This came out in 2005 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
They were on a weekly pop-music TV series aimed squarely at teens. They covered the hits of the day. And they parlayed their TV gig into a career that brought them fame and fortune. The Guess Who really were the original Canadian Idols — in every sense of the word.
The year was 1967, and Winnipeg’s favourite sons were still a long way from being the household names they are today. Oh sure, a couple of years earlier, with original vocalist Chad Allen, they had scored a left-field hit with a cover of Johnny Kidd And The Pirates’ Shakin’ All Over. But since then, Randy Bachman, Jim Kale, Garry Peterson and new vocalist / keyboardist Burton Cummings hadn’t shaken things up quite as much as they might have hoped. They had recorded more songs, but a followup hit had eluded them. They had roamed as far as London, but a planned tour of England never got off the ground and they had returned home to lick their wounds.
In fact, the band were thinking of calling it a day when they finally caught a break — a chance to be the house band on a nationally aired afternoon music series on CBC-TV. After convincing the powers that be that they could read music (although Bachman and Kale bluffed their way through an audition), they got the gig. For two seasons, they were a weekly fixture on Let’s Go (hosted, ironically enough, by their erstwhile leader Allen). They played the chart-topping tunes of the week. They sprinkled in an original whenever they could. And in the process, they slowly but surely amassed a national fan base and a slate of songs that would serve them well in the future.
Nearly four decades into that future, you’d expect these recordings to be nothing but a distant memory. Thankfully, a school chum of Bachman who worked at CBC was smart or prescient enough to hang on to copies. And good enough to pass them on to Bachman, who has been refurbishing and reissuing them over the past few years. The first batch of 20 formed the bulk of the 2001 retrospective This Time Long Ago. The hour-long Let’s Go picks up where that left off, with another 18 rarities guaranteed to satisfy classic rock fans and Guess Who lovers.
Nearly half the set consists of a wide array of covers — The Beatles’ Blackbird and Hey Jude, Cream’s White Room, The Doors’ Touch Me, The Zombies’ Time Of The Season, Vanilla Fudge’s version of the Motown classic You Keep Me Hanging On, even Bob Seger’s Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man. From the folk Britpop of Lennon and McCartney to the hard-driving Detroit soul-rock of Seger, every one is a note-perfect rendition. These cuts remind you that these guys were solid musicians, with chops well-honed from years of basement jams and community-club dances.
The other half of the set — the originals — remind you that they were much more than a human jukebox. Some of the cuts are familiar, like These Eyes, Minstrel Boy and No Time (whose searing guitar line must have melted more than a few of those little TV speakers back in the day). Other tracks — like the orch-pop of I Need Your Company, the zippy silliness of Mr. Nothin, the wah-wah acid-rock of Heygoode Hardy and the folk-pop of Very Far From Near — never made it beyond the airwaves. Still, they make it clear that the band never stopped trying to find that next elusive hit.
Of course, if you heard This Time Long Ago, a lot of this won’t be that new to you. But Let’s Go also has something that will be: Vintage video footage of the band performing This Time Long Ago and When Friends Fall Out on the show. You’ll be amazed how young these guys are. How scruffy they are. How skinny they are. Which is to say: They look just like a bunch of Canadian Idols.
