos and video!!!
After over 35 years in the radio
business I can count on one hand the recording artists I would like to see, but
never had the chance, and I would still have a couple of fingers left. Guess
Who front man, Burton Cummings, was one of those rock
stars.
Then came last weekend (Jan.
21st), when Burton ended a small two week tour of
the Northeast with a very memorable set (almost two hours) in Westchester County, New
York, at the Tarrytown Music
Hall.
Burton gave up smoking a few years
back, which certainly didn’t hurt protecting his voice, which I’m thrilled to
report, is now as versatile, expressive, and powerful as it’s always
been.
The 64-year-old singer -
songwriter is an incredible conversationalist. He would make a great deejay or
talk show host. His love and knowledge of music is very evident. He can recite
songs, artists, album cuts, B-sides and trivia going back to the beginning of
rock and roll.
The sad part had been that for a
musician who enjoyed 15 Billboard Top 40 hits, he seldom performed in the
United
States in recent years. Most of his concerts
had been in his native Canada, even though he’s had a house in Los Angeles for decades.
Burton’s routine has been to split his time
between California and Canada each
year. And the reason why he hadn’t been more active in the States is because of
the “karaoke Guess Who,” as Burton calls them,
who seemed to be always touring the U.S. That touring contingent doesn’t
include Burton
or his Guess Who partner and co-songwriter Randy Bachman. He and Randy gave the
rights up to the name years ago. And Burton was uncertain how many American
music fans would be passionate about buying tickets to see show without being
able to use the GUESS WHO name in the promotion of the
show.
That’s all changed recently as
Burton has discovered U.S.
fans do remember him by his own name and still have a warm spot in their hearts
for Guess Who music. And those fans have been coming out in large numbers to
see him energize the songs they grew up to on the radio. He takes great pride
in performing the songs just like the fans remember them blasting out of their
radio speakers.
Yes, Burton spends most of his
show singing his hits behind the keyboard, but you soon discover this guy isn’t
only a keyboard specialist, because from time-to-time he’ll grab a guitar for a
song or a flute.
It’s impossible to walk out of a
Burton Cummings
performance disappointed. He does ALL the Guess Who hits you come to see, from
the very first one, “These Eyes,” to the very last one, “Clap for the
Wolfman.”
Plus, he reveals to the crowd,
“About a year ago we put this song back into the set,” and then he dives into
his first solo hit, “Stand Tall,” from 1976.
Burton, who became a U.S. citizen
in the past year, is just finishing the final mix of a live concert CD that will
soon be available to fans and has plans to continue touring the
U.S.
When Burton came out for his final encore in Tarrytown I was quietly asking myself, I wonder what song
he’ll close with, since he already performed all the hits. “Because this is the
final night of our short tour, we’re going to do a tune we don’t usually do.”
He then counted down his gifted band and they got everyone up on their feet for
a building shakin’ version of ‘Louie,
Louie!”
-- Tom
Cuddy
One of my all-time favorite
recording artists has got to be Burton Cummings ... I've probably seen him close
to a dozen times over the years ... both with The Guess Who and as a solo artist
... as well part of the Cummings - Bachman Band Reunion from a few years ago.
ALWAYS one of my favorite vocalists, Cummings is in a group by himself ...
nobody has ever come close to duplicating his sound. (Even Randy Bachman used
to joke, after forming Bachman-Turner Overdrive, that he knew he had to go in a
different direction because he realized that he could never compete with "the
voice".)
One of the strangest billings I ever saw was
right after Burton's first solo hit, "Stand Tall", was released. Cummings
opened the show for Alice Cooper ... about as mis-matched a set as you could
imagine. (You wouldn't think that Alice's crowd ... the folks who packed the
stadium to see the headliner behead dolls live on stage ... would hold any
affection for Burton Cummings' music ... but the music of The Guess Who is
TIMELESS and crosses ALL musical boundaries. Cummings said in an early
interview that he thought the group had to have "one of everything" in order to
compete with The Beatles ... so The Guess Who did ballads (like "These Eyes"),
hard rockers (like "No Time" and "American Woman") and even jazz (like
"Undun"). Between 1969 and 1975, they placed 13 songs on Billboard's Top 40
List, and nearly every one of them has proven to remain a classic. (How it is
even remotely possible that these guys are NOT in The Rock And Roll Hall Of
Fame? This is nothing short of a ludicrous injustice ... for two years, The
Guess Who outsold ALL of the other Canadian Recording Arts COMBINED!!! There
has never been a bigger rock act to come out of The Great White North ... and
there is absolutely NO excuse for this ridiculous omission!)
Teaming Burton Cummings with Alice Cooper
boggled the mind back then ... one of The Guess Who's best known album tracks
was "Glamour Boy", a swipe at artists like Cooper and David Bowie, about whom
Cummings sang, "for $37,000 you can look like your sister tonight". The very
next show I saw him in ... just a few months later ... was opening for Melissa
Manchester!) Another highlight was when Burton toured as part of Ringo Starr's
All-Star Band ... limited to just a couple of songs, he routinely stole the show
night after night with his rousing performances of "American Woman", "No
Time" and "These Eyes".
Too bad this was a limited tour ... I would love to see Burton Cummings
in concert again. Checking for tour dates, I found nothing listed Stateside as
of this moment in time. (Man, would Burton sound GREAT at The Chicago
Theater or what?!?!? He could sell that place out for a
week!)
Thanks for the great concert review, Tom ...
and all the other little goodies you sent us, too! (Read On!) kk
EXCLUSIVE FORGOTTEN HITS PHOTO BY BRAD
JOBLIN
(Don'tcha just LOVE the fact that Burton's wearing a Beatles
T-Shirt ... and how cool is it that he got to tour alongside one of his all-time
idols, Ringo Starr!!! Burton is also a HUGE Bobby Darin fan ... and ... at one
time anyway ... his doorbell played "Mack The Knife" if you were fortunate
enough to be invited over to his house!!!) kk
And, as promised, another Forgotten Hits EXCLUSIVE
VIDEO!!!
Video shot by Brad
Joblin
Post Production: Blake
Joblin
