Randy Bachman (The Guess Who & B-T-O)

0:00Sitting with Randy Bachman, he just heard you ain't seen nothing yet, classic tune. Thanks. What do you love about music? The fact that around the world it's such an integral part of people's lives, whether they admit it or not. Somebody said this once and I had, it bears repeating. If the musicians of the world went on strike, or the songwriters, and didn't allow, it's like an airplane strike, didn't allow any flights off the ground, if no music was allowed in your life, on the radio, on TV, anywhere. It would just be like watching a movie with the sound off. Your life would be so empty and silent. And that music conveys so many emotions and it's such a worldwide gathering together of people and love and feelings and stuff, you know. I hate to be corny, but like what John Lennon said, you know, music is the healer and all

0:46you need is love. And if you get two armies fighting together and they're killing each other, you get them to stop and have them both sing, all you need is love. Do you know what I mean? Or Merry Christmas, do you know what I mean? You can declare a truth by singing a song. You know, it gets rid of so many of the problems in the world, you know. Do you think we kind of lost the aspect of that? It was all about love in the 60s, 70s? Yeah, it was. The 60s are really quite incredible. And I'm fortunate that I was there in my early stages, like being in the guest soon, being in those bands and coming through that and living through the Monterey Woodstock era that the guys you're only can read about. I was there, you know, and playing at a lot of them. And I was also fortunate in 67 to go to England and see that whole thing going on there in

1:34solo in London. All the clubs with the stones and the arbards and the formation of cream, the formation of Hendrix were there at the time when we were there. And then to come back here and play all the pop festivals when Woodstock was going on, the Seattle pop festival Monterey, I just really feel like I was really blessed to be there, not buying a ticket, but being in a band playing on the bill and sitting backstage like we are here sitting there with Robert Plant there and fly from the family stone there. And I can tell you the turn of their Chuck Berry there, which is, I've had an incredible ride. It's been a great life. Was it different atmosphere? Most musicians back then, it seemed like it was all more family oriented. Everyone was kind of, you know, out there for the music and that. The musicians were there purely for one reason to play, to play for the people and to play with each other. There's great jamming going on backstage. After a while when the tour is over and the music died down and you unplug and plug the

2:20guitar up, you look at paying the bills and then the reality sets in, we haven't been paid properly. And so you have to look at that end of the music business. Where is my money? The manager got it all? Where did he send it? The agent got it all? The label kept it all? Where did they send it? Because we've been out there on tour for six months selling this record. Where is our little share this? And so the music starts up being purely for music, but sooner or later you've got to get down to the business thing and like where's my pay for doing this? And this guy's driving that living in that house and I'm still on the road in Holiday and I don't understand this. And so you get out of that contract and you try to be more attentive to your next contract and not get so shafted or screwed on the deal. And sooner or later the whole music business evolved to becoming a corporate thing now.

3:06And it's so corporate that I think it's lost, it's so unlost, it's music, but I'm kind of glad I see that we're living through a transitional period now. Where it's going back to indie labels. Where it's you and your brother, you and your friend will start indie label and you get one band that you love and you put them on that label and you go and find other people to love that band and that's how it goes and that's what the 60s was. It was Jack Holzman starting electro records because he saw unlike the doors and nobody would sign them. So he signed the doors. Then he signed love, then he signed Judy Collins, then he signed a couple of other acts and most often at Warner Brothers signing Crosby Stills in Nash and Neil Young and those kind of things. Herb Alpert having his first hit and signing cat Steven just out of the passion because they liked the artist and they never dropped the artist when the first album didn't sell. They signed the artist, a person, a guy who was going to be with their label six and seven

3:54and eight and nine and ten years and maybe fifteen years. And that music that was done in the 60s and which led into the 70s is what we all hold so dear today that's what you call classic rock. One with the passion, done with performances in the studio, one microphone, some of them my best records were done with one mic. No edge. Yeah, shake it all over, one microphone. You know what I mean? And you put that on and you still hear the excitement because we listened to five takes of that even though it had mistakes. We picked one that was the best performance and that's what you buy. You're not just buying the song because the song is the currency of the music business. It's also in the old days she were buying the performance. And I know Mick Jagger, I know like a lot of these guys, they've got three great takes of brown sugar or jumping jack flash. They picked the one with a little flub, the mistake from it which they can't fix because

4:41it's got that extra beat and when the Moroccan's come in the whole place goes wild and you want to dance. You know what I mean? That's really important. That's what came through the radio and made us buy those records. And we've watched the kids dance with American bands and that's the loss now. A lot of the soul is gone. Everything is so perfect and so it's coming back because of the indie bands. My daughter is 20s in like three indie bands, ones with all girls, ones with couple of guys. It's a synth band but they go to the 70s or 80s they zero it on that and say we love this and they go and try to buy all the old gear and get this out and they don't want to record in Pro Tools where they recorded my studio. They'd even use headphones. We're used to playing this way. His hands there, I'm there. They've blown each other's brains out and you play this thing. There's nothing to mix. It's the performance that's recorded live. They love it. All their friends love it. I think music is going back to that, going back to the performance.

5:27It's like tonight every song tells a story in my jazz album are being really embraced by the people because they see me out taking chances and doing things that aren't scripted that I'm just kind of telling stories and making them out when I play the jazz stuff it's all off the top of your head and I'm making mistakes and I'm getting it really hard to go out and accept the fact that I'm going to go out and make mistakes. When you're in a classic rock band like I've been with the guest who, you have to play every song like it's in people's memories. If I play Let It Rock, you're going to see that the next night, it's not like the record. It's too slow. It's not going to resonate within you. That's going to be cool though. It will be cool. But you know what I mean? When I hit that thing and I tell the story, you go, well that's the story behind you and you ain't seen that. And I do the song and it's the same thing as the album. You sit there and the whole resonance is there. It's your mother's chicken soup. You know what I mean?

6:12It's the comfort food. It's the comfort music. So that's what I like about the business. I see an evolution going back to the Indies who are very passionate about one or two bands and they go and they will stay with that band for a long, long time. Whereas the big labels, if you don't hit this point, the corporate guys have a meeting and we gave you this much money, you only saw this many records, you're gone. And you say, well what about the hits and the music within me? In my heart and soul in my head, all the living I've done that are putting into my head, I'm sorry, too bad go to another label. So that's good to see that evolution. And you know, everything does go in cycles. I think it was 1967 or maybe pushing 1968 and I was in the guest room. We hadn't really broken big yet. We had local radio hits. And I remember being in Berkeley, which was a real hip at the time.

6:59And I remember turning the corner to try to find the car where we had parked our car. I'm coming down the street towards me with three guys, big guys wearing jackets with the same colors. And as I stepped off the curb to cross the street and they were 100 feet away from me, they changed their direction to block me. And I was kind of pretending I was looking to store a window and try to go back and I could see they went back. And I was going to have to go through or around these guys and think, oh man, what am I going to do? I'm a guy from Winnipeg. I don't know how to fight. I don't know how to do any of this stuff. And they got closer to me almost to like where those steps were, you know, a couple of dozen feet away. A car pulled up and out of the car got this small woman. And when they saw her, the two of the guys immediately dispersed and left and this one

7:44poor guy was staying there, she started as a terrorist strip off of him and I hadn't heard language like this since the movies like these Marine drill instructors. She was just ripping down on this guy and yelling at him to get in the car and he didn't take out the garbage or whatever is happening. And I was grateful that she showed up. And as he was getting into the car, she slammed the door. The window was open. It was very hot. And she said, maybe when you get home you ain't getting no sugar tonight. But I didn't see no sugar tonight in the car feet.

8:38No sugar tonight in the car feet. No sugar to stand beside me. No sugar to my mind. Can you find?

9:46So I played that for Burton Cummings and it was too short. It was two minutes and ten seconds long. And it was in a, Burton said that needs something else. And I said, you know, this is a really strange key. We had, originally it was done in F sharp. And he said, you know, I have a song in F sharp too. He played me his song. It was called New Mother Nature. And we thought maybe we'll put these together, maybe the word. And lo and behold, we put them together. They worked. The song was on the American woman album. So Colin's going to sing New Mother Nature the way Burton showed it to me. And then we're going to do them both together and see how it worked. So back down to places you've been to.

10:49You want to live to. You know you're living wrong. Ain't no hunger. How's the nature taking over? And to the song. To heaven and to the song. Clear as cold and the sky is falling and I love it.

12:06Now the places you feel. Thank you.

13:06Thank you. Self-mashing because what you listen to. Sitting here with Randy Bachman. My jazz album called Our Leaves Agree and Again. My new songs. And the songs I'm most proud of that are the older classic songs are the ones that were the songs that I felt given to me by someone. The God of Songs who says you've been trying so hard and written all these crappy things. There's a good song. And if you're open and the song comes to you you kind of get it and you go wow. Holy cow incredible. You're going to play for someone. Have you heard this? Because it's a perfect thing. And they say no I haven't heard it and I've played for you. Have you heard it? I guess I wrote it. I mean that's pretty much what it's like when you write a song.

13:52You don't know. I hear this when I was two or when I was twelve or when I was twenty and I'm just re-putting a new suit of clothes on this thing. Somebody's going to sing. Well that's a very song or that's a catch. Steven's song or that's a Neil Diamond song or whatever. Whatever you hear it you never know that you're subconscious if you're writing a song. And so I mean taking care of business you ain't seen anything. We're written that way kind of instantly on stage. And our leaves are green again. I wrote. So my jazz album is just me singing with a piano which I've never done because I'm really not a singer. So to write this was Stephen Machio who wrote Celine's A Brand New Day. This is pretty much a pop writer. But to take him to his jazz roots and classicals and do the song that's a very Celtic jazz piano thing. And me being quite a Van Morrison or Elvis Costello out front and just singing. It's very bare naked performance from me. Is this not behind? Yeah.

14:38I've never done this. No nothing. Wow. The whole Elvis jazz is the last track as our leaves are green again. And it's such a touching song that I can't perform without getting for a clamped and getting tears in my eyes and kind of breaking up. And when I perform it in the jazz clubs which are pretty noisy by the last set. And I start that to hear the silence. You see the waitress's stop with the trays like this and the bartender's stop. And the whole place stop like the E of Hutton commercial. E of Hutton says invest in this and everybody goes what are we going to invest in? When I start this song everybody stops and listens. When it's all done they just go. Did you write that song? We want that for our grandmother for her anniversary. We want it for our anniversary. We want to play that our anniversary because it's about growing old and still having the passion for life and music and for a person that's close to you.

15:24It could be your mother, your father, it could be your girlfriend, it could be your brother, whatever. And it's our leaves are green again. That even when it's all done we're all going to go to this place. Whatever you want to call it while all our heaven and our leaves will be green again. When I came up on this title I thought what a great way to say it's never going to end. What we've got here is going to keep going somewhere else and keep going somewhere else. When the leaves will always have these spring times in their life and it autumn comes and then you fall in love again. Whether it's here or in heaven you'll meet you again and I'll meet my granddad there who I haven't seen for all this time. Our leaves will be green again. We'll be children running around in this place. And it's like such an image and when I was writing these lyrics down I couldn't believe it.

16:09Stephen and I when we were done I looked sheepishly at him because I just met him an hour before. I'll look at him and I thought man I'm crying. This is embarrassing. I look at him and he's got tears pouring down his face. I was approaching a birthday. I proposed to my wife again to get remarried on my birthday which every guy ought to do because then you never forget your anniversary. It's on your birthday. So I've done this on my birthday's approaching and I'm agreed to like do the vows thing with my wife again. Stephen Machio had decided at the same time that I was getting renewal of vows with my wife. He was getting married to his girlfriend of 18 years. I said of 18 years. This is the high school romance here. We met in high school and finally we're getting married. He's like 30 something. And the song meant the same to him that him and Hillary were getting married and the same

16:54feeling they had when they were 15 and 16. Their leaves are green again. They're getting married and going on this Italian. Going on this tour with Italy to visit his cousins and relatives and stuff like that. Amazing. So like I said I put the song on and people have come up to me. They don't see me see a lot. It's not a hit record but it's one of those things that will get played at anniversaries and graduations because you're all leaving. It's the last year high school. But we'll meet again 30 years from now on some business will cross pass and guess what or at least it'll be green again. That's like one of my greatest songs. Cool. Let's play right now. It's Randy Bock and I'll use the green again. I was going to call it green again but it was too Kermiti for art to green again. So I have to always put our leaves are green again.

17:45Seems the birds have flown and the leaves are brown and my world is turning gray. We'll be making heart. Everything again. Always wanting yesterday. All I gotta do is close my eyes. All I gotta do is walk into. Only in a dream again that our leaves are green.

18:30As the years go by we are satisfied with the embers of our love. As the pieces fall sweet memories call and the angels smile on us. And all we gotta do is close our eyes. All we gotta do is walk to touch. We can share the dream and both leaves are green again.

19:24All we gotta do is all we gotta do. We can share the dream and we gotta do is all we gotta do.

20:15We can share the dreams. We're the story ends and our leaves are green. Virty Cummings joined the guest in 66.

21:10We were based in Regina this whole summer. In Regina itself was a club called the 4D, the 4th dimension. And Sir Douglas Quintet was playing and Joni Mitchell was playing on the same night. So we had a night off and we all went to see her. I was sitting at the table and in the door walked two ladies, two girls. One was brunette and one was blonde. I was struck immediately. Something said to me, you gotta do something. This is a moment in your life that if you don't seize this moment, you'll think about this and maybe regret it forever. And being a very shy guy, I said to the road manager of the guest who his name was Jim Martin. Could you go over and introduce yourself and sit at that table and once you get comfortable, be settled in, call me over. And don't talk to the brunette, just talk to the blonde.

21:59So thank you Jim Martin. His nickname was John Bohn. Thanks to John Bohn. So he went over and introduced himself and sat at their table and then a little while later called me over. When I sat at the table, I basically were just sitting there and watching Joni Mitchell and she was done. I asked him if he could give the girls a ride home. And John Bohn left. So I had both girls to give a ride home. They were sisters. And I asked if I could take the brunette out the next night. Her name was Lorraine. She said sure. And we decided we're gonna go to the movies. So next night I went to her house to pick her up and got ushered into a living room that had a big overstuffed couch, a plant and a piano and nothing else in there. And we're gonna go to a movie that started. I know about eight o'clock. I got there about seven. Sad in this room until seven thirty, seven forty, seven forty five.

22:48She wasn't coming down. Her little brother kept coming down. She's almost ready. She's almost ready. And so I found myself sitting at the piano and not being a piano player but luckily enough having a brother that when I was playing violin at the age of five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, he was playing accordion. He was a year and a half younger than me. And I remember making him lay down and pull the end of the accordion back and forth. And I would sit on his knees and just play the white keys. And he'd pump it because when your little kid is hard to pump this accordion, even though it was a little one, so he'd sit there pulling this up and down. And I would play in the key of C. So I sat at this piano in the key of C and I played. When I was sitting there waiting, I first words I thought of were these arms long to hold you.

23:42And then I didn't have anything else. And then she came down. It was too late for the movies. We just went for a drive around Regina. But when I got together, Burton Cummings later and showed him this idea for his song. And he said, but you know when you sing those words, these arms long to hold you. There's nowhere to go after that. So why don't we call it these eyes? And I said, no, it's got to be called these arms. So let's just try these eyes. So he sang these eyes. Cry every night. These arms long to hold you. Wow, that's a perfect, yeah, I'll move those to the third and fourth line. And this is our first and second line. And so now we're going to give you the song that was... It's basically changed our lives forever. We didn't know it at the time. I didn't know it in that room. Changed my life forever. These eyes.

24:46It's each other over the years. I mean, like I said in 67, I saw Mick Jagger in the Stones.

28:20That's when they had Brian Jones still with the band. You cross paths with these guys all the time. Or you know they're roady because he was your guitar attack. And this is cross-pollination of people in the music business. To do the SARS thing was an absolute ultimate high. For that many people to be part of the Canadian showing the world like SARS is over, and we're functioning again as a province, as a city, as a country. You know, the SARS thing is gone. And to be part of that. And to go on stage, to launch into the American woman riff. And just have the crowd snap to like, not attention, but snap to rock and roll attention. Like you don't mean like get ready and let's do this thing. And then when I did take care of business and I said clap your hands to see almost a million hands. As far as I can see, and I was out at 20 foot stage and I'm 6 feet tall. So my high level is at about 26 feet high. And as far as I can see, left, right and center was hands all clapping in time.

29:08It was absolutely amazing. Just so that was like the greatest show of all time. It's the best run show I've ever been to. The logistics of it. Getting the people there, getting the bands there, having the security. I have nothing go wrong. It was just amazing. It was amazing feet by Riley O'Connor and House of Blues. The Toronto Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Toronto Transit who got everybody there. It was just, it was like Woodstock run by the Swiss. Because Woodstock basically was a disaster. This was absolutely perfect. The weather, there was one idiot who got arrested and he was a drunk American. On the day the show caused him. And nothing through the concert, but he was there for it. So basically you could say it was, it was without incident. It was just a phenomenal show. Yeah. The first one, you didn't play it. Were you there though? No, we passed on going.

29:54We had played the Seattle Pop Buss, which is three days of glorious. You named the band, like I said, for sliding the family stone burrito brothers, the birds. I continued to turn her truck buried, Jerly Lewis. Led Zeppelin, ten years after, the doors. The doozy one. Oh yes, I've got the poster. It's stunning. It's a beautiful day. Chick-a-Reea, son Ron. It was a mixture of jazz and all this kind of stuff. Richie Havens on and on. And basically it was a great Woodstock. Three days of sunshine. The guests who played all three days. We left there, went to Chicago to record the American woman out. In the middle of the week we're setting up recording the American woman out. I get a phone call. There's another pop festival in the Bethville, the New York. It's outside of Woodstock. We had already seen on the air Woodstock had started. Didn't have enough toilets.

30:39The something went off the tracks of the cars were backed up. It was raining. It was a mess. It was a wreck. You can't get in there because the roads were blocked. We're flying everyone on helicopter. I said, I don't want to go in on a helicopter. Two of me rock stars get killed on motorcycles and helicopters. By the way, we're recording our American woman out. So why would we go and want to play this disaster, where there's not enough food or water and breaking down the fences and all this stuff? So basically he said, no, we pass on Woodstock. One of those crossroads. Oh yeah, what would it be nice to be in Woodstock and be? But if we had, maybe we wouldn't have recorded American woman and had it sound like it sounded at that moment in time and come up and be a number one record and change all our lives again. So it's one of those crossroads. Like people said, what if you never left? What if you never left the guess who? And they would have had taken care of business and they never would have had it.

31:26That was me singing by accident and making up songs and stage with different guys by accident. That became it records. And these are two of the greatest accidents in my life. You ain't seen out yet in TCB. They really are. And when I tell the story time, you'll see that. Purely accidental things. But I had to be there at that time with those people for the accidents to happen. That's what they call fate or destiny or good fortune or serendipity or happenstance or whatever. Whatever the word is, you got to be there at that moment. So it would have been nice to be immortalized in Woodstock, but maybe we wouldn't have had American woman. Yeah, I heard you wrote that in history. Yeah, curlingly. One day in the mail, my house came out of a CD with a name, Money Kravitz on it. I plopped him in the CD player and I was at my son's house. I called him out and put it in and it was this.

32:14American woman, mama let me be. Don't come hanging by my door. I don't want to see your face no more. Color lives been hypnotized. Sparkle someone else's eyes now woman. Said get away. American woman. Listen what I say. That's what was on the Lenny Kravitz CD. And Canadian comedian Mike Myers was doing Austin Powers 2 and it asked Lenny to do a demo of that to put over the closing credits.

33:07And I loved that version, SOTED BIRTON. So Lenny went back and worked on it a bit more and it was on Austin Powers 2. And it was on Lenny 5, his next, his album is Fifth Album and it was his number one single for him and he won a Grammy. And then he put it on Lenny's Greatest Hits and it sold another couple of million and Lenny became our new best friend. American woman was written on stage basically as a jam. And we're on stage playing this dance and it was really cool and I broke a string. So we went to the mic and said Randy Burton said Randy's broken string. We're going to take a break so everyone milled it out and played records at those dances. And I went off stage and put the string on my guitar and tuned it up and started to play this riff.

33:54And immediately he was going like this to get the other guys on stage because we were on a break. But I wanted them, I didn't want to forget this riff and I had this feeling this was a moment you know. And so they came on stage and we started jamming the song and jamming the song. And eventually Burton came on stage and what are you doing? What are you doing? We're jamming this riff play something and he did a guitar solo, he did a piano solo, I did a guitar solo, he did a flute solo. I did a guitar solo, he did a harmonic a solo and then we ran out of stuff to play. This is like went on for five, six, seven, eight minutes. And I yelled him saying something. And he said what do I sing? And I said sing anything out of his mouth. He said the same line four times American women stay away from me. The song came out and it went to number one in the States in all the three trades and the album was number one.

34:45And this was the guest who's big moment and we were finally rocking. So here's American moment. 150 pounds, I'm really in shape. I work out at Howard in two hours every day.

37:43And when I'm home too long, I get the itch to go out. It becomes a drug after a while. You want to, it's no fun playing at home for yourself or in your own. So you got to go out and have some reaction. I really love doing what I'm doing tonight. I'm sitting telling the stories behind the hits for the guests who in BTO. And to see the people's faces, it's like telling little kids bedtime stories around the campfire. And it gets spooky and you see them huddle up. You know what I mean? Or they're going to bed and their eyes are watching because you're telling them about finding a treasure or flying. It's a Peter Pan story. But to see the faces of the audience, they don't know what story I'm telling. I just started out walking in San Francisco. I met this biker gang, came around the corner in blah blah blah. And this happened. And they're sitting there and suddenly I go up, but it'd be. And then she said, you ain't getting no sugar tonight. Then I start the song. They go, wow. So they're taking on a musical ride. They know the song.

38:30So they're kind of a soundtrack to your life of your Canadian. But to hear the stories, the people have really been liking it. So I kind of like doing it. I really like doing it. And with the jazz record that you have there, I'll put it another one. And I'm thrilled if I get asked to play a jazz festival here or there or anywhere. The band, Altar, slightly get a different kind of different keyboard player in the band. But it's still me and basically my drummer and bass player. And I have to go out and do these songs. So they're totally different. But in the jazz set, near the end, inevitably, I do blue collar looking off in a room which my jazz, and I'm done with two of my jazz songs in the other bands. This is quite a pure jazz album. But near the end, when I get a second or third oncause, you say, here's a jazz shuffle of taking care of business and they love it. It's still giving the hit, you know. Do you think people want that when they see you live? They want to hear the hit.

39:17They're yelling for it. But when they came for the jazz thing, they really wanted the jazz. They really did it and I do a front end solo, but 10, 12 minutes, just a loamy, noodling around jazz guitar to show people I really can play. I've been practicing two hours a day for 35 years for nothing. I can play some pretty hard licks. But you don't get to see it. When I'm doing classic rock, you want everything to sound exactly like the record. So I kind of painted myself into a corner with all these hits. But getting out of the corner is doing this jazz thing. I start the song and do any solo I want. It doesn't matter. And it's a total freedom to find as an artist. Because you've got to believe the last four years playing with the jazz. It's been very painted into a corner. Doing 32 hit songs and everyone has to sound like the record. I would live for the end of Glamour Boy or the beginning of American Woman,

40:05where there's a little jam where I can play as many riffs and licks as I want and then we get back to the song. Okay, who can recognize this? This is the name that tune. Oh, who said that? Favorite back writer, exactly. When that came out in 1967, I thought, wow, what a great riff. And what a great song. I love this Beatles song. Especially the paper back. All that harmony all mixed in and intertwined with each other. I wanted to write a song like that. And I'd spend a lot of time with the guests who in New York acceptor studios. And our engineer had to leave every night at 11 to get home. And then in the morning you take the 815 back into the city. So I wanted to write a button. Here's the song I wrote.

40:50And I called it White Collar Worker, because then engineers were white collars. Here's how the song went. They get up in the morning from the alarm clocks, warning, 28, 15 into the city. Do you recognize these lyrics? There's a whistle up above and people pushing people shoving and the girls who always look pretty. And if it was a terrible song and it was kind of like yummy yummy. Remember I got 11 like, and if the train's on time you can get to work by nine. Let's start your slave and job to get your pay. If you ever get annoyed, look at me, I'm self-employed. And I love to work at nothing all day. Now here's a big hook it went. Why I called it White Collar.

41:38And it was just like paper back writer. And Burton Cummings said, how I'm ashamed of you. How terrible can it be? We can't do this song. It's blatantly paper back writer. And so I thought, well, I guess he's right. Every time the guest who had a rehearsal and to pitch songs for the next record, I'd bring out White Collar Worker and it would get tossed away. And BTO had moved to Vancouver. We were playing a club called the Image One. And then we really worked. It was six days a week, five sets a night. Probably five, forty-fives or five, fifteen minutes sets a night. And after six days of screaming, Fred Turner, who was basically the lead singer in Backman Turn Overdrive, his voice was pretty ragged.

42:25And he came to me near the last set of this Saturday night and said, I can't sing anymore. You got to sing the last set. So I had to sing the last set, which made a lot of instrumentals and a lot of goofing around. So out of my bag. Now this is Saturday Night in a Rock and Roll Club. Guys want a rock and here I am singing. She's got everything she needs. She's an artist. She don't look. And guys are going, we want a rock rock and roll. So I turned around in desperation. So let's do oil komo vlog at Santana Song. None of us knew Spanish. So we were singing this kind of Winnipeg Ukraine and Star would go. Oil komo vlog. Benito, bama za.

43:13But yeah, oil komo vlog. Hero di bueno vama za. And I was getting to this. Trying to kill as much time as I can and looking at my watch for you please let it be one o'clock in the morning so we can stop playing. And we were running out of oil komo vlog. On the way to the gig that night I heard Darryl Berlingham, who was a friend of our swim in Winnipeg. He was called Darryl B on the radio here. And he said, this is Darryl B on C-Fox radio and we're taking care of business. And he played a song by I think Momma's and Pop's. And I thought, well, I'm taking care of business. That's a great title for a song. And I couldn't write it down. I was driving and memorized it, put it in this little shelf next

43:58to my heart that had white collar worker on it. And that night when I was on stage doing oil komo vlog, figuring in my mind what and can I do next? How can we rock out? And when oil komo vlog was over, I turned to the rest of the band to BTO and said, play these three chords over and over and over and over and over and over and when I get to the hook, help me. And I wasn't sure what the hook was going to be, how I was going to fit in that taking care of business thing I heard Darryl B say on the radio into why collar worker to this thing. But I was very lucky. I picked three good chords. I mean, I had a choice of that was Louie Louie. And also that night I heard Darryl play.

44:44Rambling Gambling man, the Bob Seer thing that was cool three chords over and over. So I took three chords over and over and the song ended up being taking care of business. We stopped playing at about four minutes short of when we were supposed to end the night and my brother Rob kept playing on drums hitting the drums and the crowd started to sing taking care of business and I thought great Rob, play it again. And it finished the night. Our festival, you are 20,000 people and we want to hear you make

47:47some noise. I'm a McCartney fan and both of them were what they did for me

49:27and the rest of the world with their songs, song writing and performances. You can't put that into words. One of my earliest inspirations. See you have to turn. Really good teenage friend and maybe you know do something together in the future. Who knows? Neil Young. Really dear friend. We cross paths every couple of years and it's very enjoyable for both us. We feel like long lost brothers. Ben Morrison. Oh a true inspiration. Back in the 60s I gave Ben Morrison a guitar. When he was broken down on the lost guitar and the luggies were doing a TV show together. I just saw him perform last May in England at the Hampton Court Palace outdoors. It was staggering. It was phenomenal. He won't play sax. He did jazz for the first half arm played saxophone with a big band. It was cool.

50:12And then he launched into Gloria and you know a brown eyed girl and stuff and took everybody for a great musical ride. He's great. Jim Morrison. I was never a Jim Morrison fan. Burton Cummings was a Jim Morrison fan. I never really got the doors to Jim Morrison. To me he wasn't that cool a singer. I like some of the songs but I don't think I went out and bought the doors on but I do love, absolutely love like my fire. One of the greatest songs. The beginning to turn around the court. So you know I like to stuff but like I said I wouldn't go and buy his box set. A great inspiration to me of a non-singer who sings. Because I'm a non-singer who sings. It's always Neil Young you know and that kind of thing. So it's just like screw everybody. I'm doing this song and it's going to be pitchy and the sharp and flat but you know I'm doing this song. It's like a Randy Newman thing. There's certain guys out there that are really like and admire further

50:59bravado which I've had to take on because I'm not really a Burton Cummings style of great singer that hits every note on pitch. I'm more of a performance guy because I wrote the song. So I look at it like I'm a like I am a Leonard Cohen. Elvis Costello that kind of thing. Bob Dylan kind of thing. Eric Clappen. An icon I can't say anything more about. He's a great singer songwriter. I like his really guitar playing better when he was into the Gibson's. The fenders are sounding too thin for me. I like the old wheels of fire cream thing. You know I feel free like those kind of songs you know. Sunshine of your love and stuff. George Harrison. Truly great guitar player and like I said he's up there with Leonard McCartney's. One of the greats. One of the Beatles. Very inspirational to me. Songwriting guitar player.

51:44Jimmy Andrews. A complete astral from outer space maniac on guitar who I thought was really phenomenal. To take the tools he had a Stratocaster. A walla. Some weird little fuzz thing and a martial amp and do the music he did was quite incredible because everyone had those tools. This guy just built a whole new tower that we're all still trying to climb to this day. Keith Richards. Oh a truly great character and a really great songwriter rhythm guitar player. He basically I think is the heart and soul of the Stones. When he launches into that rhythm guitar I think I've seen the Stones many many times. He's just that anchor kind of thing. Him and Charlie Watson. Without either of them it's pretty much Aint the Stones. Brian Wilson. A wonderful songwriter. A tragic story.

52:30A wonderful songwriter. Are you back now? Yeah but still if you saw him live don't believe all the hype. Bottom. A truly great wonderful guy. What he's done leading the band if he is leading the band or the flue lead. That's a democracy whatever. You got to even credit they're probably the best band in the world. They're still together. They're still with the same manager. They're still with the same label. All those things I talked about before. Getting scammed and screwed up. That hasn't happened to them. They obviously are getting what they deserve so they're still there creating music. And they continue to astound and amaze me. With their records they might be the odd little valley. The odd little disappointment. And then suddenly they come back with wow they're back. That's a great riff I can't believe that's you too. And that's what music is all about. I've certainly had the valleys. Life is not a plateau.

53:15There's hills and valleys. So I've got to go there. We're going to. Just Randy Buffett. I've known him all my life and he's kind of like a brother to me. What can I say?