I'm not big on greatest hits types of records, but The Guess Who is the kind of band that's just perfect for these types of records. Some of their album cuts are atrocious, but their hit singles were fantastic, at a time when you had to be fantastic to get a hit record. In 1969 and 1970 they were a hit making machine, and almost every song on this album comes from those records. One of the best things about the album is that it just gets right into American Woman, because there's no way anyone in retrospect thinks it was cool for Burton Cummings to actually spell A-M-E-R-I...you get the idea. If it were Utah Woman it wouldn't have been so bad, but who wants to listen to a spelling bee? But this record just cuts right into it.
And that always reminds me of a friend I used to have. He passed away a few years ago in a pretty sad and lonely death, but I don't think anyone was surprised with the amount of alcohol this guy needed just to get up in the morning. It's too bad because there was a time when this guy had it all. Anyway, we used to drive around in his car instead of going to work or school way back when, and this was one of his favorite tapes. He could listen to it three times a day, and once in awhile I'd actually let him. I think he played it every time they had a party during the time he was married, and I was actually kind of surprised they didn't play it at his funeral. I asked his sister about it and she said it was just a low key affair, but she couldn't believe I remembered how much he liked this record.
And luckily for me, it really brings back good memories of my friend. I can still hear him singing. "Unh!" in American Woman and totally acting like an asshole and laughing like a maniac during the end ofLaughing. Or shouting "I think I missed it!" in Hand Me Down World. He had his own lines for half of the songs, but he didn't mess it up all the time. Sometimes he'd just stay quiet and actually listen to this one, and that was cool because he obviously liked it so much. I don't know if I'd have ever really liked this album as much as I do know if he hadn't just played it so often. I always liked Bachman Turner Overdrive more, but then I was just a little younger and they were just a little heavier, and besides, Randy Bachman left these guys and he was my favorite thing about them, anyway.
The whole first side of this album as singles probably sold like fifteen million records. The second side gets a little bogged down by Bus Rider and Do You Miss Me Darlin' (which might not have even been a single so far as I know), but it's still got Share the Land on it, and that's a pretty monster hit, so there's still plenty of reasons to flip the record over. I think at the time Anne Murray was Canada's biggest musical export, so it was nice to see that there were some guys with guitars up there that could write a catchy song and not chase the kids away in droves. Even though it sounds like the end of the road for the band (to me) during Hang on to Your Life, at least it was a good 70's rocker of a song that didn't sound like it was trying too hard, but it gets kinda corny. I'll probably never upgrade this old record for a quieter pressing because the pops and clicks don't bother me and I think they remind me it's mine.
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