Notes

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recorded late 1968

Wheatfield Soul by the Guess Who has become a collectors item of sorts over the years, fetching various prices in fan circles, and it is an important "first" step for the reconstituted group which initially hit with "Shakin' All Over" when it was led by Chad Allan. The album is Jack Richardson's excellent production of Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings' music played by this particular four-piece unit, which Peter Clayton's liner notes claim were together "for three years when they cut this album in late 1968." The naïve sound of Cummings' voice on the album tracks is charming, but the hit "These Eyes" has that authority which the band would repeat on diverse chart songs like "No Time," "American Woman," and even "Star Baby" further down the road. "Pink Wine Sparkles in the Glass" is a precursor to "New Mother Nature," but the solo Cummings composition "I Found Her in a Star" is very nice Guess Who-style pop that their fans adore. "Friends of Mine" is a strange one, though, ten minutes and three seconds of Burton Cummings imitating Jim Morrison, not just Morrison, but the copping of his vocal riffs straight from "When the Music's Over." This is a band stretching and searching for direction, and rather than hit you with hard Randy Bachman assaults which were a welcome addition to future long-players by this group, as well as Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Wheatfield Soul concentrates on Brit-pop and experimental songs. Randy Bachman's "A Wednesday in Your Garden" is British rock meets jazz, and is one of the LP's most interesting numbers. The Chick Crumpacker and Don Wardell liner notes to Ultimate Collection note that "These Eyes" "was technically the 18th release by the band." The key is that it was the first from the quartet of Cummings, Bachman, Kale, and Peterson as produced by Jack Richardson. Ultimate Collection also notes that "Lightfoot" was written for "fellow Canadian Gordon Lightfoot." The notes go on to point out that "Maple Fudge" and "We're Coming to Dinner" were real oddities, but a style that would reappear over the band's long and illustrious catalog. Maybe that's what makes Wheatfield Soul so sought after, inventive themes that eventually found their way onto later albums like Artificial Paradise and Rockin'. Perhaps the tragedy is that they didn't get to work with Frank Zappa -- the Guess Who's left-field musings would have been the perfect follow-up to Zappa's work with Grand Funk. Take two of "Lightfoot" appears on Ultimate Collection, which only utilized three songs from this important first album after the band was reborn. But for all the musical wandering, it is "These Eyes" which remains timeless, the song that stands out as the masterpiece on this creative adventure.


released 1973

Artificial Paradise may be the most consistent album project by the post-Randy Bachman Guess Who, a solid offering of strong melodies, superb production, and focused artistic vision. It is also one of the group's more obscure offerings; a small fortune was obviously spent on the gratuitous and excessive packaging which says absolutely nothing and probably did much to sink this fine effort. 1972 is the song copyright date on the lyric sheet for this album, which was recorded in Hollywood at RCA's Music Center of the World in December of 1972 and March of 1973, that lyric sheet the only hint of which Guess Who this is (the song "Follow Your Daughter Home" is credited to Cummings, McDougal, Peterson, Wallace, and Winter). Surprisingly, Burton Cummings only writes two titles on his own, contributing to four others by his current bandmates. Winter, Wallace, and McDougal actually get a freer songwriting reign on this ten-track release and it harkens back to the initial success of the Share the Land album, the first project where the new members explored, blending their musical skills. The beauty of Don McDougal's "Samantha's Living Room" or the "Iko Iko"-inspired "Follow Your Daughter Home," like everything else here, is clouded by the cover art, if it can even be called that. A typical Ed McMahon get-rich-quick sweepstakes advertisement takes up the inner sleeve, the glitzy color insert and the letter from "Marty Slick" (a dig at Grace Balin, one wonders, of labelmates Jefferson Starship?), which features the lyrics on the flip of the sweepstakes letter. The album cover is a big brown paper envelope with Guess Who/Winnipeg, Canada, as the return address. It is ridiculous. The "Marty Slick" letter is a clue that maybe the Guess Who were taking a shot at Jefferson Airplane's Bark exercise in packaging excess from 1971. Though Burton Cummings participates in six of the compositions, there are four not written by the bandleader (topping the three non-Cummings titles found on the Share the Land album), and it is clear he is allowing the band far more leeway. It works wonderfully. Beyond the packaging, though, the other dilemma is that this FM-oriented project holds onto the sensibilities of the band's AM hits. No matter how you slice it, they were not hip in America at this point in time. Decades later the music is very persuasive, but for 1972 how could the Guess Who compete with the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, or even Vanilla Fudge for counterculture cool? As with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, they couldn't, with the aura of the mainstream following the group as it did Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Cummings also comes off like a glitzy Vegas-style entertainer more often than not. Despite the image problem with the band and the album cover, every track here excels and is first-rate; the lengthy jam that is Cummings' "Those Show Biz Shoes" is more fun than his similar song, "Your Nashville Sneakers," from the album Rockin'. "Orly" and "Follow Your Daughter Home" made it onto The Best of the Guess Who, Vol. 2, which itself was full of songs that, though good, failed to match the majesty of the hits on volume one. Artificial Paradise is the album in between Live at the Paramount and #10, a time when the band was attempting to cross over to the FM dial. As good an effort as it is, they should've stuck with their major strength: keeping their hand in the Top 40 game.