Randy Bachman Interview

by Rick Landers.

Before Randy Bachman’s show at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, this past summer, Modern Guitars dropped by backstage for a brief chat. Randy and crew were relaxed and easy going giving me an opportunity to ask him a few questions about his guitars and music, as well as Vinyl Tap, his coast-to-coast radio program that’s broadcast across his native Canada.

Resting next to a wall was Bachman’s gold top Gibson Les Paul, his axe of choice and one that he said nailed the Guess Who sound, better than any other guitar he’d played for years. The LP's a sub-eight pounder that he can play night after night without irritating the rotator cuff that he had repaired in 2007. But, it was clear that Randy loved the guitar and its gritty crunch.

The night before the group played at B.B. King’s in New York City and a few days before that (July 1, 2008) Randy had met with the Governor General of Canada, Michaelle Jean, who announced that Bachman was to receive the country's highest civilian honor for lifetime acheivement, the Order of Canada, a nice followup to his 2005 Order of Manitoba.

Randy's legacy of performing with The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive and his broad range of recording and production work, helped him collect an impressive 120 Gold and Platinum albums and singles. With over 40 million records sold with his name on them and #1 spots on the charts in over 20 countries, his legacy is firmly planted not only on Canadian turf, but all over the planet. "No Sugar Tonight," "Blue Collar," "Taking Care of Business," "American Woman," and countless other hits he's played or sung are now classics.

As we talked, Randy grabbed the Gold Top and laid down a few riffs to demonstrate the fingerpicking style he learned from Lenny Breau, that included some jazz riffs and a couple of his hit song leads.

I’d read that Bachman and his first band landed in England without much more than pocket change, having experienced the age old problem with troubling management. He told me that he’d had an offer from England’s pirate off-shore radio show that was totally unacceptable and he refused it, even though the whole band was nearly broke. But, as luck would have it they pooled their UK pounds and ended up with recording a hit song.

Randy's also known as an avid guitar collector, with over 500 instruments in his collection. During the ‘60s his orange Gretsch 5120 was stolen and in his quest to find it he ended up with a huge grouping of Gretsch guitars and others, including a ’59 Les Paul that’s been valued at nearly a million bucks, because of its vintage interest and association with Bachman. When the Gretsch family moved back into the guitar business, they had no templates for building Gretsch legacy guitars, so Fred Gretsch gave Randy a call and asked to borrow some of his collection, including several very rare White Penguins. With that, the Gretsch family resurrected its place in guitar history and soon some of Randy’s collection will be housed at an anticipated Gretsch Guitar Museum.

During the gig, Bachman intertwined a slug of hits with how each was born including demonstrating how some of the riffs were, what he called, “recycled” from songs from the Bee Gees, the Beatles, and others.

Before he went on stage he talked about how his early band was called the Reflections, but, that there was another group with the name that had a hit song called, “Just Like Romeo and Juliet." A call from the groups' lawyer persuaded them to shed the name and change to the Expressions. That led to another call from a Detroit group’s lawyer who swooped down on them for the same reason. The end result was a record out with the name, The Guess Who, and as they say, “The rest is history.”

Before we met Randy for the interview, Michael G. Stewart (photographer) and I caught Randy and his group running their sound check. We got the impression that he would be a tough interview, even grumpy. Not that he said a word, but he had a kind of scowl that we later figured must be attributed to his focus on getting the gear perfect for performances. In fact, we found Randy to be a great guy to hang with and share a few laughs.

In Canada, Randy’s well-known and his Vinyl Tap radio show is a hit. He told us that the concept was that he’d play of few records and then talk about their history, and more often than not, about the artists that he knew that played on them. As a member of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner-Overdrive, the guy’s hung out with nearly everyone in the world of rock. And he told us that he was starting a new format where he planned on keying in on the guitars used to make hit records to help his audience sonically grasp their unique voices.

Bachman’s obviously pumped about this new feature on his show and noted, “For Telecasters, I’m going to start out with the rockabilly sound and someone like Buck Owens and move forward to Jeff Beck and others. I’ll do the same with Les Pauls and other guitars."

Randy was chowing down on a rack of ribs when his wife, Denise McCann, told him, “Randy, you need to get done here so you can change clothes for the show and before the audience gets here.”

Bachman’s set was a big fistful of hit songs that many in the crowd loved. No new song in the bunch, just hit after hit and the audience singing, clapping and a few dancing along. He kicked off the set with a crowd pleasing standard, "Shaking All Over” before hitting his stride with some of those still hip Guess Who cuts.

Rick Landers: We're going to start a little bit in the early days. A lot of guys during the '60s saw the Beatles and ran out and bought a guitar from Sears. Most of us did.

Randy Bachman: Sears?

Rick: Well, that's where I got my first guitar.

Randy: Me too. I've still got it.

Rick: Was it a little acoustic, with the...

Randy: It was a Harmony with F holes and double-painted white line. It was like $34. That broke at a party. Then I got the Danelectro Silvertone, that little single cut, black, with the stock white knobs. Beautiful rosewood slab. Never done a thing to it. I play it on every solo, because it doesn't sound like anything else. You want something to sound quite unique and very retro-y sounding. It sounds old and it's got a funny cool buzz on it, no matter what you put it through.

Rick: Jimmy Page uses...

Randy: Oh, yeah...love it a lot!

Rick: Tell us your life-changing guitar story. What actually got you into it? Was it the Beatles, or was it before that?

Randy: Oh, it was before the Beatles. I grew up playing violin as a kid from about age five to about 14. When I got old enough to say, "I don't want to take lessons anymore!" You know, a stand-up-to-your-parents kind of thing. I just stopped going.

But, I realize now that in the years from like five to like 12 or 13, it instilled in me a discipline, where you go to practice every day. I had to come home from school and practice violin. Then I could go play with the kids on the street, you know, your hockey or whatever, or baseball or just kicking the soccer ball. What I was getting instilled in me every Saturday morning, the lesson.

And it's like kids, they goof around in school until the week or the 2 or 3 days before the exam. You've got a lesson every Saturday, you're pretty much checking in there Thursday and Friday, because you've got to please your teacher, blah, blah, blah. You might be a little lax on it Monday or Tuesday. But, it's like having an exam every week and then it was the Royal Conservatory of Music where you're examined. You've got to stand up there in a little tuxedo and play and you get judged on your posture and your articulation and all this kind of stuff. And I found I didn't like that. I was competing against you and you, and who had the lesson before me and who had the lesson after me and we all went there Saturday morning.

We didn't like it because on the way to the bus stop, you had a little violin, all your friends are yelling and calling you a sissy and all this stuff. You're getting tripped and pushed down and this becomes a totally unpleasant thing. I'd see Elvis on TV. My mother had a younger sister then who was, maybe 18, and she's like screaming and then my mother starts to scream and my father goes, "That's terrible. Turn it off." And they blacked out the bottom of the TV. Remember that thing they blacked out?...

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: And I said, "What is that? That's rock 'n' roll and I want to do that!" Because it was so wild compared to what I had gotten with classical violin. So I want to play like Elvis and realize Elvis ain't playin' a thing! [Laughing] I'm shakin' like Elvis and it's Scotty Moore. The finger style.

In Winnipeg at the time, there was this band that moved into town, to Winnipeg from Maine, and the radio station was CKY. They were called the CKY Caravan. They traveled in their big motor home with cactus on it and stuff. They wore the Nudie suits, the Roy Rogers thing with the fringes and cactus and all these things. And they were called CKY Caravan and the main singer was Hal Lone Pine, that was his stage name; his wife was Betty Cody, like the Wild West thing. And the little kid who played guitar was Hal Lone Pine, Jr. and his real name was Lenny Breau

Rick: Ah. We talked about Lenny Breau today.

Randy: He's like 15, 16. I'm 14, 15. He's moved up to where he's been playing in his family band since he was 10, he'd been playing as a pro for 6 years.

Rick: Yeah. Wow.

Randy: He's been playing guitar since he was 5, like I'd been playing violin since I was 5. He had no friends in town. He played with his parents' band every night. They played all these barn dances and car lots, hayrides, yeah, and a lot of things like that.

Saturday morning they'd be hawking cars at a used car lot or new Fords, new Thunderbirds coming out then and stuff like that. They would play the show for half an hour live on the radio.

Everybody comes to so-and-so motors, here's doughnuts and coffee and see the new Chevrolets, the new Ford, whatever. And in the middle of the show, they'd stop and say, "Now we're gonna let Junior play," and I'd hear like guitar riffs playing all that kind of stuff, and I thought, "Junior is my favorite band. I've got to go see Junior. One day they play in my end of town, in the north end of Winnipeg. I get on my bicycle, not a bike, not a Harley, a bicycle. [Both Laughing]

Rick: Yeah, a CCM bike.

Randy: I ride my bike there and I'm waiting and waiting and waiting. I'm seeing them play and they've got a stand-up bass, cowboy boots, the whole thing and they're playing. I've been waiting for the band called "Junior", they all leave the stage and say "Now we're gonna let Junior play!" There's one guy standing there. And it's Lenny Breau, and he's short. He's a short little guy. He's got a cool white suit with a cactus and he's playing a G branded Gretsch and he plays "Caravan" like [Randy cuts a "Caravan" riff]. He had an Echoplex Ray Butts amp.

Rick: Really?

Randy: Everyone is looking at cars and having doughnuts. There's one person standing in front of the stage, and the stage is this high. It's just a thing they threw down on the actual car lot. I'm looking at his fingers and I'm, "Where's the band?" and I suddenly look at his fingers and one's going [Randy plucks his Gold Top] a thing at the bottom. The other one's playing the odd chord, the other one's playing on top and you're going, "Holy cow."

Even though, obviously, I'm a guitar player, like infatuated and in love with what he is doing, it's like, "Wow, this is incredible!" Because, up 'til then I'd thought it was two or three guys. I didn't know one guy could play that way, because on violin you're pretty much playing single or double string, and I used to play on string quartets and all that. So, I hear the parts, I think, "There's got to be a guy playing the bottom part and the counter notes."

After the show, he's packing up and I go up to him and he says, "Hi. Are you a guitar player?" and I say, "No, but I want to be," and I had just gotten my little Harmony. I say, "My cousin's taught me three chords. I can play 'I Walk the Line'." And he says, "Oh, so you can play guitar."

Rick: There it is.

Randy: And he said, "If you're playing 'Walk the Line', don't go [Randy plays a lick]. Use your thumb and go [new guitar lick]. And take your other fingers and go [Randy plays].

Rick: Sort of Chet Atkins style.

Randy: [Sings 'keep a close watch on this heart of mine']

Rick: Sweet.

Randy: Take that Johnny Cash and only use your thumb. I said to him, I remember it very clearly, I said, "I need to learn to play like you. Not I want; I need. I need to do this." He said, "Well, where do you live?" and I said, "In Garden City." My family had just moved to this new development. He said, "Oh, we just got a house in Garden City. Come to my house any afternoon you want." An open invitation. I went every afternoon for about two years.

Rick: Really?

Randy: I flunked grade 10. I flunked grade 11.

Rick: [Laughing] Okay.

Randy: Suddenly, I went from an A student right to an F student. I'd go to school in the morning, because my mother would say, "How was school?" I would say, "Great. I saw Susie there!" and da da da, da da da. I'd have lunch at a girlfriend's house, because they didn't serve lunch in schools. It was too far for me to go home. These girlfriends of mine lived halfway.

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: So I'd go to their house. Their mother would make us lunch. They'd go back to school. I'd go over to Lenny's. He'd just be getting up. It's like 12:30, 1:00. He had played the night before at some barn dance or hayride kind of thing. He's got albums and he's moving the needle back and forth and picking up passages and licks. He stuttered. I had a brother who stuttered, so I knew how to talk to Lenny Breau.

You never interrupt him, never finish his sentences, you never try to finish his words. Just let him go. We became real conversive and he taught me everything in those two years. There's a book out called Everything I knew I Learned in Kindergarten.

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: That was my kindergarten with Lenny Breau as my guitar teacher, teaching you what to play, what not to play, when to breathe, when to take a breath. Play like you're a horn player. Play like the two Chets: Chet Atkins and Chet Baker.

Rick: Interesting.

Randy: You gotta play [Randy imitates a horn]. You've gotta breathe. You can't just play [Randy imitates a sloppy horn]. Nobody has that much breath. So, you've got to let your solos breathe. And if you can't sing it, don't play it. Sing the solos first. You could sing it and play it, somebody else would hear it, and they can sing it.

Rick: Not like shredding or shredders.

Randy: Nobody could hum you the thing. It's wonderful, it's great, I love these guys. I wish I could play like that once in a while, but I prefer to play Scotty Moore, Beatles' solos, things that you can actually sing,

Rick: James Brown...

Randy: James Brown...things that you can sing where you've kinda gotta sing those kinds of things. Almost like scatting with your mouth, and then you scat with your fingers. So that being said, Lenny Breau, I was there when he actually quit his family band and said, "I wanna play jazz."

He started showing me some jazz; it was quite scary for me. I couldn't read music. I didn't know what they were talking about. One, four, five, seven...I just knew harmony, because I had played lead. The violin is all leads. I was playing leads right away.

He wanted to play jazz. I heard about a band across town that needed a rhythm guitar player. My brother worked with a bass player whose name was Jim Cale. I went to audition. I went to meet them. They gave me some records to learn. It was The Shadows from England.

Rick: The instrumentalists.

Randy: Two easy ones with The Shadows. "Can you play these rhythm guitars?" So, I just did the greatest rhythm guitar.

Rick: Hank Marvin.

Randy: That would be Marvin, and Bruce Walsh is the rhythm guitar. So, I learn all the rhythm. I learn all the chords and everything, which is quite easy after Lenny teaching me four Chet Atkins albums and a Merle Travis album. Because, when you heard Chet Atkins albums, he played standards and he played Broadway and he played country and he played a little bit of hillbilly, rockabilly. He played kind of everything.

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: But not too much of everything. The jazz wasn't heavy; it was kind of like country jazz. The rock was like rock. Everything was in Broadway stuff, but you learned the coordination. You learned the finger formations. I learned all the rhythm. But, being a lead violin player, like playing violin, I also learned the leads. Just 'cause I loved it. I thought The Shadows were very much like a string quartet.

This beautiful, jangling, probably J-200 in the middle. It's a guitar sitting on top of that Strat with the nice echo. The bass playing, really nice, simple bass. And the drum doing not-normal drums, like [Randy does a drum impression] galloping triplets and make this whole thing called The Shadows, this whole sound. So I learned that.

I go to the rehearsal and we're playing these songs "Apache" and "FBI" and "Mustang" and stuff like that and in the middle, the lead guitar player broke a string. So, rather than stop, I just started to play the lead. I had a Gretsch by that time, a Gretsch 6120.

I was playing through an old German tape recorder that got me an echo, because you couldn't find an Echoplex in Winnipeg. No one knew what they were. And I found this old German tape recorder called a Kortung and it had little arrows on the edge. You could actually lift the heads up and you had four prongs that turn it and somehow that would give you a delay. If you pulled them out and turned it again and plugged in the four pins, it would give you a longer delay.

So I had it set up, put it on a 7 1/2" reel and just run this, and also when you turned it up, because there was a pre-amp, you'd get a little distortion, like "Green Onions" kinda thing, like "Whoa!"

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: And so this German tape recorder became my whole sound box at the time. So, when I finished playing the lead on this one song, the lead singer said, "Wow. You play better than the lead guitar player," and he also sang lead. "It's so hard to sing lead and play lead. You play better lead than me; why don't you play lead?" Great. So he played rhythm. I played lead.

That was Chad Allen who sang "Shakin' All Over". That was Chad Allen and The Reflections. That same guitar, that same amp, which was a concert amp they had for it. The whole band would plug into a concert amp. There's two inputs and two channels. You put the bass, the piano...the piano had a little D'Armond mouse-looking pickup, you stuck behind the piano. You kind of mix them. Put the rhythm guitar in there and I put my lead guitar through the other channel. But, I had this tape recorder to make me louder, add my echo, add some distortion to me. The other guy was playing these clean rhythms. So, this was our mixing board.

I had a set of drums with no mics on them and we would just go play. When we recorded "Shakin' All Over", the whole band was through that one amp with one microphone and a set of drums. Chad Allen singing into that one mic and that was the song "Shakin' All Over," that you heard on the radio.

When we heard the first playback and the drums were too loud, we moved the whole drum set back, which doesn't seem right. Ironically, it was right. We didn't move the mic closer; the mic was in the center of the room. Like this is a TV studio in here with all concrete walls and we would have had weird standing waves if we had moved it to one side. Having it in the center of the room where the announcer used to stand, picked up the nice ambiance on all sides. It made that whole, and from that point on we got the name of The Guess Who, and went on tour. By then it's 1965 and we go and do the Louis, Louis tour with The Kingsmen in the States. The one with the Dion and the Belmonts on the bill. An absolutely phenomenal time of my life!

Rick: He's a great songwriter. He did some great songs. I don't know if you know his Sanctuary album?

Randy: He's one of the guys, one of the legends.

Rick: I understand that before you first toured England with the help of your management friends, you were broke before you even got on tour.

Randy: Our trip to England?

Rick: Yeah. What happened and what advice can you give others who are getting some type of managerial assistance? What would you caution them on?

Randy: Most musicians I know absolutely hate to read a contract and argue over it. All you want to do is write a song and play it. So, have an uncle or a father [Laughs] who's a lawyer, or a trusted friend.

There are some people who would really like to do that, like some people like to care for others. They become the great doctors and nurses. And you don't appreciate them until you break your leg or get sick. Then you go, "Awesome. Holy cow. Here's a stranger taking care of me. Aren't they wonderful?" And it's the same thing; get somebody who understands contracts. But, I would say be careful what you sign. Be really careful what you sign.

Rick: Thank you. You have a long musical association with Burton Cummings. How did the band get its name?

Randy: Our first name. Chad Allen was the lead singer; this was before Burton Cummings. Chad Allen was the lead singer. To be like Cliff Richard and the Shadows, he changed his name. His name was Allan Kowbel. You don't want to be a lead singer if you're name's Kowbel. It was really called The Linskys, like a Ukranian name or something like that.

He gets the name Chad Allen. It's really cool. It's like "Chad and Jeremy". It's like Cliff Richard. It's like two first names. And we are The Reflections, which is just like a shadow, except it's in water. It's not a light against the wall. So, we were very cool, except we want to be Cliff and the Shadows. And we get a letter from a lawyer. There's a band called The Reflections. They have a hit called "Just Like Romeo and Juliet".

Rick: Yeah, I remember that song.

Randy: We've got to change our name. We then find a word that syllabically fits "reflection", and it's "expression". We become Chad Allen and the Expressions. We get another letter from another lawyer. There's another band in Detroit called The Expressions. They're a black, R&B band. They've got a hit called "Express Your Love", something like that, whatever, and you've got to change your name.

We get a tape from England. Johnny Kitt and the Pirates, a song "Shake and [Let it] Go Wild", whatever. Great riff. The guitar riff and the bass riff, it's like [Randy sings a great riff impression]. It's like a standard, classic rock 'n' roll riff. It's like guitar boogie. It becomes a bass line that's in every song. They play it in every song. We send this track. We cut it in the TV studio, like I said, with this one mic. We've got a take five, which has a slap on it like Elvis at Sun Studios. Send it in to a record label and they go, "This is a hit song. What's the name of your band?" and we say, "We don't have a name. We keep changing our name. Every time we get a name and try to advertise it, somebody lets us know that we can't use it!" They say, "We're just gonna put this out. We're gonna put it on a white label, a 45 that says "Shakin' All Over" and put "Guess Who" under it. We're gonna run a contest, get a name. If someone guesses the name, they win the contest."

The song went to number one in Canada in like two weeks. Nobody knew we were a Canadian band. They thought it was British. It sounded very British. Like with Joe Meek and The Tornadoes and "Telstar."

Rick: Right.

Randy: The echoes from his bathroom and the things from under the stairs and we were clapping and all these things. And people thought it really was Brian Jones from the Stones and somebody from the Beatles, but they couldn't put their name on the record, so they just put "Guess Who". All this mystique about the song. It becomes number one in Canada. It gets picked up by Scepter Records in the States. It goes top 20 in Billboard.

We're in high school. We don't know we can go make any money other than playing our dance and getting 20 bucks a week. We couldn't even afford Billboard magazine. But, every Saturday we'd go uptown to the record store and look at Billboard, and I'd meet Chad down there, and we'd go, "Hey, we're 22 this week with a bullet. What does that mean?" and then we'd go to 18. It was unbelievable.

But, at the end of that, we did get a call from a manager in New York saying, "Come and do the Kingsmen 'Louis Louis' tour." We went and did that. That's how we got the name The Guess Who. We toured that whole summer with The Kingsmen.

Chad Allen lost his voice, and was quite homesick. He was in college, first year of college, and he wanted to finish. He said, "I don't want to go on the road anymore." We went to the next band in Winnipeg which was called The Deverons. We had the lead singer Burton Cummings. He was four and a half years than us. A raw, younger guy, younger chicks, a newer kind of audience. We were the elder statesmen in Winnipeg by that time and we get a younger guy. He's cool. He's good looking. He can sing ballads. He's got the Irish tenor. He could scream like Eric Burdon at the time, "In the dirty old part of the city," and all those songs.

We get him in the band. He and I start writing. We get a song called "His Girl". We record it in Minneapolis. Somebody in England hears it and loves it. They invite us to send our three-track tape there. They add strings and a glockenspiel or flugelhorn in England. We get invited to go to England. We didn't sign a contract; we just canceled everything, got on a plane and went to England. Got to England, went in to a guy named Philip Solomon's, office. He owned King Records. He also owned the pirate ship that was out in the Channel that was playing all the records.

Rick: I've read about that; yeah, yeah.

Randy: Blatantly, because they were outside of the territorial waters of England, they didn't have to comply with the BBC regulations which was 50% home grown on a copyright.

Rick: Royalty stuff, yeah.

Randy: And he basically said, "This is a commercial radio enterprise. Your music is commercial. Do you want your record played? We'll play 30 seconds for ten pounds. Do you want 2 and 1/2 minutes?" That's why all of the records were 2 and 1/2 minutes long.

Rick: Payola.

Randy: So, you want the whole thing paid, take your 30 seconds. And you want 2 minutes and 30 seconds, you pay us so much by that, and we'll play you once like you're a commercial. You want three plays a day, it's like you're buying time to sell your toothpaste. You're selling your band and your record. Okay. How blatant can that be? Let's do it.

So, anyway, this guy, Philip Solomon calls us into his office and made us an offer we couldn't refuse. It was so bad, we refused it. We walked out of his office. It was like to be on salary to him. He'd send us into our next record, be a bigger hit, because whatever Pirate Radio played, kids would hear it and then they would really go on the BBC 1 and 2 and say, "Play this song by the Canadian band," and then they would have to play it. Then you got play and then you got sales.

It became a very worthwhile thing to do to comply. So, there we were in England. We walk out of his office; we refuse his offer which is a salary per week. No tour income, no record income. Just be on salary to me for five years, and I'll make you the next Beatles. So, we walked out of his office.

We're in England with no money. We decided to pool our money, because we had brought our own money. I brought my money to buy Cliff Richard and the Shadows records, you know, which you couldn't get in Canada. All the EP's. EP's were great. We stayed there for 2 weeks and met, at that time Reggie Dwight, who became Elton.

Rick:Yeah, Elton John.

Randy: The guy who became Cat Stevens, his name was George O' something. [Ed: Steve Georgiou] We met all these guys. They were just hanging out, trying to make it in the music business. The Who only had "Happy Jack" and "My Generation". We actually went and saw The Who at the Marquis Club and asked them to stop using the name "The Who" because it was confusing with us "The Guess Who". [Laughs]

It was quite funny. So we had a wonderful time with it. We went to see Tony Hiller there, who ran Mills Music which published "Shakin' All Over". He was a publisher, the guy who wrote with Johnny Kitt, whose real name was Ted Heath. We went to see him and said "We're the guys who did 'Shakin' All Over'." He says, "Thank you very much. The widow and the kids are very happy. You've made them a lot of money. What are you doing in London?" We told him, "Well, we met Philip Solomon. It was such a bad deal. He's such a crook. We walked out of his office."

He said, "Do you guys want to play a demo at Mills Music? I need a band to play some song demos. I'll tell you what. I've got two great songwriters who have written songs they need demoed. You can bring a couple of your songs. We'll do the four songs. I'll give you the masters. If you get them released in Canada, it's good for my songwriters. I'll even pay you 30 bucks each as my session musicians." Wow.

Rick: Good deal [Laughs]

Randy: His name was Tony Hiller. He took us in. We didn't have any original material, but Neil Young had given us an acetate. So, we said "We'll record Neil's song, 'Flying on the Ground is Wrong," and recorded two of this guy's songs, came back to Canada, we had hits.

When we came back to Canada, we were actually 20 or 30 grand in the hole, which in 1967 was huge money. We got a television show. A guy called who was a producer of the show and said "We're gonna have a show with a host band, and I want you to play Top 40 music," This is on CBC, so it's kind of like BBC. "It's gonna be on every day of the week. We're getting a band in Halifax. You'll be the host band. We're gonna have all the other Halifax singers and the band will back them up," because they couldn't afford to pay scale to every single band. They were gonna have it from Ottawa. They were gonna have events on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays in Toronto. Thursday will be Winnipeg, where we were. Friday will be from Vancouver.

Rick: Just going across the country.

Randy: That show went on for two years. And every week some little kid in Saskatoon or Calgary or Vancouver could see us, The Guess Who, from Winnipeg, doing "Hey Jude", doing "Along Comes Mary", doing Hit Parade stuff. And we really learned, because you had to sound like the records.

We learned to copy the records. Songs that were done on 8-track recordings in L.A. and London and wherever else they were done. It was an incredible time. Out of that we got popular.

Jack Richardson, the producer in Toronto, heard us and said, "I want you to play a Coca-Cola album." Back then it was a big deal to do a Coca-Cola commercial. "Things go better with Coca-Cola" [Randy sings the jingle]. Ray Charles did it, everybody at that time did it, we wanted to do a commercial or a jingle. And he said, "We don't want you to do a jingle. We want you to do a whole album." "Well, what do you mean?" He went on with, "Will you write and do a whole album?" "We'll get another band. You're the top 2 bands in Canada; you and the Staccatos. You'll do one side of an album and they'll do the other side, and the only way you can get the album is with 10 Coke caps and a dollar."

They wanted to sell this new thing to Coke. So, the album came out, it went platinum, gold in Canada. It sold like 80,000 copies. But, it couldn't get certified because it wasn't sold through the stores. But, that got us launched. It got Cummings and I writing original songs. Jack Richardson who produced that said, "I wanna produce an album. Will you write some more songs?" We wrote "These Eyes". He took us to New York. Phil Ramone is the mixer and engineer. He did it in a real studio, A&R. Brilliant. We have a hit. Time for a rib. [Randy reaches for his plate of ribs and laughs]

Rick: Phil Ramone wrote a book last year...

Randy: Did he?

Rick: Any chance...I know you guys toured, you and Burton Cummings toured in 2006. Are you gonna tour again...

Randy: We're touring right now. I just finished with him in Kansas City. We played Riverside in Chattanooga and there were like 140,000 people.

Rick: Oh, I hadn't seen that.

Randy: We thought we were added to the bill with ZZ Top, Black Crowes, with Chris Baxter. We thought that we were headliners. People went nuts. We couldn't believe it. We were amazed. They knew who we were. They knew the name Bachman-Cummings; they knew what it was.

So we're touring. I'm joining up with him next week. We're playing L.A. and San Diego. It was just an in-between thing I got to play July the 4th for a Classic Rock Fest in New Jersey this Friday. I said, "Man, I'm not going all the way there for one gig." He said, "Okay you'll play the Birchmere. It's great. It's a famous place. And I'll get you B.B. Kings."

So, we did B.B. King's last night and it was just great.

Rick: Have you ever played here before?

Randy: No.

Rick: Great sound system. When you were first starting out, Canadian bands weren't really much a part of the rock scene. I mean, there was Neil Young, Joni Mitchell kind of doing their thing. But, I don't recall any top groups coming out of Canada, offhand. Was that a challenge given the emphasis on the British Invasion back in the '60s? Maybe in the '70s, but mostly in the '60s. Being Canadian, were people going, "What are you guys doing?"

Randy: It was weird. Nobody heard of Canadians or Canadian music. But, everywhere we went, they loved us, 'cause we weren't "Yanks". Literally, the '60s and ''70s, everybody did not like America. The soldiers were there. Every guy in England hated the "Yanks," because they came and stole your women. The servicemen, I mean, literally were hated everywhere.

There were some other Canadian guys, I mean, busting it. Like Paul Anka did an incredible job, this young kid, you know, in Ottawa, writes these songs, takes his music, goes to New York and records "Diana" and begins writing for Buddy Holly. I mean, that kind of stuff. That was just a single guy. But, I think we were the first band that actually played and sang like, you know, whatever, the Beatles, you know, singing and playing your instruments, instead of having a front singer like Rick Nelson or Elvis.

Rick: Yeah. The Guess Who were more pop than anything, I suppose. The BTO sound was like big, truckin' rock music.

Randy: Yeah.

Rick: But, you had that "Blue Collar" sound. And that was an early, kind of a funk/jazz/fusion song.

Randy: That was my Lenny Breau stuff. Pretty much Lenny Breau showing me Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow, and me putting it through my own Echoplex, whatever, an echo machine, and buzz or distortion unit.

But, pretty much just jazz licks I learned from him that I kind of song first. I've learned 20 licks from Lenny Breau. I'll sing half of this one, half of that one, I'll piece it together. It will be the solo of "Blue Collar". And the ending, let's do a double-time thing and speed it up. It was all done without much thought, just trying to have fun and do what I like best, which is like rock 'n' roll with a little bit of jazz. Too many guys at that time, their fallback was blues. Instead of normally falling back to blues with BTO I never did any ballads, nothing.

We were like a truck in your face. And we were like big, husky fat guys with beards. [Laughs] We're the guys next door whose mother wasn't home. We took out the garbage. We mowed the lawn, that kind of thing. We'd deliver the papers. It was like the perfect thing. We couldn't dress like the other skinny guys who were wearing girl's leotards and things like that. [Rick Laughs]

We wore jeans and flannel shirts, just like guy's who were on the football team. We were kind of blue collar, lumberjack rock and later it was like bikers and truckers loved us because, what do big guys write about? It's not about gettin' chicks. It's rollin' down the highway with a bunch of guys on motorbikes or in trucks. You know what I mean? [Both Laughing] Drinking beer and chopping trees and things like that. It was kind of a good image. They kind of put it on us. Yeah, this fits. I don't mind being this, because this is what I am.

Rick: We were talking about Creedence being kind of the same way.

Randy: Same with Neil Young.

Rick: Yeah, Neil Young, as well.

Randy: I remember doing a gig with Rory Gallagher. He showed up in a golf shirt and nice slacks. Before he went out to play, he grabbed his ripped jeans, his faded flannel shirt and put on old shoes, so he would look like a rock 'n' roll street guy. Gave him more cred.

Rick: Rory Gallagher?

Randy: Yeah, the Irish guy.

Rick: Yeah, yeah.

Randy: After he put on like his golf shirt and his pants like this, you know, dress pants and left as a normal guy.

Rick: That's funny. He branded himself.

Randy: Yeah.

Rick: Our readers are passionate about guitars and I understand that you, well, it sounds like you may have gotten rid of a lot of it, but you have a pretty massive guitar collection. How about telling us about it and about some of your most prized possessions?

Randy: The orange 6120 I've had, which I played on "Shakin' All Over" and on "Takin' Care of Business". I have mowed lawns, babysat, washed cars, delivered papers to save that $400. This was my big buy, up from my little black Silvertone. Because, it was like doing Eddy and Chet Atkins and Lenny Breau and had a great twangy sound and was beautiful. Instead of this slab of masonite or whatever, the Danelectros, which I love. It It stood up for like 45 or 50 years. Nothing ever happened. I never did anything to it. I'd even leave on the old strings. That Gretsch got stolen after a BTO session. I think it was our 4th or 5th album. Stolen right from the Holiday Inn.

I'm on a quest to get that guitar back. I was in Toronto. I went to the Mounties, the Provincial Police, you know, PP. Had a description, had insurance on the guitar, I had the serial number and everything. Called everybody to tell everyone. Whoever brings this in, whatever junkie that stole this and brings it in to get high that night, I'll double your money. If you give him $200, I'll give you $400, or if you give him 4, I'll give you 8. I've got to get this back. It's my right arm. This is what I wrote on. This is what I learned on. This is what I played on. This is my hit guitar.

Never got it. But, every one of these guys who called and said, "We've got a so-and-so Gretsch, we don't want it. It's in bad shape. The bridge falls off." "Well, what do you want?" "We gave the guy a buck and a half, we want to make 50, so give us $200." Okay. Got it. I got 1, then I got 2. I had 6. I had 12. My mid-life crisis came. I ended up with 100's. Years go by. I get a call from a good friend of Fred Gretsch. He calls and says, "I hear you have like 300 or 200 Gretsches," I say, "Yeah." "Can I bring somebody to see your collection?" "Sure, who is it?" "Fred Gretsch." Oh. He comes to my house, he looks and he says, "Wow! I just got the rights back to make Gretsch guitars."

Rick:Yeah, not that long ago.

Randy: Fred says, "We have no templates. We have nothing. Everything was burned in the factory. Can we borrow your collection, one or two at a time, inspect them, calibrate...caliper them, measure and make them?" and I said, "Sure, I'll loan you a couple at a time. You've got to insure them, and I want to get every first prototype."

Rick: Oh, good deal.

Randy: And that will prove it if it looks like the right one. So, some of them came, engineered with the switches close to the edge, it should be an inch down. I get to keep...it's not a bad one.It's just a different one. I get to keep that, so you move the switches down. The cat's eyes were the wrong shaped cat's eyes. They were tilted the wrong way, because the prototypes are made in China or Japan.

I end up with all these prototypes and then guys kept calling me. I became the guy to call. I would get so many calls saying, "We want to buy a Gretsch. It's a so-and-so. What's it gonna look like?" "Just a minute." I'd run down to my room. I had a room like this in the basement. I'd say, "Well, starting at the top, it's gonna have thumbnail tuners or pearl Grovers tuners, it's gonna have a horseshoe headstock or steer headstock, it's gotta have a zero fret, it's gotta have this kind of markers. It's got to have this, this, this, this." "Okay, thank you. Do I owe you anything?" and I said, "No, just say hi to Gretsch," and inevitably he'd send me something. I became the guy to call as a reference thing, because I had them all.

A lot of them weren't in catalogs or books or anything. Fred Gretsch copied one by the time the new Gretsch line came out. Once I got every model in every color, I ran out of Gretsches to get and you can't play them all. I ended up with like 350 or 360 of them. I ended up thinking, "Well, I'll have a museum. I'll trace the lineage of the guitar from 1928," the first electric I got, which is just magnets stuck through the hole. Six holes drilled in the guitar, magnets stuck through, copper wire that goes to the edge that has a screw-on jack, not even a plug-in jack. That was the first Electromatix. It had six on a side, but on one side, the thing was that long , so they'd all be six on the side. Long, long stems, turn the one up here to high E and they got shorter on the back. I had sets. I had a Spanish one and a lap one and a little amp with two plug-ins, like Santo and Johnny, maybe from their fathers, because it was like late '20s, early '30s. I had a blonde set of that and then a birch set of those. Some guy called and said, "Nobody wants these. They're like 100 bucks, 150 dollars, take all 3."

So, I ended up just getting them. On the road you always get a per diem, and I never drank or smoked. I'd always eat the crew meal. I'd save 10 bucks a day, 20 bucks a day, per diem on 50 bucks a day. You go on tour for four months, you get thousands of dollars. Guys would come to the gigs backstage; here's a '59 Les Paul, here's a Gretsch. I'd say, "Well, come on it, here's 200 bucks. You know? So, not only did I end up with a lot of Gretsches, I got incredible Gibsons and Fenders, I got a '54 Strat.

Rick: Wow.

Randy: Same with Teles. '52 Tele, '54 Tele, a '56. I didn't want to get every year. I thought they were kind of the same. But, maybe they changed every couple of years. And they basically were really good deals. I never paid a lot for any of these.

Rick: Were you guys into the Les Paul sound?

Randy: Ooh. I just had the '59 Les Paul Standard with the factory Bigsby, the one I played on "American Woman". Had it valued by Andy Babiuk, because he drew up the Beatles Gear, he's doing Stones Gear. He's the evaluator for Christie's and for the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Came to my house. He was the evaluator of the Gretsch collection, actually. For Gretsch, for myself, so we could get a fair value, and he thought the guitar was worth about $950,000, being my guitar, being the "American Woman" sound, being how heavy it was and that it was in original condition and everything.

Rick: Provenance and everything.

Randy: Yeah. Serial number's nine spaces, you know, three, one, nine. It's never been in a book. It's so heavy I couldn't play it. I played it on "American Woman", and I've only played it sitting down in the studio. I couldn't play it on stage anymore.

Rick: An eight-pounder?

Randy: Oh, no. It's like 14 pounds.

Rick: 14 pounds! That's a heavy piece of mahogany.

Randy: Heavy. Mahogany. Factory Bigsby, even though it's aluminum, that adds a pound and a half. It's something, you know what I mean? It's just heavy.

Rick: Bad for your shoulder.

Randy: I just had the rotator cuff repaired and stopped playing for six months. This is my first time playing.

Rick: Really? Some guitars will do that.

Randy: Oh, yeah. And I gotta get this next shoulder done.

Rick: So, you had surgery and not just therapy?

Randy: Mmmhmmm. Of the three rotator cuff tendons, you've got up, down, forward and back. It's like adjusted. Three were shredded. I had one tendon, like this one right here. It was always sore, because it was doing all the work.

Anything I'd lift. I'd go to the audience, I'd get this shot of pain up my arm. They went in there and said, "There's no way," so they ended up cutting. Two of my bicep's tendons are shredded, Three rotator cuffs. So, from November to about February, my arm was velcroed to me with a little spacer in there, and all I could do was squeeze a ball for exercise.

Rick: That's frustrating for a guitar player.

Randy: But, now they've come back. I'm exercising it every day now, since last November. I realized for the last 10 years I've been compensating with my playing. I play better than ever now, because this one tendon was doing everything. When you move your fingers like this, you can feel this tendon moving. You also feel one moving there. I didn't have the other ones moving. This one was doing everything. It made me a lot better.

Rick: What guitars did you bring with you here on the road? Just the Les Paul?

Randy: A wonderful thing happened to me three years ago. I was playing Molson's big outdoor amphitheater on the lake in Toronto. 26,000 people, a sellout. We're on a tour bus driving, just like today. It's about five days before the gig. Phone rings on the tour bus. The manager hands me the thing. "Hi, this is Tina." "I don't know anybody named Tina." "I'm the new Gibson girl in Toronto." "There's a Gibson girl in Toronto?" "Yeah. I'm the new artist's rep. You must remember me. I worked with Sony Records at MCA." "Oh, yeah, I remember you." "Why aren't you playing your Les Paul?" "Because, Tina, it wrecked my back." I've way slowed down on it. I only play solos on it when I'm recording, sitting down. "What if I got you a light Les Paul?" "There's no such thing, Tina." "What if I got you one that was under 8 pounds?" "What do you mean?" "What if I got you a '57 Gold Top?" like Steve Lukather has got and Dicky Betts's got? It's 7.8 pounds." "I'll try it."

So, I am now getting two Gibson Les Pauls. I'm calling her every day. "Well, it's stuck in customs. It's stuck in customs." I end up at the sound check. There's an opening act and you've got to do the sound check and they open the doors at 6. It's a beautiful summer day. People are sitting all on the hills, having picnics, and there's people that are actually closer up. Five minutes to 5:00, end of sound check, my phone rings. It's vibrating on stage and it goes through the amps.

I look back, it's her. She's walking, she's waving. She holds up the Gold Top out of the case. The band is now putting down their instruments. It's time to eat, it's the end of sound check. She hands me this guitar. I plug it in and just reach down and every knob is where it should be, 'cause this is one I learned to play on, like this one I got in the late 60's. I'm kickin' my sound and there's the "American Woman" sound, which I have not been able to get out of any other guitar except my '59. I've been on tour with Burton Cummings at that point and the Guess Who for like 5 years, since 2000. Burton comes up to me and says, "Where has that guitar been for the last 5 years?"

I use it now, and I left the strings on she had, which are real slinky strings. I like the strings with real heavy bottoms. I even like pretty heavy tops, because you get more sustain and for longer. I used it that night and I've been using it ever since and I said, "Here's my problem, Tina. One of these is great, but it ain't that great because if I bust a string and I'm singing. I'm stuck at the mic. I can't redo my amp. I can't do anything, I've gotta have the same sound.

I can't have my sound go from this fat in the middle to that thin, and if I want it that thin, if it's a solo or if it's not a pretty Strat, that's what I'm going to be doing, then I needed another Strat to replace that thing. So, she got me another one. So, I have these two Gold Tops that weigh under eight pounds each and they just sound absolutely, incredibly sweet. Fantastic.

But, I have one set of gear that stays with Burton Cummings; we have the Bachman Cummings set that we play. I'm doing my BTO stuff, he's doing the Guess Who. We tour as Bachman-Cummings. That's where I just came from, the Chattanooga trip. I have my own, with my own band, so I got two '59 reissues, which is just like my '59 "American Woman" one, like the same features, but under eight pounds. They sound quite different than most Gold Tops. Darker, more "American Woman" sound on them. Last week, I got the most phenomenal guitar. Johnny A, have you heard of Johnny A?

Rick: I just saw him at Gruhn's in Nashville.

Randy: I got a guitar. I got a black one. Holy cow!

Rick: Beautiful Gibson.

Randy: It's four pounds. It's a double-cut. It's black. I love black guitars, and the binding! And I've got '59 Les Pauls, the black one that used to be Keith Richards' and it's got the same kind of binding, but it's got '59 humbuckers and they don't feed back. It's got this funny carving inside that comes up and supports the bridge and it's a Stratocaster neck on it. Did you know that?

Rick: No.

Randy: It's the first Gibson with a Fender scale. It's a 25 and whatever Stratocaster scale. So, when you play your chords on a Les Paul, they're somewhat truncated. If you play the same chord on a Strat, it's somewhat elongated, right?

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: You play it on the Johnny A, it rings. So, having that Fender scale, which may be a slight little difference on each little fret. I don't know if it's a slight spacing difference. I'm not really into all that technical stuff. I just know that it's drop-dead gorgeous. It plays fantastically and it's like getting a Paul Reed Smith in a way that's kind of a hybrid of a Les Paul and a Strat, except the Paul Reed Smith doesn't weigh as much as the Les Paul, so there's no point. I couldn't play it.

This thing, being under four pounds, so I called Johnny and I said "Love this guitar," and surprisingly enough he came to me last Friday. I had to shoot a photo session last Friday. It was for Air Canada En Route magazine, which is the magazine that's in the pouch in front of you on the airplane. One and a half million people read that. It's gonna be in November and they're doing a whole feature on me, and I said, "Johnny, your guitar came to my office. It's in this thing here that's gonna be read by one and a half million people and I'm doing David Letterman on the 24th of July. I'm going back there. I'm going to take it and play it there. Can you give me one with a Bigsby?" He said, "I'll try." He called me yesterday and said, "We're so back-ordered from Summer NAMM. Everyone is loving this guitar. Every guy who plays a Strat and a Les Paul, this is like putting them together and it weighs, what, one-third of what a PRS weighs." I can't believe the tone. You know what? It's as light as an acoustic.

You've pick it up and you don't have a bad shoulder. Every ounce is really important and you're playing like 3 hours? 14 pounds on you or 4 pounds?

Rick: Yeah, no-brainer there.

Randy: Okay, okay.

Rick: I see you've got a coast-to-coast radio show called Vinyl Tap. How did that get started and what's the gist of the format?

Randy: Well, you'll see it tonight. People not only love these songs. I've been lucky to write about a dozen and a half songs that people love from the Guess Who and BTO. They wanted to know how I wrote them and most DJ's would say to me, "How'd you write 'American Woman'? How'd you write 'Let it Ride'? How'd you write 'Takin' Care of Business'?" and I'd tell them the one story.

I had a request to play for the Cancer Society, a big country club dinner in Vancouver with tuxedos, dresses, auctioning off Harleys and Porsches. This is real high-end, big money. All the money goes to the Cancer Society. They ask who they want to entertain. They vote for me.

She says, "I don't want you to come and blow the cutlery off the table. Can you play your songs acoustically?" Well, I can, but you know, "Rollin' Down the Highway."

She says, "Well, can you talk? Can you tell the stories?" and I said, "Yeah." I've told every DJ, every story, every song, but I've never just done it as one evening before. I went down and did it. It was a huge success. Everybody came up to me and said, "If you'd record that, we'd buy like 10 copies," "Well, why would you buy 10?" "I'd send it to my brother who's in Australia, I'd send it to my...They all knew these songs, but, they'd hear how you wrote them. The songs are even better now, because we know why you wrote them."

So, a light goes on in my head. Other guys are calling me with their six-camera shoot budget saying, "We want to shoot something on you," for Canadian TV. I just thought of this thing, "Every Song Tells a Story", I'll play from "These Eyes" right through "American Woman" to "Takin' Care of Business". I'll tell the story. I have these stories. But, I don't want to script it. I just want to tell it how I feel it. They come and film it. It's become a DVD and a CD that's selling everywhere. Sometimes I'll play a theater, kinda like this, or a sit-down, just seat by seat by seat, and I tell the stories behind the songs and we sit basically on stools. It's a real casual, and I tell the stories and play the songs acoustically.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine is retiring from CBC radio. He had a nightly show called Finkleman's 45s, Danny Finkleman. He'd play old 45's from the '50s and rant and rave about the government and politics and all that. I hear he's retiring. I think, how tough is it to play records for two hours? Why would a guy retire? It's the greatest job, being a DJ, right? It's better than being a musician. You don't have to go on the road. You just go into a radio station and play records. At the same time, as Burton Cummings and I get inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame, and I meet the radio crew, and they work with Danny Finkelman.

I said, "I want Danny's job. Anybody can play records, and I've got my own record collection. What do you think if I use my own records?" "What would you do besides play records?" "Well, I would tell my stories," of Little Richard and Elvis and Brian Wilson and Ringo Starr and all these things. I've met every band and every songwriter and every producer and I know this all from years and years and years on the road. They say, "Okay. We'll give you a summer show for 10 weeks and see how it goes." So I get it for 10 weeks. I do it all summer long. CBC has a strike. Nobody can do any new programs, so they run my 10 shows over again because they were previously done before the strike. In the summer, not a lot of people are listening. They're all in the cabins and boats and on the lakes. But, they all come back to school in September, back to work and they get into this groove. And my shows are repeating and the ratings go up and the book comes out in the summer and I'm the talk of the ratings at CBC. So, they call me after the strike's over and say, "Will you do it for a whole year?" Well that was 3 years ago.

Now they just renewed us for another two years which is year four and year five 5. My wife, Denise, helps me with the show. We get so many E-mails and letters from people! And every show has a theme, but within the theme, there's things that I know about, my own knowledge that...you don't know my story of Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson. That's me when I was on tour. And the Grass Roots and Chuck Berry and virtually every band are guys that I've worked with. Anyway, so that's what Randy's Vinyl Tap is.

It's on every Saturday night. CBC Radio and Sirius Satellite 137 and get on the Internet. CBC.ca radio and find Randy's Vinyl Tap and for example, you'll love the summer shows. The first show, I'm gonna explain the Telecaster. Where it came from, how he did it, and all the sounds from Buck Owens through Dwight Yoakam, whatever. Next one, Stratocaster. Next one, Gibson.

Rick: You're gonna do the songs?

Randy: Two hour show. Yeah. Old Gibson, going from Tal Farlow to Barney Kessel to Chuck Berry, a big-bodied Gibson, then to the Les Paul, then all the other Les Pauls, then the next one, Gretsch and Rickenbacker and the next show, the ones I left out. The first guitars that all these guys who played Strats and Teles had, the Harmonies, the Kay's, the Stellas. We've still got them. We still play them. We threw them in the back of the car. They've lasted 40 years. They stay in tune. Nothing happens. No truss rods on old Stellas or Kay's, they just are what they are. These are the summer reruns that people vote for all year long.

Rick: Interesting stuff for our readers.

Randy: I do like 30 shows a year and then, in the summer, they get to vote for the 10 that run between Canada Day and September the 1st long weekend. Then I start the new season.

Rick: So, that is an Internet radio station?

Randy: It's on CBC.ca radio.

Rick: Okay. Cool.

Randy: Or Sirius Satellite 137.

Rick:Okay, good. We'll get that. When you were on The Simpsons, did you get pissed off at Homer when he yelled out, "Get to the 'Takin' Care of Business' part!"? What was he like to work with? Any different than the character he plays?

Randy: Amazing. He looks like you! It's a guy in a t-shirt and a baseball hat and out of his mouth comes this voice. We're at a great big, long table like this and sitting across the table is Yeardley Smith, who's late. She's coming, her hair's in curlers, she's wearing a housecoat and slippers. She lives a block and a half away. But, out of her comes Marge Simpson, not Marge Simpson, the sisters. And then the other girl who was Rhoda's sister on the Rhoda show.

Rick: Mary Tyler Moore, Julie Kavner.

Randy: She is Marge Simpson.

Rick: The one with the husky voice.

Randy: Mmmhmm. And it's so weird to see them sitting like this in these clothes and out of their mouths come this voice of this character you love, that's almost a human character to you. You sympathize with them in their roles, because he's the Archie Bunker kinda thing, you understand, like the little girl's like the sweet little girl kinda thing, you know. It was quite a thrill to be on the show.

I agree with Homer Simpson, though, because when I go to a show, besides being a guitar player, musician, songwriter, I'm also a fan. When I go to a show, and I don't care if it's Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen or anybody else, I don't want to hear the song they wrote yesterday, even though they love it to death. I'm sorry. I paid my 80 or 100 or 200 bucks to hear "Heart of Gold", "Old Man", "Down by the River", "Cinnamon Girl", "Hotel California", all that. You want to hear the hits. So, when they explained the scenario for this, I said, "This is absolutely perfect." They told me my lines, where I go, "We're gonna play all the hits you wanna hear, but first, something new!" and then Homer starts yelling, "We want 'Takin' Care of Business,' right after workin' overtime" and all that stuff. This was like really a true scenario for me, so I just thought it was great.

Rick: Okay, one last question. We promise we won't tell your wife [Randy's wife, Denise, laughs in the background], but what's the groupie scene like these days for elder statesmen rockers?

Randy: That's great. [Laughs]

Denise: You know what? I can answer that question. We were at a show where I met a woman in the elevator and she was about 35 and she said to me, "I saw you at the show. How much would it take for you to take me to Randy's room?" [Laughs] I said, "Well, I don't think he'd be interested."

Randy: When was this? (Laughter]

Denise: And I said, "I hate to tell you, but Randy's married," and she says, "Oh! That's really too bad." [Randy Laughing] so it was, "Sorry, but I'm not taking you to his room." So, there is a scene there.

Rick: That's funny.

Denise: He gets women in the sign-up line who say, "Here, sign my chest!"

Rick: Oh, really? That's wild.

Randy: Nothing's really changed.

Rick: Really? Okay, that's it. Have a great show and thank you very much. Appreciate it. Nice meeting you.

Randy: Thank you very much.

Rick: I'd shake your hand, but you're full of hot sauce or something there.

Randy: Yeah, I gotta eat this and go out to my bus. When you hear these guitars tonight, they just sing. [Randy points to his Gold Top] They're just, try picking that up, see how light it is.

Rick: My '52 is 7 and 1/2 pounds.

Randy: Is it?

Rick: Oh, yeah. This might be lighter. [Playing] Yeah, that's light.

Randy: In its own way, it's as simple as a Tele. Do you know what I mean?

Rick: Yeah.

Randy: I mean, just the pickups and the wood in the right place, the right harmonics and great sound. Just a slab.

Rick: Yeah, they got it right back in the '50s. My '52, apparently when they made them, they used good arch top wood. So, it's got tiger stripes. Cool old guitar. Yeah, we were listening to you do "No Time," at the opening. Man, it sounded perfect, just perfect.

Randy: Well, thank you. Things have changed much in the business. You can't fly with your amps anymore. You've got to use Backline, so pretty much you've got to do a sound check to see that the amp you got isn't blown. If the speaker and the cone aren't there, what are you gonna do? Just take your pedal board. Airlines won't take anything over 50 pounds anymore.

Related Links
Randy Bachman
Birchmere
Michael G. Stewart Imaging Solutions

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