Burton Cummings in 2024
Burton Cummings is in a great mood. As well he should be. November 15, 2024, sees the release of A Few Good Moments, his first studio album since 2008. It comes as the Guess Who lead vocalist and co-songwriter of such classics as “American Woman” and “These Eyes” is set to begin performances in 2025 of his “60th Anniversary Hits Tour.” The concerts with his band mark his first U.S. run since 2020. (Tickets are available here.) And if that weren’t enough, the legend—one of rock’s best male vocalists—now has the rights to the band’s name back, in a settlement of a lawsuit that he and fellow Guess Who star Randy Bachman reached in September, with whom Cummings describes as the “fake Guess Who.”
The U.S. edition of the tour of more than two dozen U.S. cities begins shortly after the New Year with “my rocking band,” he tells Best Classic Bands proudly in a mid-November phone interview from his home in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, adding that the response from the audience to several initial shows this fall has been “phenomenal.”
Burton Cummings (Photo: Luciano Bilotti; used with permission)
Thanks in no small part to Cummings’ signature vocals, along with his songwriting and keyboard prowess, the Guess Who earned six Top 10 singles within a two-year period from 1968-1970. Those included the ballads “These Eyes” and “Laughing,” both written by Cummings and Bachman.
“These Eyes,” in particular, has found a popular home on the big screen. Cummings is asked what he thinks of the song’s prominent use in the laugh-out-loud scene in 2007’s coming-of-age comedy, Superbad? “Absolutely hilarious,” he says. “They let [Michael Cera] sing half the bridge. It really worked.”
To keep the momentum, “RCA wanted us to keep going with ballads,” he says of the first two hits from that era, “but they were very happy when ‘No Time’ hit.”
The latter, also written by the duo, features a rocking Bachman solo paired with Cummings’ stunning vocal. He was just 21 years old.
Those were followed by their biggest hit, 1970’s “American Woman.” Cummings denies that the rock classic was political. “No,” he says. “We had toured America on the strength of ‘These Eyes’ and I had seen that the girls there wanted to grow up faster. When we came back to Canada, the girls at home seemed a little less ‘frantic.’ I initially wrote, ‘Canadian woman, I prefer you,’ and I revised the lyrics.”
Watch the Guess Who perform “American Woman” on The Midnight Special in 1974
He dispels the long-held rumor that First Lady Pat Nixon insisted that the group not play the song when they performed at the White House in 1970 as the Vietnam War was escalating. “That’s BS,” he says, and one can almost hear the eye roll over the phone from that familiar question. “Our manager cooked that story up. Rolling Stone and Creem dumped on us when they heard that. That was a bad move on his part.”
The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks. “We were on the road eight or nine months those years, selling out arenas,” he recalls with a justifiable sense of pride.
[While discussing the Guess Who’s hits, Cummings made sure to mention 1970’s “Hand Me Down World,” written by Kurt Winter while serving as the band’s lead guitarist. “Those lyrics have stood up so well,” he says, singing softly, “Anybody here see the sky weeping tears for the ocean.” He adds, “It’s on my [concert] setlist.”
Cummings will turn 77 on December 31 but his voice sounds remarkably strong on the new album, A Few Good Moments. “I’ve watched the industry change drastically over the past 10 or 12 years,” he says about the difference in releasing singles in advance of an album. After assembling enough tracks—some older, some brand new—”I was finally ready to put out a [new album]. I thought, I don’t want to embarrass myself in a few years.” He was appreciative when complimented about the dynamic title track.
He shares a happy coincidence about his choice of covering “Shape I’m In,” a song originally recorded by the blues-rock supergroup Arc Angels in 1992. Cummings, a student of music, notes that he enjoyed the song when it was first released but only recently discovered that one of its writers, Marc Benno, was a musician he admired when the latter had teamed with Leon Russell in a band called Asylum Choir during the Guess Who’s heyday. “I love that it’s gone full circle,” he says.
“Next year is going to be very busy for me,” he says of the upcoming tour. “I’m taking my vitamins!,” he adds, laughing. This Manhattan-based writer notes that there’s no NYC date scheduled. “Offers are flying in now that promoters from all over know that the ‘fake Guess Who’ are gone. I’m no stranger to New York City,” he assures me. “We recorded so many of our albums there [at the former RCA Studios in midtown.]” As if to prove it, he rattled off the address of the label’s former headquarters.
A Few Good Moments is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
Related: Cummings is the reason, sort of, why Best Classic Bands was started
Tickets to see Cummings and his rocking band are available here. An extensive Bachman Cummings collection is available here.
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