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The electric guitar is a six--stringed (occasionally 12-stringed) instrument about a yard long and weighing in at perhaps 20 to 25 pounds. Anyone built on the slight side of Paul Bunyon is dwarfed by the average guitar. The guitarist, in large part, sweats and grimaces because it just isn't easy swinging that instrument around.
Randy Bachman doesn't sweat or grimace. That's probably the only way most people ever realize exactly how big he is. In fact, Bachman is built like a bear and, when he straps on that axe, it might as well be a balsa-wood toy.
Randy has never been the kind of musician to go through comic theatrics and contortions on stage. He's a musician and the music comes first. The great rock-and-roll riffs are dragged out without the slightest apparent effort. Sounds that other guitarists would bend double to create spring effortlessly from the Bachman amplifier.
In one sense, this single -minded attitude to taking care of the music business has paid off marvelously; Randy Bachman is the only musician around who has been a key member of two of the world's most successful bands.
But, at the same time, because Randy has made his work look so easy, many music fans have overlooked his true talent. Even Bachman Turner Overdrive, the most successful rock band of 1975 throughout the world, was never as exciting visually as aurally. Too many music fans put Bachman down with no reason.
How good is Randy? You can get a good idea of Randy's abilities from an incident that took place late last spring. Randy was in Toronto to record with B.T.O.- (At the time, no one except, perhaps, Randy, realized that this would be his last recording session with B.T.O.) One night, he came back to his hotel room to discover something missing - his valuable Gretsch guitar.
Now guitars are very personal things. Randy's Gretsch was made 20 years ago and they just don't make guitars like that anymore. Even if you could find one - which is doubtful -the cost would be thousands of dollars.
Randy was fit to be tied. He and the Gretsch had travelled the world together. He offered rewards. He called the police. But the guitar never did turn up. And then Chet Atkins called.
Atkins, a guitarist now in his late 50's, is a legend in the music world. He didn't invent the electric guitar but he did develop the technique used by most guitarists in North America today. In addition, Atkins created what is known as the "Nashville Sound". As it turned out, Chet had an extra Gretsch on hand and he was willing to give it to Randy - free.
"I couldn't believe this was happening to me," a happy Randy told TG. I grew up worshiping this man and now he says that he likes my work, too. I can't imagine a greater compliment."
So, if you judge a guitarist on the basis of how many kneebends he can do while performing, you won't get the true picture of Bachman.
It's hard to imagine a less likely candidate for rock-and-roll stardom. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Randy never was in the mainstream of rock music. But he had good ears and taught himself by listening to records of the greats. Fifteen years ago, while he was still in high school, Bachman joined a band called Chad Allen and the Expressions. Later, the band became the Guess Who.
"Music meant everything to me," Randy recalls. "But I also had to have something to fall back on if the Guess Who didn't make it. So I went to university and studied business administration." He was close to graduation when the Guess Who was booked to tour England. So he dropped out "temporarily." Then things broke so fast for the band that Randy never had time to go back. Now, of course, the only business administration he really needs is how to handle his own money.
From 1968 on, the Guess Who made unbelievable amounts of money. By 1970, the band was selling more records than any other band in the world. Suddenly; with the Guess Who at the peak of its popularity, Randy stunned the music world by announcing his retirement from the band.
"Music should be fun," Randy argues. "By the time I left the Guess Who, it wasn't fun any more. There were too many personality clashes. And I had grown tired of the wild life on the road." The Guess Who went on without him but it was never the same again.
Randy's personal fortunes plunged overnight. He turned out a solo album titled AXE. If you look through the dead record section of your record store, you might still be able to find a copy. The records must be somewhere in the stores because no one ever bought it. Randy had made the tragic mistake of playing music that was too jazz-oriented; the album shows how good Randy is at his work but it fails to excite the way the Guess Who or B.T.O. records do.
Then Randy teamed up old friend, Chad Allan, and the two ex-Guess Who members brought bass player Fred Turner and brother Robbie on drums. They called the band Brave Belt although it has become one of the better-known names in Canada's music history, during its two-year existence it was highly unsuccessful.
The band's greatest flaw was its failure to delve into rock-and-roll, Bachman's strong suit.
"I was reluctant to play rock-and-roll again because people would think that I was into another Guess Who type of band," Randy told us. "I wanted to establish myself as something quite different. But it didn't work and we had a choice between playing rock or breaking up. I chose to play rock."
Bachman sat down and explained to everyone in the band that they would be playing a new kind of music. And he pointed out that it would make a lot of sense to come up with a new name to make it easier for people to accept the changes. The name he chose was Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "because there were two Bachmans and a Turner in that band and we saw the word 'Overdrive' on a trucking magazine and thought that was a good name for a band."
B.T.O., of course, was far more successful than Brave Belt. B.T.O., in fact, was far more successful than the Guess Who, too.
But Randy became dissatisfied with B.T.O. too. After five years with that band, both as Brave Belt and B.T.O., Randy felt he needed new musical challenges. He won't explain his motive for leaving the band beyond saying "I felt it was time to look into new projects", but it's obvious why he left. Brother Robbie is not up to Randy's musical standards and the simple B.T.O. music was beginning to bore Randy.
You might also say that Randy no longer had anything to prove - to himself or to the world. He had demonstrated that his success with the Guess Who was not a fluke. Now he had the money to back him up and he could look for more freedom in his work.
Meanwhile, Randy has more than enough action in his life. He's negotiating a new record contract, tying up the loose ends in his B.T.O. relationship (the band will go on without him), checking into building a recording studio on the West Coast, and producing British Columbia's rock band, Trooper. From time to time, he teams up with his old partner Burton Cummings, just for old times' sake.
He left Winnipeg several years ago - the memories of the Guess Who remained too strongly entrenched there - and moved to Vancouver. More recently, he has been living in the United States, just south of the Canadian border on the west coast. For business reasons, it's easier for Randy to make his home in the States than to continue living in Canada. Besides, he still believes that Canadians refused to support B.T.O. in its early days - a suspicion that has a lot of facts backing it up
And, sooner, or later, Randy will get restless again. He'll recruit some new musicians, form another band, and hit the road again. He probably won't sweat or grimace as he plays then, either. But you can bet that he'll be playing some of the finest rock-and-roll guitar the world has ever heard.
tgmag@tgmag.ca