Transcript
Speaker: Hi, it's Dan here for Dusty Gist Radio, and this is the podcast Mining Oats. We're feeling chats with Canada's retro music makers. And today I'm very honored to have as a return guest, author and music historian Robert Lawson. He wrote the book, Wheatfield Empire, The Listener's Guide to the Guess Who. And today we'd like to expand on that a little bit and discuss the current controversy with the rights and the usage of the band name and all the fallout over the past decades. So a great guy to talk to you about that. So many thanks for coming back on. Robert, how are you? Good, Dan. Good to talk to you again.
Speaker: Yeah, well I had a great conversation with you last time and we went through the whole history of the Guess Who and we're both fans and that was two and a half years ago. Wow. And life treating you well, I assume, in Southern Ontario? Yeah, I'm still here in Toronto. You've obviously got a couple of different books as we talked about last time and you're working on something else now as well. Yeah, always doing something, trying to keep busy or keep myself out of trouble.
Speaker: Yeah, good for you. So yeah, I just wanted to give people your background for those that didn't listen to the original broadcast and the podcast we did two and a half years ago, you've written books on Nazareth and Cheap Trick and The Guess Who, and you're a sort of a music buff and a historian. So I appreciate that, what you've offered.
Speaker: So a couple of things i want to ask you about what one is that you've you did the guess who book as we talked about last time was a was a kind of an annotated discography and you give lots of information and you talk about you know the ins and outs of the bands but your books are more informative than they are evaluative that was your approach there. Yeah the idea is really like a chapter by chapter look at a band's output where i look at every album every single.
Speaker: music videos, radio broadcasts, uh, TV appearances, bootlegs. Basically, um, you know, if you're looking in for some information about a certain band and about a certain album, you could flip to that particular chapter and get as much information as possible about it. And I, I interject little, you know, things in there of my own personal tastes occasionally. And, and, and I, I try to have little elements of humor occasionally too. There was, um,
Speaker: I think somebody on Amazon reviewed my cheap trick book and they said a bunch of nice things. And then they said, okay, he doesn't like Vince Neil. We get it. Cause I guess in the cheap trick book, there's a couple of times where I, I say something about, you know, Vince Neil not being too great or something. I don't know. But, uh, so there's little, there's little points in there that I, I get my own opinion in there.
Speaker: Well, you're pretty even -handed though. I think that's probably a little bit unfair because, you know, like your Guess Who books, excellent. And I highly recommend it. It's called Wheatfield Empire. And you're pretty even -handed. I mean, you're, you're pretty fair. Like we talked about that last time. Sometimes you have to make sort of an, you have to make a value judgment on some things, but not sort of harshly. You just, you just kind of say this is what happened and this seems to be why.
Speaker: Yeah. And I also, it's real important for me not to just be fawning over, you know, any artist, you know, no matter how, how much you love somebody and how great they are, there's gotta be a few missteps along the way. And anyone who's had a career that's lasted 30 or 40 years, there's going to be valleys as well as peaks, you know, it's okay to call them out on some of their missteps.
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough. That's right. Because if you just write it as a fanboy, then it's sort of like a self -indulgent autobiography from their perspective, right? I'm great and I've done all these great things and here's how great I am. And let me tell you how great I am again. Right. But sometimes it calls for a value judgment. And so this current controversy for the listeners that don't know
Speaker: Randy Backman and Burton Cummings have decided to sue the band that is performing and touring as the Guess Who in the States, primarily in the States. So I wanted to get some of your thoughts on that and the perspective.
Speaker: And so in preparation for that, I kind of know where you're at because we discussed this a little bit last time, but I want to go back and forth with you a little bit. And you're very familiar with John Anderson, who writes books and is a music historian. I had him on the podcast and he's kind of a walking encyclopedia. That guy is a pretty impressive guy. But anyway, so he wrote
Speaker: a full article and editorial on this whole controversy and he pulls no punches. I mean, you know him well enough to know that he's what his position is. So I just wanted to kind of bounce some of that around. I don't want to debate per se because I don't think I have enough knowledge or strong enough opinion on it, but I do want to look at the landscape and sort of go back and forth a bit with you if that's okay. So the first thing about John
Speaker: for those who don't know he wrote the book randy backman book and he's but he's not a big fan like he makes it very very clear that he's not a huge randy backman fan do you want to speak to that up right up front. Well john's yeah for people who don't know i was just email with john yesterday okay yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So John's a Winnipeg guy. He played in bands in the sixties. So he's sort of a contemporary of these guys. I guess he might be a little bit younger, but, uh, you know, he, he played in, in rock bands, uh, in the late sixties and early seventies, and he's gone on to have this long career of writing books. So he wrote the first book ever about the guess who, uh, called American woman.
Speaker: And he's also written books about Neil Young. I think he has a Buffalo Springfield book. He did a Ian Tyson or Ian and Sylvia biography. I think he actually helped Sylvia maybe with her autobiography. So he's done a lot of stuff. And yes, he's like the co -author of Randy's autobiography, Taking Care of Business. So he's been around for a long time. He's written the liner notes for some of the guests who
Speaker: Reissues and you hear him on like Winnipeg radio a lot and and if anything kind of happens that's newsworthy He'll be on the local TV or radio talking about it. So he is a historian. He's very He knows a lot about about these topics. So After this lawsuit was made public. I think it was last Monday through Rolling Stone magazine after a couple of days You know, of course, everybody's going to John
Speaker: for input and he published an editorial or a rant on Facebook where he was a little cranky that day, I think. Okay, so let's go through it, okay? Because I've downloaded it, I printed it off and I read it and I took notes from it. So I'll just throw it out there and we'll just go back and forth on some of the points if that's okay.
Speaker: Sure. So the first point he makes is that Cummings folded the band in 75. Bachman had been gone for five years already. So he said that their interest in the Guess Who name was really almost in a sense forfeited at that point. They walked away from it. Well, that's true. I mean, yeah.
Speaker: Randy was fired from the guess who in 1970 the band broke up in 1975 and then in 1978 Jim kale Sort of with Randy and Burton's blessing Went back out on the road with a version of the guess who but that version to me is somewhat legitimate you know, he had Kurt winner probably the greatest guitar player to ever be in the guess who and songwriter and
Speaker: And he had Donnie MacDougall on guitar and vocals for that first 1978 version of the Guess Who. And they would play a lot of original material as well as classic stuff. So I don't think it's anybody's fault that in 1978, you know, guys like Burton and Randy didn't know that, you know,
Speaker: there would be any value to the name, the guess who, right? We, you know, we didn't have a classic rock culture at that point. Right. You know, that's a fair, that's a fair point, but, but Anderson is making the point that they didn't care then. So they only care now, which is a little bit, uh, like there was no parameters set, put on it back then. They said, Oh yeah, sure. Yeah. Go, go and do your thing. They even put out an album. Didn't they post? Yeah. They put her an album called guess who's back and it's okay. It's not great.
Speaker: But the landscape has just changed. So then they did a second album, which then Kurt Winter's not on. And then after that, Don McDougal's not there anymore. So yeah, everything kind of changed from being maybe the lesser known Guess Who lineup, but still somewhat legitimate to then turning into what is
Speaker: now basically a cover band. Yeah, fair. And again, I'm not, I'm not unsympathetic to that argument. It's just that when there's no parameters sort of put on it, it's going to morph into whatever it morphs into. Sure. But I mean, nobody knew in 1978 that years later, people would be buying all these records over and over again, and that there would be a classic rock, uh, revival.
Speaker: You know, there's no way to predict that. And in the same way, Jim kale didn't know that that was going to happen either. He decided he was going to go out on the road a little bit and make a little bit of money. He didn't know that decades later, he'd still be doing it because there was no precedent for it at that time. The idea that, you know, this is at a time when bands would put out an album, go out on tour and almost play the entire album because that's what they were promoting. That's very different from.
Speaker: what the landscape in concerts has been for the last, I don't know, 10 or 15, 20 years where the band puts out a new album. They go on tour, play one song from it, and the rest of the set is greatest hits.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, fair enough. You make fair points there and it is different. The whole business has morphed, I guess, as well. So the band morphs, but the business morphs as well, which is your overriding point. But then Anderson says that Bachman and Cummings, their beef is over the use of the likeness and the music. So they're using
Speaker: old pictures of the using old old songs and stuff but the thing is if you're using that brand you can never divorce it from those things and you have no control over it half the time. I mean the promoters are gonna use the old songs are gonna use the old pictures i mean there's almost nothing you can do about that well. Part of the part of the lawsuit.
Speaker: Um, and I've seen some information about this is that, yeah, it's not so much about the name, the guess who, I mean, it's not like if Burton gets the rights to the name, the guess who he's not also going to change, you know, his band to be called the guess who and go out on tour as the guess who, uh, I'm pretty sure that's not in his plan. But yeah, the, I, it's more about kind of a misrepresentation that fans are being, um, they're sort of.
Speaker: being led to go to the shows thinking that guys like Burton and Randy and maybe Donnie MacDougall are going to be there. And there's no, no chance of that happening. Um, how much of it is the band and the band management and just promoters? I'm not sure, but I know that it did ramp up during the pandemic that now, if you go to, um, like Apple music or the Spotify streaming service, and you want to listen to the guests, who's,
Speaker: uh, so long ban on time album, the band picture that you're going to see is of the current lineup. So, but doesn't that, doesn't that hit both sides of the argument? They don't want them using the old images, but they have a right to that name. Now they're using the new images, which is also a misrepresentation because those aren't the band members that played those songs, right? Right. So the, so the lawsuit is,
Speaker: is suggesting that they don't use the Guess Who name and it's some sort of a tribute act. So it could be the Guess Who show featuring original drummer Gary Peterson.
Speaker: that would be totally above board in the same way that, you know, uh, Carl Dixon was in the guess who for a little while. And he does an occasional show called Carl Dixon sings the guess who, and he has, uh, Bill Wallace, who is a basis from the original era of the guess who, and they tell stories and they, they do an all guess who kind of hits show, but they don't call themselves the guess who. And well,
Speaker: Yeah, so my problem with that, I guess, is that, you know, everyone rides the fine line. Like, I was part of a tribute show that did a tribute to Roy Orbison and I just had one segment in that show and I have pictures. It's called Remembering Roy. I got my glasses on and my picture and everything. And then the promoter made the poster up and he just put a picture of Roy Orbison on there.
Speaker: When I said to the guy, well, I sent you pictures, why wouldn't you? Oh, well, it's just a tree. Roy's dead. Everybody knows he's not going to be there. It's just that we wanted to use an original picture. I'm like, you can't do that, but they do it. They want bums in the seats. They don't really care. So you know that promoters are going to ride whatever line they have to ride to get bums in the seats. They're going to use old Burton
Speaker: the the the
Speaker: just more serious about making sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen. I saw a clip the other day and it was like a state fair, I don't know, somewhere in the States and it was a video ad. So it was an ad like on Facebook. And it was some sort of a summer festival or something. And it was listing the different bands that were going to be playing there, all kinds of different people. And every time it listed the band, you would just see a little clip of that group performing.
Speaker: you know, whoever, I don't know, Colin James and I don't know, all kinds of different guys. And sure enough, at one point it said the guess who and it was a closeup of Randy soloing. So there's no way he was going to be at that show. Yeah. Well, but again, so the band can divorce themselves from that and say, well, I'm not the promoter. We got hired. We got, we, we negotiated the contract and then they promote it in that. And however they choose to do that has nothing to do with us. And, and that's kind of a good point because it's almost true a hundred percent of the time.
Speaker: Well, I mean, if they can prove that, then that's probably something that they're going to try to, you know, that that would be one of their defenses, I guess. Yeah. And then so going on to what John Anderson was saying.
Speaker: Both Cummings and Bachman are multi -millionaires, so he says in the article, Cummings' career is petering out, and he talked Randy into taking some action. Cummings is not the original singer in the band. It seems to ping -pong between a moral argument and a legal argument. That's one thing I've noticed about this. It goes back and forth. Well, it's not right to use this or use that.
Speaker: Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know what the legal, he's got legal rights to that name. And then saying that they're both multimillionaires should kind of be irrelevant because if you're being misrepresented and it's affecting your career, it doesn't matter how much your bank account has in it, correct?
Speaker: Right. And I mean, it is a fact that the guests who playing state fairs and I don't know, shopping mall openings and stuff in the States, that has, that has hurt both Randy and Burton in the States because, you know, Burton can't get or rarely can get a gig in the States for the value that, you know, he thinks he's worth. Right. Because the band, you know, promoter says, yeah, but I just had the whole, I just had the whole guests who here and they were half of what you're asking for.
Speaker: Promoters also don't, and a lot of guests and fans unfortunately, don't always know who's really in the band and who isn't. I talk to people all the time when they tell me if Burton and Randy aren't there, it's not the guess who. I have to point out to them, the guess who actually made lots of great records after Randy was ousted. The whole Share of the Land album is not Randy Bachman, Sour Sweet, then Clap for the Wolfman, and Star Baby.
Speaker: The list goes on and on of all these great, great guess who songs. And a lot of people don't know that that's not Randy. So, so it's a double ignorance. It's ignorance on both sides because I heard some guy actually mentioned that he said, well, if Randy's not there. And then he said, they have great songs like share the land and clap for the Wolfman. And I kind of laughed out loud. I was like, well, that's post Randy. Yeah. I've seen a lot of, a lot of social media posts since this lawsuit came out. Cause a lot of people are talking about it. I've seen many, many posts.
Speaker: people saying you know if it's it's not the guess who without Burton and Randy so obviously they don't even know these are supposed fans and they don't even know who's supposed to be in the band or who isn't
Speaker: And I don't know if they look at the cover to the number 10 album and think that one of those guys is Randy, but I mean, but, but again, doesn't that undermine their argument saying, well, you're misrepresenting yourselves. Well, people are misrepresenting if they're saying that we want, if there's no Randy, there's no guess who, and then they're naming songs. Randy didn't even play on or write. That's, you know, to me, it's just always been, been kind of a weird thing with the guess who I, I don't know too many other groups of that, their level.
Speaker: that a lot of their fans know so little about them. But all these different bands have morphed into other bands. I had Al Harlow on, he's still got Prism out there and he's the only original member and he justified that by saying, hey, Prism's had lots of different people in and out of it and right now this is the current version of the band, it's me.
Speaker: Of course, Tad and I know the guys in the band, but it's a shadow of its former self in terms of prism, but Al Harlow justifies that by saying, I'm an original member. These bands are franchises really now. They use all the old Ron Tabak voice. When they do Armageddon and the promos on the radio and stuff, it's all Ron Tabak's voice. It's Al Harlow's voice.
Speaker: And, you know, Al Harlow's not, he's just one of the guys, he was the bass player in the band when I saw them originally and he's still out there doing Prism. I guess it depends. In some cases, the band could be like authorized by official members. I think that's the case with Foreigner right now. There's no original members touring with Foreigner, but they are allowed to do that. They're allowed to use the logo. You know, one thing with the Guess Who,
Speaker: It's not only the fans who don't have all the correct information because what the current band has been saying for a little while is that they've been keeping the Guess Who name alive and they've been holding the torch for the Guess Who and Gary's been there from the start and he's always been the guy who's dependable, he's always been the drummer, he's always done. But there's actually some studio albums that Gary didn't appear on.
Speaker: And actually, when I interviewed Gary for my book, and I didn't call him out on this, because I was trying to be respectful, I was kind of excited to be talking to Gary Peterson, to be honest. But he actually said, Burton, he didn't sing on those original albums, but I'm on every single album. So if my name is on an album, it's the Guess Who, which he was referring to, because they had a new album out at the time. And he was saying, if my name's on it, then it's a real Guess Who album.
Speaker: And it was right, I was kind of biting my tongue to say, well, what about those, what about those Jim Cale, Donna McDougal records? Cause you're not on those. So is he saying that those aren't real guess who albums just cause he's not on it. So it does get kind of murky. Well that, and that's, that's the point. And again, you're ping ponging between the legal aspect and the moral aspect. So the moral argument is, is playing both sides because
Speaker: Um, you know, for example, trooper now is a franchise, right? Like me and Smitty and Ray retired and they hired two other guys, friends of mine that I know. So trooper goes out as a five piece band. There's not a single guy in that band that had anything to do with any of those albums. Right. And, uh, but they've got the rights to use the name. So they go and do festivals. Now keep in mind, they don't do a lot of, they do some ticketed sort of soft seeders, but most of it isn't festivals in the summer. So there's a half a dozen bands on there and troopers, one of them.
Speaker: But having known those guys since their inception and see them grow, I never thought in my life they would turn into a franchise. Just because it's sanctioned by Smitty and Ray, there's no original members in that band, so they're essentially a cover band or a tribute band. It's going to be interesting how this plays out. You're reading John's editorial there, so at one point,
Speaker: which I was really surprised. He says that he doubts that either Kale or Peterson even have $20 ,000 in their accounts, that they would even be able to fight this lawsuit. And I don't know. So that's what he's saying, right? He said, there's no money. There's not going to be any money here unless these guys have no money. But it's about the principle of being able to use the guess who name now that they care.
Speaker: So it'll be interesting you and I can sort of watch from the gallery of how the arguments go back and forth because you obviously kale and those guys are going to say, well, they didn't even care. Now they care because it suits their purpose in the past. They didn't care because it didn't suit their purpose. So we were just trying to make a living and they have lots of money and we don't have any, I wouldn't say that that Burton never cared. I do think that initially correct. Yeah. Good, good point. Cause he was carping about it for a long time. Right.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that his camp did not care and did not make it a priority for him, uh, you know, to really look into too much. So there has been a little bit of a, I can't say too much about it, but there's been a little bit of some changes behind the scenes in the burden coming, uh, team, let's say.
Speaker: So now there are people who are concerned with this, who have also always been concerned, but didn't have a place where they could kind of address it. So now, because of that change, now this is why this is happening. I saw, I don't know if it was just on Instagram or on Facebook, but the touring version of the guests who posted a photo from one of their meeting greets,
Speaker: And there's a woman in the, in the photo opportunity holding a copy of the road food album. Right. And I thought, I wonder if she got those guys to sign it because none of those guys are on it. You know, I don't know if everyone's aware, but even with the current guess who, and when they, you know, they like to claim like, well, Gary's an original member. Gary was there from the beginning, you know, blah, blah, blah. Gary missed a whole bunch of dates in 2022.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a franchise. There's no doubt about that. And I guess it's the deception aspect of it because Trooper goes out like those five guys that I know and they take a bow at the end and they sing all the songs and talk about, and again, none of those guys had anything to do with any of that stuff. So that in itself is to me a bit of a misrepresentation. I don't like it to be honest because it's just
Speaker: When you franchise a band, you're divorcing it from the personality and the original members who had the gumption and the talent and the fortitude to sort of put it all together and go and tour it and stuff. And those guys are all long gone, right? Right. So when I saw the Little River Band, for example, I saw them in 78 when they had their classic lineup and they were brilliantly unbelievable. And then I saw them about 25 years later with Wayne, the guy that sang Night Owls. I think he was the only guy.
Speaker: And everybody else, they probably weren't even born when those songs were put out. And it was deflating to me, but I understand it. You know what I mean? I thought those guys, Goebbels and those other guys, Glen Sherrock, they're not touring now.
Speaker: So there could be a vacuum there for a band to fill it, but maybe it's the way that, and maybe, you know, a lot of fans don't care. They love the Guess Who music or Little River Band. I will say Little River Band gets mentioned a lot in reference to this Guess Who lawsuit. That's the one band everyone brings up. Well, because they were so unbelievable when they had the original lineup.
Speaker: But again, when you say, when you say fans don't care, like again, you're on both sides of the argument because part of Bachman and Cummings case is that fans do care. They're being duped. They're being tricked.
Speaker: And then on the other side, you say, well, you know what? They just want to hear the songs and a good representation of the songs and they don't really care. And the ticket prices are cheaper than they would be if you saw the original lineup. So we're good. Yeah. You hear that too. So a few other points on the John Anderson article. He says, Kale was in the original band, as was Peterson before Burton.
Speaker: Burton's voice became the signature sound, but then Bachman was gone by 1970. Like John really points out the history of it and said that this was, and it also makes the point, this was a band. It wasn't just Burton. It wasn't just Burton and Randy, a hundred percent for sure. Cause Randy was gone and it was Burton's voice, but it was more of a band than Burton. That's why he went solo. Well, it's, I mean, it's true that it's definitely not just Randy as we've proven that they had all kinds of great music after, but after that, you know, the lineup
Speaker: kept changing every couple of albums and Burton's the only constant on all those records. If we're going to name a list of 25 Guess Who songs that we might hear on the radio right now, Burton's voice is going to be the one singing all of them. Yeah, fair enough. Fair point. You're not going to be in your argument. Sure, not being the original member. Ringo Starr is not the original drummer in The Beatles, but I don't think we're really going to split hairs like that.
Speaker: Well, I think that's the overriding point is where do you, you've got to draw some lines. Where are you drawing these lines? When you talk about the original lineup, or you talk about the founding members, or you talk about the, you know, misrepresenting by not having the original people there. Like you got to draw some lines. There's no, that's not just a blanket statement. That's going to stand. Right. You know, and the, the guests who are the Rolling Stone article did get it wrong because in that article, they say that Burton was the original.
Speaker: He's the voice on all the huge hits, the huge albums that they did, all the massive touring, all the TV appearances, all that kind of stuff. Whenever there's the idea of a Guess Who reunion tour, he's like one of the guys that has to be there. He is the voice of the Guess Who, regardless of whether he came in.
Speaker: an original member
Speaker: He came in on the third album out of a list of 15 or 16 albums. He's been around. It's not like he's some new guy that just came in at the end. Fair point. I agree with you on that. Again, I guess he's just trying to divide the line somewhere and say, for example, another point that he makes is that Burton wasn't well -known in the US. The Guess Who was well -known in the US because he had American women in these eyes and laughing and undone and stuff that people knew.
Speaker: But when Burton did his solo thing, he wasn't anywhere near as well known in the US and probably still isn't. Well, the first couple of albums, he was making appearances on the Midnight Special and he did tour in the States. I know he played Detroit, I think, on his second album and he's doing shows in LA and stuff like that. But yeah, eventually that kind of changed to the point where some of his solo albums weren't even released in the States.
Speaker: Right. And then he makes the point that Bachman and BTO actually exceeded the Guess Who in terms of album sales and worldwide recognition. Yeah, sure. BTO was a hit machine for sure.
Speaker: And then, so going down through the history again, he says, okay, in 77, Kale was in a pickle with taxes and Peter Peterson was working as a night clerk to try to make money. And so Kale went to those guys and, you know, cause they didn't have a lot of songwriting credits, so they weren't making any money other than being able to play. And the Backman and Cummings agreed that they could use the name and then Kale figured out it's not registered, so he was just going to register it. So the implication is that he kind of did that behind their back.
Speaker: what's your view on that? I mean, it's open with even Steven, right? It's open season. Yeah, I don't think, yeah. Right. And again, the guests who name at the time didn't have that much value to it anyway. And like I said, no one could have predicted that 30 years later they'd be, or
Speaker: Ten years later, they'd be talking about a reunion tour, and everyone would be buying the albums again on CD, and now we're rebinding them again on vinyl and stuff. That wasn't part of the rock culture at the time, so Peterson was not part of that first Guess Who.
Speaker: revision. But for Kale to do that, he wasn't a genius. He didn't know that it was going to turn into a real moneymaker for decades and decades. He was just thinking of the present time that he wanted to go out on the road and play a little bit of music. So no one knew what was going to happen 20 years in the future that all these classic rock bands would be able to
Speaker: trade on their past glories because that didn't exist at the time. So that's a fair point. But then Kale would come back and say, well, I was an opportunist. I had an opportunity to do it. I did it. The fact that it all sort of morphed into something greater later is not my fault. I mean, I don't know, I couldn't predict the future. I just took advantage of what I could do at the time. And here we are. Sure. So maybe it's not so much of a
Speaker: of blaming him for taking that opportunity, but just to say, yeah, the game has changed. So we need to renegotiate. And I don't think that that's necessarily uncommon in a lot of different businesses. Yeah, I guess. But Anderson also points out that in 2000, the guests who were union without kale, but he licensed the name to them and offered to sell it to them for a million bucks, but there was no takers. So Bachman and Cummings could have settled it for a cool million bucks in 2000 and walked away with the name and all the rights, but they didn't take it.
Speaker: Yeah. So there's going to be a guess who reunion in 2000, uh, including so the, the four main guys, uh, plus Donnie McDougall, uh, which is, you know, a lineup that never existed in the band's history. Uh, kale was not able to perform during the rehearsals. Uh, he could not keep up with the other guys. And, uh, you know, the reasons for that, I can't go into, although I, I, I know the reasons.
Speaker: Yeah. So, so they, they made a swap, uh, cause the tour has already been booked. You know, this is going to be a real big, uh, real big deal across Canada, you know, tour. And so they made a swap. So they got the next official basis. You know, we talked about original members. Bill Wallace is not an original member of the guess who, but he is from the original era. Yeah. And there's only two member too. Sure. You know, like there's, if we look at all the different versions of Cale's guess who,
Speaker: I don't know. There's probably been like 25 different basis or something, but only Kale and Wallace are from the original era. So they get Bill Wallace in and the deal is Kale still gets paid. I think it actually came out of Wallace's salary.
Speaker: Right. So he was asked to sit out that tour because of his inability to play on the level, the guys. Yeah. The story about him offering the name for a million dollars. Um, I've only ever seen John say that. Okay. And I'm not, I'm not saying it's not true. And I, I've never asked Burton about it. I, anytime I've interviewed or talked to Burton, I definitely don't bring up money. Um, but I've never heard anyone else say that. So, uh, you know, I've heard John say it before.
Speaker: But I just, I've never, you know, corroborated that. So there is a possibility that kale made that offer to management who turned it down and Burton was not even aware of it. I do know for a fact from that reunion tour, uh, they were going to cut an album. A lot of people don't know this and I left it out of the book, but that reunion lineup of the guests who that lasted from 2000, 2003, they're going to cut a new studio album and both Donnie McDougall
Speaker: and Bill Wallace were told by management not to bother writing any songs, that only Bachman and Cummings will be providing material for the album. I think to this date Burton doesn't know that that happened. Those guys might blame Burton for it, but that's where management's not always maybe operating on the best interests of the artist.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, fair point. But the thing is, if it were true that they could have bought that name back, especially that we're talking over 20 years ago now, they would have made that million bucks back 10 times over quite easily from a tour and an album. Oh, believe me, I wish that they had.
Speaker: I wish they had bought it for a million dollars back in 2001. I mean, we wouldn't be having this nice chat right now about it, but fair enough. Yeah. But so that speaks to the greater point that John then brings up, you know, lots of bands are simply franchises. Now they have various members in and out. I mean, you can't.
Speaker: you can't be picking and choosing okay so so gary peterson doesn't show up at a gig who cares i mean he doesn't what is somebody gonna be tracking how many songs he plays what if he just shows up when he walks around the stage for a couple minutes and then leaves i mean he's still an original memory still there like again where do you draw the line he's they've got the rights to the name and they're using it
Speaker: Right. Kind of conceived. So here's a good analogy. I think that it fits. It's like when Elvis Presley passed away a lot, there's tons of Elvis impersonators, of course, that he's the most impersonated person in the world. And I've worked with many of them myself. So we did a show with a guy named Elvis Gold and my friend Wally, and he passed away last year, but he got licensed by Elvis Presley Enterprises. And they said you can use still photos, but if you use any videos, you have to pay for the videos.
Speaker: the the the
Speaker: And these have to be sanctioned events. But the only reason that came about is because they got really aggressive. Like Priscilla went in there and they set up the corporate structure and they started chasing these people and going after them. Because they work on the assumption, most tribute artists, I'd rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. And they just go and do whatever they want. And then they say, challenge me. I'm going to use the old guess who promos. I'm going to use the old guess who songs. If you don't like it, challenge me. Take me to court. Yeah.
Speaker: That seems to be their position and it actually works for them for the most part the difference in this case of course is that unlike with the king burden randy are still alive right and they do feel that this version of the guest to turn in the states has affected their ability to get booked in the states in similar venues.
Speaker: I can see how it'd be frustrating. I mean, you'd be looking at, you know, the guess who and, and, uh, Burton's been hopping mad about it for a long time. Right. And I went on, so I read the Rolling Stone article, of course. And then I went on Burton's page and I mean, Burton is just downright ticked off now. He even put a video, he, he posted a video of the modern guess who from October 28th, which is three, three weeks ago and said, do you recognize any of these people? Like, can you help me out here to see who these people are? So Burton's Burton's ticked off now.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a, you know, again, because he's got, he's got some people supporting this, this whole effort. And maybe he, maybe even he's learning a little bit more about how ingrained the situation is.
Speaker: Then he, then even he knew previously, you know, I don't know if he's ever looked at footage of the current guests who on YouTube, you know, maybe just stayed away from it. Doesn't want to know now he's actually watching it and going, jeez, these guys are terrible. Well, they're just not, I mean, he's saying like the people are lining up to get their albums signed and stuff. I mean, that that's got to rub you a little raw. I don't care how much money you have or what the more, you know, what the legal side of it is just morally signing other people that had nothing to do with you that didn't write those songs or play them signing your albums.
Speaker: I know Burton has had, in the past he's had fans give him albums to sign. And when he opens up the gatefold of live at the Paramount, say for example, and there's already signatures in there from the current or even an older version of the guest who that he wasn't in. I know that that's not fun for him. Yeah, I can imagine. But then again, I go back to the question, where do you draw the line?
Speaker: Like one original member, two original members, you know, Randy wasn't on lots of those songs. So if, if, if they play clap for the Wolfman or, or share the land and Randy signs the album, well, he's, he's in the other category now. It's tough. I know that at one point Burton, he put, this was a few years ago, but he, he had posted about that. He saw, I think it was the live at the Paramount album. And I don't know if it was the current lead singer or whoever was before him, but he signed his name.
Speaker: like next to Burton's face on the inside of the album. So it, it, it does get a little, uh, yeah, and see why that would put a bad taste in somebody's mouth. So, but what about the current BTO, right? Cause, cause Randy sort of intimated that, that, uh, Fred Turner was going to be going back out with him, but, but Fred said in the last tour, that was it. He wasn't going out again. And then Randy sort of feigned that he would be, and he's out touring as BTO right now. Well, this is a real interesting and confusing thing.
Speaker: for me in terms of Randy is that what he's accusing Jim Cale and Gary Peterson doing, he's actually doing the same thing, but even worse, because on the current, I mean, I think they only played like half a dozen shows in the US recently. His new version of the BTO, which has no original members except for himself, but he's telling the audience
Speaker: Fred will be joining us in the future once his health gets better. That is just an outright lie. I know two different people in Winnipeg who know Fred, who've asked him right to his face, do you have anything to do with this new BTO? And Fred says, no, I'm staying home. I'm retired. I'm not doing that.
Speaker: Well, you watch the last tour, he was having some vocal issues and he's not what he used to be. I mean, he's well advanced in years and he just doesn't have the heart to do it anymore. It's like Mike Tyson retiring from boxing, right? He just, I don't have it in me anymore. It was what Tyson said, right? I just don't have it anymore. And maybe - Sure. And that's Fred's right. Or anybody's right. If you have the means to retire from whatever your job is,
Speaker: the the
Speaker: Fred will be joining us. That is, that's actually more deceitful than the guests who are doing. Cause I'll tell you, none of these guests who shows do they say, Oh, sorry, Burton couldn't be here tonight. He might be here next week. Fair point. Exactly. And, uh, you know, he just, he wanted to use, obviously make some money and use the name and go out there. And the guys, I know the guys in the band and they're good.
Speaker: but they're not Fred Turner. So a bunch of people, there's been a bunch of blowback online too, like no Fred, no BTO guys. Right. Right. So, but there's also no Blair Thornton. Like there's nobody except, except for Randy. Randy's the only one left, right? The dad and the brothers are all gone. Right. So, okay. But in the same, in the same way, I, you know, I feel if Randy just went out and said, and called the show,
Speaker: Randy Bachman's tribute to BTO, no problem whatsoever. Calling a BTO, when he first announced that he was going to be touring his BTO, he or his management, whoever was running his social media accounts, was posting photos of the original BTO and saying, we're back.
Speaker: Exactly. That's the exact point because he's using the old BTO promo, the albums, Fred singing for all the promos on these shows. He's doing exactly what he's accusing this other band of doing. Right. So I don't, I don't know where Randy's, well, I've questioned Randy's moral compass for many years. So, so, so maybe this isn't too surprising that he would do this, but you know, to be in an audience.
Speaker: And have him say, you know, sorry, Fred couldn't make it tonight, but he'll be joining us down the road. Yeah. I mean, that's, you're actually lying to your fans just to sell tickets. Yeah, fair enough. And then, so a couple other points just to hit on John's article. Um, you know, Cummings has derided the guests who has an inferior cover band.
Speaker: But John Anderson says, well, that's not true. Like he had Kurt Winter, Donnie McDougall and other top players. He lists off a whole bunch of really serious musicians and studio cats and stuff that went out with that original Guess Who that were anything but an inferior cover band. Well, sure. And, you know, but that's like in 1978. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, Kurt Winter only did the one album and one tour and then was out. But, you know, once it just keeps morphing and morphing, you know, if you watch any footage
Speaker: of the current guest who and the guy that they have singing, you know, I don't know his history. And I, I don't know the blonde guy with the long blonde hair. Yeah, Derek Sharp, Derek. Yeah. So he's, he's together with SAS Jordan, I think, right? There are a couple. Yeah. But you know, he's, you know, nevermind what he looks like that, that's, that's too shallow. But he sounds like he's from like an eighties hard rock band. Right. Um, and you know, he jumps around and throws, he's got this long blonde hair.
Speaker: All right, everybody. It's not my cup of tea, but again, that's an opinion, preference, moral argument rather than the legal side of it. I went on when Randy posted the article from Rolling Stone, so I made the comment, and I'll read it verbatim, it's short, but I said,
Speaker: Many classic bands have simply become franchises, now trooper, foreigner, to name two. And unfortunately, the legal side will most likely be the determining factor, regardless of other people, other principles involved. Whoever has the legal rights to the name will assert that to put whatever band they choose on stage under that name. And that's what's happening. A few people agreed with that. The other thing that I wanted to ask you about with what John's article says, like he speaks really disparagingly about the nostalgia circuit.
Speaker: And I don't think I agree with them. I mean, the sixties to the eighties in my mind is the golden age of rock and roll. And you still have guys around that are out there doing it. But John says the baby boom market is dying, if not dead already. And I just cannot agree with that. They're selling tickets. They're out there doing their thing.
Speaker: Yeah, and a lot of groups are doing just that. Obviously, I'm a big cheap trick fan. They still tour. They do a lot of dates every year. How much of that is nostalgia and how much is newer fans or whatever? So yeah, John,
Speaker: John gets a little cranky sometimes. I just thought that was kind of overstating it. Well, that was one of the things that I came away from reading his editorial. I thought, wow, he's taking swings at everybody. Gary and Jim have no money. Randy and Burton have too much money. None of these bands are doing anything.
Speaker: Yeah. He's coming after every... I'm just glad he didn't come after me. Yeah, there you go. But, you know, I talked to a promoter out in the West Coast here who has promoted bands for many decades and he said, you know, everybody I know that had any kind of modicum of success in the past is out there touring and trying to make money. I mean, it's what they have, right?
Speaker: So you take what you got and you go out there and try to sell tickets. And if people buy tickets, well, there's nothing illegitimate about that unless you're misrepresenting. But most fans are savvy enough to know that these bands are not the original lineup. They've morphed into whatever they are now.
Speaker: Well, maybe a caveat emptor, you know buyer beware a lot of guys will say, you know We'll say oh so and so is coming to town one of the first questions who's in the band? Yeah on social media because they're savvy they get it So if they ask that about the guess who it's pretty obvious answer
Speaker: Who cares? Nobody knows who's in the band. Whoever they decide to put on stage that night is who's in the band. Right. Unfortunately. Right. So then John goes on to say that Cummings and Backman don't like each other. So it's simply about money and ego. What do you think of that? Well, I think that Randy and Burton are our business partners. You know, in a way they they work together. They, you know, whether they would describe the relationship as friendship. I don't know. I don't see it that way.
Speaker: I see these guys who they occasionally work together. I for sure don't think that they hang out socially or anything like that. But they have such a history that they're both in the same business of
Speaker: that music that they created. So there has to be occasionally a conversation, whether it's directly or through lawyers, just to say, you know, okay, we have some new contracts, we have to go over this or that. In the same way that, you know, Roger Waters and David Gilmour certainly are not hanging out together. But they're both still sort of co -presidents of a company called Pink Floyd Incorporated, you know what I mean? Like when there's a new Pink Floyd box set that comes out, both those guys have input into it.
Speaker: They just don't sit in a room together over beers and make those decisions. It all goes through lawyers and managers and stuff, but they're still invested in that company. Yeah. I just think that that John's point is reductive. You know, when he reduces it to money and ego, I think that, you know, when Burton's looking online and seeing, you know, people who have no connection to him signing his albums and stuff, I mean, that's got to bug you. Like that's not money and ego. That's just straight principle. You're like, this isn't right. There's something wrong about this.
Speaker: Yeah. And I agree with that. And I also think, you know, to that point, responding to John, it doesn't matter if Backman and Cummings like each other or if they're friends or whatever, you know, if you've had a history of any kind in the same way, sometimes, you know, ex husbands and ex wives, we just have to get in a room and talk about what are we going to do? You know, it's time to sell the cottage or whatever.
Speaker: When you have that history, sometimes you just have to kind of work together on legal stuff. So saying that they don't like each other, yeah, there's a very good chance that they don't like each other, but that's irrelevant too. I don't think Gary Peterson and Jim Cales socially hang out together because of what I know of each of those guys' lifestyles, they are way more different than backmen and comings. So to say that two people aren't friends, I don't know what that's.
Speaker: Well, and again, to say it's about money and ego discounts the fact that there's a principle involved here, that they have a pretty good point. I have to agree. Like I said, I'm trying to take the middle road here and just kind of go back and forth with you, but Burton's got a point about that, that you can't dismiss or reduce to money and ego, I think. Yeah, I agree. And that's why I say I don't think.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure he's not gonna go out on tour if he gets the rights of the name I don't think he's gonna go on tour as the guess who you might start seeing something being done differently in terms of some reissues or box sets or guess who like songs and commercials or I don't know some more of a business kind of thing but you're not gonna see him going out with Jeff Jones and
Speaker: Baba Kante and all the guys from his band and they're calling it the Guess Who in the same way that what Randy's doing with BTO. I really firmly believe that Burton will not do that. Well, fair enough. But even if he did, like if Burton got the name back, you and I sitting around talking would say, well, you know, if you're going to tour the United States as the Guess Who, it'd sure be nice to have Burton singing the songs. Sure. Yeah, absolutely with that. Right. But so then I understand again, he says, you know, the lawsuit is petty and frivolous and it's all about revenge.
Speaker: at the end, and I'm thinking that's kind of reductive. I don't know you can reduce it to that. There's a principle involved. And then he goes, well, $20 million, there's no chance of getting any of that. These guys don't have a pot to pee in, so to speak. Maybe they do a little bit, but they don't have $20 million. So he says there's zero chance of them getting that money. And then he scolds them at the end and says to grow up. I don't know if that's, yeah, like you said, he's a bit cranky, but I think he's overstating it there, I would say, as much as I respect John.
Speaker: This is what I'm saying. He's, he's coming out swinging at, at, at everybody. And I mean, you can't have it both ways to say, well, nobody cares about the name and these guys don't have money, but it's only about the money. And then these two guys aren't friends, but they, you know, these guys have been doing this and it really, I think it's going to come down to a lot more of a basic thing, uh, than that. And, you know, I only, I started thinking about it more the other night that when
Speaker: The guess who keeps saying that, you know, Gary's been there from the beginning and he's always held the drum spot and all that kind of stuff. And, and as it's easily proved that there are at least three guess who albums in the seventies that he did not drum on, but he actually went back. Uh, he's on some Burton coming solo albums and he toured with Burton. I think that was like an 80 and 81. He was Burton's drummer. And then at one point he actually joined BTO.
Speaker: So, crazy. So there's no way that you could say he was always, you know, ever since 1963 or something, that he's always been the guess who drummer. He's drummed with all kinds of people. In fact, when the guess who first broke up in 75, he was in a really short lived group out of Philadelphia and the group was called Delphia. And I think it had a, it actually had a Bob Sibelico in it, who was a kind of a footnote in guess who history.
Speaker: So, Gary's done a bunch of different things. You can't just say like, oh, I've given the last 60 years to the Guess Who and everything. Well, that's right, because he was Randy Backman. I opened for them in 83. They had Randy Backman in Union, they were called. And Gary was the drummer in that band. That's where I first met him. That was 40 years ago now, but he was the drummer. Frank Ludwig was playing keyboards and Denise McCann was singing because they were a couple at that time.
Speaker: And Gary was in that, so he was in Randy Backman in union. That was 82 or three. You know what? That's right. I actually forgot he was in union. The main street USA hit. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, so Gary's done a lot of different things. He hasn't just always been this.
Speaker: you know, guess who guy for his entire life. So that's the thing is that, again, there's a lot of iterations of the band and the guess who and stuff and whoever holds the legal rights to use it. Now they're in the counts that the Rolling Stone article said there it's false advertising, unfair competition, violation of right of publicity. But again, as I say, you can't divorce when you're selling the guess who you can't divorce it from the songs. You're going to hear laughing and undone and they're going to use those to promote the show. Right. I mean, how would they not?
Speaker: Well, I guess one option would be to use the new band's versions of those songs because they do have a few different live albums out. That would be one suggestion, I don't know.
Speaker: Well, we'll see what the judge says. You and I can, maybe we'll talk after and go pick through what the judge says about it. But I don't have a lot of, like when Bachman says in that article, the fans are getting ripped off. And I'm thinking, well, how are they getting ripped off? I mean, you're selling VTO. That's not a ripoff because you're Randy. And then don't forget with Randy Bachman.
Speaker: He had Colin Weeb, who's a friend of mine. He played the Burton part, because Colin's a great piano player and sings just like Burton. Well, Randy toured with Colin for almost 20 years, and Colin sang all the Burton songs, and they did all those songs, or a lot of those songs. Yeah, like I said, Randy's moral compass has always been questionable at best, and there's many, many examples of that.
Speaker: I have a few in my book. I had to leave a whole bunch out otherwise, which just would have been too negative. But I know that like, you know, Burton owns the majority of the publishing, right. And the licenses for that guess who material and they have not issued licenses to the current guess who to use any of those songs in advertising. So for example, if you hear guess who song in a movie, I was watching Jackie Brown.
Speaker: Quentin Tarantino movie and I didn't realize that like I think no time or something is in the background of a scene. So when you see that Burton is the one or at least his team is the one who has allowed that to happen.
Speaker: They've never given any kind of license to the touring guess who band to use any of that material. Right. But I don't know the legal part of it. You, you can help me on this or we could ask somebody who knows, but if you use less than 10 seconds or something or five seconds, there's a, there's a thing where you can use a little snippet because we used to do the college radio station and stuff. And there was a proviso in there. If you use less than so many seconds of a song. Yeah. I think it's called fair use.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. That's, yeah, I'm not, I don't know enough about it, but I know that. So, so they wouldn't have to misrepresent or use the whole, they wouldn't have to have a mechanical license is what I'm saying in order to do a promo. They have a, they have a stopwatch and as soon as it's, it's about to hit 30 seconds, they stop it. So 100%. They would 100 % because then, then you don't have to, you can use a so, so much of it. Right. But then, you know, like in that Rolling Stone article, you know, Bachman says, well, we wrote the original music for the Guess Who.
Speaker: But that's not actually true. He wrote a few of the songs, but he's saying we, so they're going to go to court and say, well, we wrote the songs. And then the judge, if he's smart or the defense lawyer will say, well, you were left the band in 1970. So who's misrepresenting here? Yeah, I was looking at, I've got two Guess Who live albums from later errors. I was looking at them a little bit last night. I don't know why, but both of them kick off with Bus Rider. Right.
Speaker: So right there, they're starting the song or they're starting the live album right there with a post -Bachmann song. Yeah, and that's Kurt Winter wrote that song. Yeah. That's his... Well, cool. Well, no, I appreciate you. I wanted to sort of go through it, you know, each point and kind of get your take on the points and where you're drawing the line and those kinds of things. And how do you see this getting resolved with the magic wander?
Speaker: Well, I think, and I've, and I've thought for a long time, you know, long before this lawsuit ever even, uh, was publicized that I think Jim kale has a price, you know, he's not touring anymore. He, he retired from the road. He's 80 years old now. Oh wow. And you know, whether or not the, the million dollar story from 2001 is true or, or whether Burton ever did get news about that, you know, maybe we'll never know, but.
Speaker: I think that shows that he's always had a price. If he was willing to sell the name in 2001, he had a price back then. Whoever decided not to do it, you know, that, that doesn't matter. But it shows that Kale is okay with sitting at home with a bunch of money. And that's what he's doing right now. He's getting a little bit of money from whatever percentage he gets from Gary Peterson and these other guys being out on the road. So, you know, there might, there could be a good chance, like whatever his price is, and it might not be that much.
Speaker: for, you know, for his style of his living. And, you know, I think they agree with you on that. The other thing is, is that the other point you alluded to earlier, he's not going to burn through 50 grand in cash paying lawyers to fight this lawsuit. Yeah, absolutely. It's not going to work. Absolutely. I think there's a certain number that kale will almost jump at it and that, and then this whole thing goes away because he doesn't really.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, it's different if he was on the road and he was still connecting with fans and doing all that kind of stuff. But, you know, he stopped doing that a long time ago. Right. And, you know, he's always been a pretty unsavory character in a lot of ways. Well, he made some pretty vicious comments about karma and about, you know, I'll put a bunch of monkeys on stage just under the name of the guess who just to get back at them and that sort of stuff. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's actually saying,
Speaker: his main reason of having a version of the guess who on the road is just cause it pisses off for income. Yeah, there you go. Exactly. And then he's, he says I'm his karma. So I, I don't know. I don't think Jim actually knows what karma means. If he thinks it's that, but you know, I, I, I think a certain dollar number is going to be mentioned. It might be a lot less than, you know, what kale maybe even wanted 20 years ago, but I do think he has a price.
Speaker: And I think that if they can meet that, they'll have no problem with dissolving the guess who, and he's not going to care that the current guys, Derek Sharp and whoever, all these other guys, immediately they're going to be out of work. I was going to make the point earlier, like with Creedence Clearwater, you know, we saw them, we opened for them. They were called Creedence Clearwater Revisited. So they just kind of morphed into, because Fogarty's not there and they didn't want to make any bones about that. There was two original members.
Speaker: and they just called it something else. So, you know, you could, you could do something like that. Even Colin Weeb, who I referred to, he does a tribute to the Guess Who and they use the biggest word in those tributes is the Guess Who, right? Featuring Colin Weeb in smaller letters and then singing all the songs of Burton Cummings in big letters, featuring Colin Weeb in small letters, right? So there is always a slight of hand in all these advertisements, right? Well, the CCR thing was really problematic for me for a long time.
Speaker: because where I used to work, we had a ticket master booth in our store. So we sold tickets to concerts and people would come up all the time saying, you know, I need, I need, you know, two tickets for CCR. I can't believe they're coming after all these years. And I feel like I would have to say like, well, you know, this isn't quite the same band forward. He's not there. And people would argue with me. Oh, what do you mean? And even at the point out that the R stands for a different word.
Speaker: now than it did before. They were not having it. They're like, this is CCR. They're coming. What are you talking about? Why are you saying these things? I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm not saying that it might not be good or you're not going to have a good time, but this is not the original CCR. They got the guitarist from the cars for God's sakes. And John Fogarty will not be there. They were convinced that I was wrong, even though the ticket
Speaker: Clearly said crease Clearwater revisit revisited revisited yeah yeah cuz i guess said we open for them and they were pretty good that the guy that was singing was no john poverty not by a long shot and the band is okay you know what wasn't great but but again you know you talk about buyer beware. I mean i had a guy come up one time and request a song from clearance clear mountain survival.
Speaker: Yeah, and I didn't even make that up. I said, who? He goes, clear mountain survival. He wants to hear, looking out my back door, he wants to hear bad moon rise and he doesn't care. His ignorance is his own to own, but what are you going to say?
Speaker: Well, I appreciate your thoughts on that. We kind of, uh, we went through the whole sort of gamut. Um, can I ask you one unfair question at the end here? What's your, uh, just to switch gears, what's your position on the Buffy St. Marie controversy? Yeah, that's a, that's a tough one. Yeah, thoughts on that. Yeah, it's, it's a real tough one. I don't, uh, I was shocked when that first kind of, uh, went public and I watched the CBC show and I've been reading a lot of stuff.
Speaker: I mean, it seems that it's true, you know, they're talking about birth certificates and her parents being American with an Italian background. So, you know, it looks like it's true. So I definitely feel for all these indigenous artists who, you know, it's like if you were in any kind of a contest with Buffy St. Marie for an indigenous award of any kind, you were going to come in second or third. Yeah.
Speaker: and she was going to get number one. So she got, I think it was $50 ,000 in a Polaris prize contest. That money could have really helped out a poor struggling indigenous artist or a few of them had it been awarded to them. So it's a, it's shocking news cause I don't really follow her. So I never knew that this was something that was bubbling under the surface apparently for years, but it's pretty incredible. And, uh,
Speaker: I know she's got the Order of Canada and Governor General's Awards and all kinds of stuff. I guess that stuff needs to be taken away from her. Well, I mean, that's, I guess, one option. I mean, the thing is, we're talking in the context of misrepresenting and putting something on stage that you're presenting one way, when in fact it's really the other way. And I never considered her anything.
Speaker: genuine indigenous artist and she never indicated anything otherwise and took awards as being one and and all the accolades and all the you know advantages that go along with it because you know irrespective of what in minority status nowadays is a bonus right because you get to you get an in where you might not otherwise like.
Speaker: Stemming from a lot of ways of trying to empower the people who were disempowered perhaps in the past. Now they give them avenues and opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise had. And she is, what do they call her, a pretendian. That's right. She took advantage of these offers and she's a talent, but that's not the point.
Speaker: I don't know, we'll see, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on that because some people were really defensive and saying, look, you know, leave her alone. She's done a lot for the indigenous community and she speaks for us and represents us. And then other people are going, okay, is there a fact of the matter? What's the fact of the matter?
Speaker: Yeah, and I see that side for a lot of people. Buffy St. Marie was probably the first Indigenous artist that they ever had in the record collection and the first person who brought that culture into their home. So she did do a lot for Indigenous music. But like I said, by taking awards and the spotlight away from real struggling Indigenous artists, she also hurt that community in a lot of really, really
Speaker: Unfortunate ways. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just, I wanted to bring that up because I thought you would have at least been aware of it and looked into it a little bit. Yeah. And it's not over yet. I mean, it's still, you know, there's still some fallout in, like you said, there may be some stuff taken back or rescinded or, or at least adjusted with an asterisk, I suppose. Yeah. Thanks for all your forthcoming insights and stuff. Appreciate it. Yeah. A lot of fun.
Speaker: Many thanks to my guest Robert Lawson for once again being part of the Liner Notes podcast and sharing some insights. More information is available at, he's on Facebook, this side of the tracks. He's got several books out and like I said, the guest who won is excellent, so check it out. And Robert's a great guy informed and a real music buff, so worth checking out.
Speaker: We hope you enjoyed the podcast and invite you to subscribe to it and share it on social media so others can enjoy it as well. And we also invite you to listen to Dusty Discs Radio Tuesdays and Thursdays to hear music from the Canadian artists you're hearing on this show. So until next time, I'm Dan Hare.
