Randy Bachman says it doesn't feel like 50 years since The Guess Who's "American Woman" became the first single from a Canadian band to go number-one in the U.S.
He tells the Toronto Sun, "No, it feels more like, I don’t know, 10 years... It feels like it’s in the past obviously but it sure doesn’t seem like five decades."
Guitarist Randy Bachman explains who the “American Woman” is
“We had just gone through the whole ‘60s being Canadians in the United States and second-hand witnessing Vietnam and the draft situation and what was going on in America. And at that time the American woman to us meant the Statue of Liberty and what it stood for. And basically at the time it was the war. So that’s why we were screaming, ‘Stay away from me. I don’t need your war machines and I don’t need your ghetto scenes. It was not the normal healthy good looking American woman you see walking down the street, who is no different from an Australian woman or Canadian woman or anything else. It was the Statue of Liberty.”
Touring at the height of Vietnam War protests, Bachman recalls, "there were no guys in any town from Iowa to Texas to California between 18 and 35 [because of the war]... So we’d pull into town...and it was like Stepford Wives. We were like the Stepford Guys. No matter how ugly we were or how fat we were, we were like guys between 18 and 35, and all the women were like nuts."
Bachman says the song's famous groove was basically a happy accident on his guitar after changing a broken string. "I started to tune and started to play that riff and everybody’s heads snapped around and looked at me and I thought, ‘Oh, my God. I can’t let this go.'" With their set temporarily on hold, frontman Burton Cummings was killing time on the piano and then the flute and harmonica. And when Bachman yelled to sing something, his first words were, "American woman, stay away from me!"
Later covered by Lenny Kravitz and Kelly Clarkson, "American Woman" spent the second, third and fourth weeks of May 1970 at number-one.
Bob Seger celebrates a milestone today (Wednesday) -- his 75th birthday.
Born in Detroit on May 6th, 1945, he broke onto the national scene in 1968 with "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man," and then launched a half-dozen years as a singles-chart mainstay with "Night Moves" in 1976.
He has sold over 53 million albums and earned 13 platinum and seven multi-platinum discs. A Grammy winner, Seger is a member of both the Rock & Roll and Songwriters Hall of Fame,
Seger completed his final tour last year, but is open to doing more shows -- just not long tours.
Here is Bob Seger on what he tries to achieve with his songwriting.
"I'll tell you honestly, I've always tried to write something that had some germ of universality. You know, I've felt that way, I've been there, I've known that person, whatever. And that's what I strive to do. I think that's what every artist strives to do is strike a familiar chord with people. If I've been able to do that, great. It's pretty amazing, knock wood. It's very flattering. I'm glad the stuff has held up."
Bob Seger says he had no idea whatsoever at the time he wrote it that "Turn the Page" would eventually become one of the most popular songs in his catalog.
“I thought it was a rather oddball song and I thought it was a rather narrow appeal song. I thought truckers would love it. Traveling salesman would love it -- people who were on the move a lot, people who travel a lot for a living. And it struck a chord with people. So I don’t know what people take from them, but I’ve always tried to write something that had some germ of universality — I felt that way, I’ve been there, I’ve know that person, whatever.
Former Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward turns 72 today. The song "War Pigs" came out of a an on stage jam. The band came up with the anti-war anthem's riffs during onstage jam to a sparse audience. The song became one of their most well known. Guitarist Tony Iommi explains how it happened.
“We used to play a lot of places in Europe seven three-quarter hour spots a day, which was a lot of work every night of the week for however long you were there. And it was so boring, ’cause you’d have like two people in in the afternoon and you’d think, ‘Oh, God,’ and you’d got to go and play the set. So we just used to make things up and I used to make riffs up. And ‘War Pigs’ was one of the ones I made up. We basically put that song together while nobody was in the clubs. We were just jamming.”
Mick Mars was born on May 4th, 1951, he turns 69. Heart-stopping talkbox guitar "stuff" from Mick Mars takes the place of a traditional solo at the end of Nikki Sixx's song about about the time his heart actually stopped "Kickstart My Heart". The second single off Dr. Feelgood, following its Top 10 title track, "Kickstart My Heart" peaked at number-27 on the Billboard Hot 100 It was nominated for a Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy and its video for an MTV Video Music Award. Crue bassist Nikki Sixx wrote the song about a now-legendary drug overdose, during which he was actually declared dead for two minutes only to be revived by a couple of shots of adrenaline in his heart. Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars on "Kickstart My Heart.”
“When I was first playing it, it didn’t have any of the licks in, and I started putting a bunch of licks in it and stuff. Then I decided, ‘I don’t want to do a normal solo in this,’ so I did it with the talk box and at the end I just started playing all this stuff -- all these solo things over the end of the song with the talk box. And I remember [producer] Bob Rock going, ‘Jesus, Mars’”
Ronnie Wood's first performance with The Rolling Stones was 45 years ago, on May 1st, 1975, when the band announced their Tour of the Americas from the back of a moving flatbed truck in New York City. (Ronnie's first full concert with the Stones took place on June 1st, 1975 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was also his 28th birthday.)
Here is Ronnie Wood on The Rolling Stones performing on a flatbed truck on May 1st, 1975 in New York City.
"I remember going down Fifth Avenue and seeing [Alice Cooper's manager] Shep Gordon come around the corner with his briefcase going to work, and all the police are going, 'Get me tickets. Get me tickets.' And I'm going, 'Where you want to come to Madison Square Garden? Get your own tickets.' You know, it was really funny."
It was Charlie Watts'sidea to announce their tour in that way. Here is Charlie Watts on The Rolling Stones performing on a flatbed truck in New York City on May 1st, 1975.
"Playing in the middle of the street I thought was fantastic. It's like they do in New Orleans. That was the best one."
TOMMY LEE is fed up with so-called "fans" who ask for his autograph, only to turn around and SELL it. He even tries to personalize things so they're harder to resell. But he just posted a picture on Instagram of a drum head that he signed . . . and the guy rubbed out his own name so he could sell it. In the caption, Tommy said:
"Just wanted to do a public post saying that I'm done doing Fan mail . . .I'm done taking my precious time to have people eBay my signature. There are literally hundreds. Hundreds of hours wasted. I thought I was doing the right thing by addressing the fan mail to people by their names so that they wouldn’t be re-sold online, but now people are being so shady that they are whiting out their names and reselling on eBay. Those of you that got a signature, I hope you enjoy it & appreciate it, and those of you that are selling can go [eff] yourselves!!!"
The SCORPIONS had a huge hit in the early '90s with "Wind of Change" . . . which is about how the Soviet Union was changing and opening up at the time. It was SUPPOSEDLY written by lead singer KLAUS MEINE, who was inspired by how much different Russia seemed between gigs there in 1988 and '89. I say "supposedly" because there are people who believe it was actually written by the CIA as Cold War propaganda. (???) And now there's an eight-part podcast coming out that tries to determine if that's true. The CIA tried to off Castro by hiring the Mafia and it failed...it's hard to believe they could write a sensitive song.
It's called "Wind of Change", and it's hosted by Patrick Radden Keefe, an investigative journalist from "The New Yorker". He says, quote, "I've had so much fun pursuing this crazy story over the course of a year, exploring the dark byways of Cold War history and doing nearly a hundred interviews in four countries with rockers and spies. I can't wait to share it with the world."
"Wind of Change" hits Spotify on May 11th.
Klonk talked to Mike Abramson from the Hartford Yard Goats to talk about baseball and community service.
One, the CD compilation of all The Beatles' British chart-toppers, was certified Diamond for 10 million copies sold in the U.S. on April 28th, 2005. "Love Me Do," the lead track on One, was first released in the U.S. on April 27th, 1964. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1964, over a year-and-a-half after it was first released in the U.K. "Love Me Do" was the A-side of the first Beatles single released in the U.K. In an archival interview, George Harrison recalls how it felt to hear it over the airwaves for the very first time.
"I remember first hearing that song on the radio. That was the best buzz of all time. We knew it was gonna be on tonight. 7:30 Thursday night it's gonna be on Radio Luxembourg. And we all listened in, and that was 'wow!'"
Original KISS lead guitarist Ace Frehley was born on April 27th, 1951 making him 69. The third single off KISS's self-titled debut album, "Strutter" didn't receive much love from music buyers or radio when it first came out, but it became a classic cut as the band's legend grew. Original lead guitarist Ace Frehley says one thing that makes the song great for him is the way they recorded the guitars.
“The thing with ‘Strutter’ that makes ‘Strutter’ a cool song is that I’m always doing octaves of what Paul Stanley’s doing. Paul’s playing a low chord, I’m playing the inversion, y’know. That was something I did with Paul a lot over the years, and it made the song sound thicker.”
