Customer Reviews

The Guess Who - Greatest Hits

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Despite losing immediacy 30 years later (the Guess Who's first hits collection was released in 1971, near their artistic and commercial peak), RCA/BMG's remastered 1999 "Greatest Hits" is the clearest-sounding, most generous one-disc set from the classic Canadian rock group.

Bill Lacey, credited here with "audio restoration," successfully freshens and brightens the group's familiar, diverse string of 1969-70 hits: the lush ballad "These Eyes," the jangly "Laughing," and 1970's superb two-sided hit "No Time"/"Undun," showing off lead guitarist Randy Bachman's respective jazzy and heavy rock guitar styles. Then again, few songs have aged more poorly than the clumsy protest anthems "Share The Land," "Hand Me Down World," and the pretentious, Psalm-quoting "Hang On To Your Life." (Michael Hill's well-researched liner notes show the group craving the FM radio cache' these message songs brought.)

While most attention went to songwriters/group leaders Bachman and Burton Cummings, the remastering plays up Garry Patterson's surprisingly assured drumming on "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature" and the Guess Who's signature hit, the #1 "American Woman." (This CD features the rarely-heard acoustic intro missing from the 1971 best-of).

The CD's second half covers the period from Bachman's 1971 exit to the original Guess Who's 1975 breakup. Their studio output here was less interesting or successful, but highlights included 1973's bright "Star Baby," the bouncy "Albert Flasher," the moving pro-ecology "Guns, Guns, Guns," and late 1974's jaunty 50s rock tribute "Clap For The Wolfman." But you also get the deservedly obscure "Heartbroken Bopper" and their sorry group-written reggae try, "Follow Your Daughter Home."

Longtime fans may have invested in the two-disc anthology "Track Record" or the group's CD reissues on RCA's Buddha label. But this Guess Who "Greatest Hits" offers superior sound, and enough of it, to be a definitive value for casual listeners and anyone enjoying late-60s classic rock oldies.

For many years, The Guess Who have been represented by a series of incomplete anthology albums. "The Best of the Guess Who" for example had all of the great Randy Bachman era tracks, but ignored later classics like "Star Baby" and "Clap For the Wolfman." Then there was "The Greatest of the Guess Who" which included those latter two but inexplicably dropped "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature." Now all those great songs are finally together in one place. The Guess Who achieved a kind of hard rock artistry during Bachman's tenure and and level of successful campiness later on in their career. The two styles are quite different, and the highlights of each are all here. Any fan of classic rock should own this album.

When one mentions the best rock singers of all time, how come Burton Cummings' name doesn't come up? All the evidence exists on this disc that he was one hell of a singer, delivering some of the greatest vocals to some of the greatest songs ever. Perhaps because The Guess Who was seen as a Top 40 group has kept him from his due? Let's start with one of the top three songs ever put to tape, "These Eyes." This masterpiece has all the ingredients of a timeless song - moving bass line, masterful strings, catchy rhythm, and the pained vocal stylings of Burton. Elsewhere, he shines on "Undun," "No Time," and elevates the standard "American Woman" to legendary, something that Lenny Kravitz had no chance of doing. Kudos to the compilers of this for going with the full length version of "American Woman" - the intro is absolutely essential to its impact. I don't forsee The Guess Who ever making it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but let's at least recognize one of the greatest voices in rock and letting these timeless tunes wash over us in AM ecstasy!!

Every day someone else says rock is dead. Every year someone writes an article about rock being stale, lame, overcooked, half-baked, stupid, too male, not male enough, or just plain sucky. As long as The Guess Who get radio play these people will have a place to go to get their fix. In their day the Guess Who were not well received by critics and I'm sure it's partly because they sounded like they were having fun. They had the unfortunate task of competing with Zeppelin, Hendrix, Lennon and others that achieved rare heights. The Guess Who stomped out some hits. Big hits.
Laughing, She's Come Undone, No Sugar/New Mother Nature, these are timeless jams that make people feel calm. They make people remember not to take rock so seriously.
So they aren't Springsteen. Who cares? They aren't Alice Cooper. Every time I put this on I don't want to take it off. It gets the blood flowing.
Don't forget about this wonderful band.

Picked this up a week ago and haven't regretted it...despite my bias (I'm a Canuck), I would rate Burton Cumming's voice in the top 5 of rock vocalists...good lyrics, words you can actually understand and competent instrumental backup from the band. Best of all for me, it brought back a major rush of memories of my youth!

THE GUESS WHO-GREATEST HITS: For the Guess Who fan that craves a near perfect collection of ALL their radio staples, plus just a tad more, this is the one to beat. More comprehensive than THE GREATEST OF THE GUESS WHO or THE BEST OF THE GUESS WHO, yet not as longwinded as their double disc anthology, this 18 track sampler includes all the Randy Bachman era biggies as well as the later Kurt Winter gemstones. Keyboardist/lead belter Burton Commings emotes with arena rock ferocity on righteous ravers NO TIME and AMERICAN WOMAN, yet croons with unbridled passion when needed on THESE EYES and LAUGHING. He also contributes snazzy flute to B-side-gone-smash UNDUN, on which Bachman adds delicate axe colorings, much as he did later on B.T.O.'s jazzy LOOKIN' OUT FOR NUMBER ONE. Even the last gasp hits (STAR BABY, CLAP FOR THE WOLFMAN, DANCIN' FOOL) are good ones, and in between you get the singalong shoe-ins SHARE THE LAND and HAND ME DOWN WORLD, not to mention cautionary tales such as FOLLOW YOUR DAUGHTER HOME and GUNS, GUNS, GUNS. Though lacking thier first chartbuster SHAKIN' ALL OVER, one spin of THE GUESS WHO'S GREATEST HITS will make readily apparent why they are truly one of Canada's most important exports.

RATING: FIVE GUESSES

In 1999, we saw the release of another Guess Who compilation, but upon closer inspection, this album was essentially the total package, containing every hit you could ever have wanted, and if you only had merely a passing interest in the band, you needn't even try to look for their original albums. And it was a hard search.

This compilation may very well be the most complete and perfect collection of any band's greatest hits CDs ever produced. Plain and simple: many bands have greatest hits collections, and pretty much all of them are flawed in some way. I mean it's true you cannot please everyone but as far as GUESS WHO GREATEST HITS goes, like I said above it is the [almost] perfect collection. What do I mean by this? Check it out:

Where is "Glamour Boy"? I'm sure quite a few would agree that this song is worthy of being included here. I know ANTHOLOGY has the single version, but it wouldn't have been too hard to stick the album version on here, as most of these tracks are around the 2-4 minute mark anyway. The other matter is I would have enjoyed seeing "Shakin' All Over" but that was a different era for the band, and it's OK with me they chose to focus on the Burton Cummings material, as it is the superior choice.

In addition to the plethora of great songs you have in the liner notes a great bio of the band that chronicles it's activities from it's earliest beginings to their final show (without Bachman) in Fall of 1975. I don't own any other GW compilations so I can't say if any of the others have a bio, they probably do, but since this is the only compilation I will own, it makes an [almost] 99.9 % perfect compilation. Of all the compilations out there, consider this one seriously as deserving of your money. 15/18

With a flurry of best-selling rock hits over a short spate of several years, the Canadian group "Guess Who" topped the charts and were on the "A" list for concerts and gigs. Then, seemingly as quickly as they had burst on the popular music scene at the close of the 1960s, they were gone, evaporated from the scene as the group disintegrated and went in several separate directions at the same time. Yet there is no denying the sheer hit-producing power they possessed, or the magically rock music they left behind as a memory of their brief flirtation with super stardom. Many of their best hits are here, from "These Eyes" to "Laughing", from "Undun" to "No Time", from "No Sugar Tonight" to "Hand Me Down World".

Yet, there are many more worthwhile cuts on this collection. Also included here are some provocative lyrics and social commentary, as with both the songs listed above and some of their most memorable work, as in "Hang Onto Your Life", Share the Land", and their most phenomenal and most enduring song, "American Woman", which was a thinly disguised broadside at the blatant hypocrisy of American values in the face of the Vietnam War and the widespread social injustice so controversially debated in the late 1960s, about the time of the urban riots across the country. Incidentally, they used the euphemism of the "American Woman" to illustrate how Lady Liberty, the Statue of Liberty standing in New York City's harbor, was a hypocritical symbol of an arrogant America gone crazy. It is song that is consistently played, and one many of us hear almost daily. Nice collection of the hits of one of the best groups to have come out of the turbulent sixties. Enjoy

If you are only going to own one Guess Who album, this collection is the one to get. All their greatest are here on one disc. I also own the 2 cd "Track Record: The Guess Who Collection" which is twice the price. I have only listened to disc 2 once; "Star Baby" is the only decent song on the entire disc. I would also recommend the recent live album, "Running Back Thru Canada". The band is in fine form and Randy rips off some killer BTO tunes too!

One reviewer bemoans the fact that Bus Rider was not included in this RCA release, but that can be explained by the title of the album which indicates these are their "greatest hits." In other words, those singles of theirs that made it into the Billboard Pop Hot 100 from 1969 to 1974 on RCA Victor. Bus Stop (which I also like very much) was the uncharted B-side to Share The Land, their 9th such hit and a # 10 in late 1970 on RCA Victor 0388.

I say 9th hit because, actually, the group did have their first back in 1965 with the # 22 Shakin' All Over (b/w Till We Kissed) on Scepter 1295, the label founded in 1959 by Florence Greenberg and the long-time home of Dionne Warwick. Up to that point the group had been known as Chad Allan & The Expressions, and when they submitted the demo tape they attached a note saying "Guess Who?" and it was at that point that their band name was changed. They likely penned that note because their rendition was almost an exact copy of the British hit by one major band over there that never became part of the British Invasion - Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.

But, this being an RCA release, it was unfortunately left out of this volume. Their first for RCA was These Eyes, a # 6 in May 1969 b/w Lightfoot on RCA Victor 0102, followed later that summer by the two-sided smash Laughing (# 10) and Undun (# 15 on the Adult Contemporary charts and # 22 Hot 100) on RCA Victor 0195. They then closed out that year with No Time, which peaked at # 5 in January 1970 b/w Proper Stranger on RCA Victor 0300. Then, that spring, they scored their second two-sided hit and only # 1 when American Woman reached the top spot on RCA Victor 0325 b/w No Sugar Tonight (regarded as a "follow-along" hit in the Billboard scheme of things).

To this point, the group (lead vocalist Burton Cummings, Chad "Chad Allen" Kobel, vocals and guitar), Jim Kale on bass, and drummer Gary Peterson), also included guitarist Randy Bachman, who left at this stage to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Before Cummings joined in 1966, the group also included pianist Bob Ashley. Bachman had two replacements - guitarists Kurt Winter and Greg Leskiw.

Late in the summer of 1970 this new gathering scored with Hand Me Down World, a # 17 Hot 100 on RCA Victor 0367 b/w Runnin' Down The Street, followed in the late fall by the above-mentioned Share The Land/Bus Rider. In late January 1971, Hang On To Your Life began its climb to # 43, their lowest charter to date on RCA Victor 0414 b/w Do You Miss Me Darlin'? Then, in late spring, they had their third two-sided hit when Albert Flasher got to # 29 on RCA Victor 0458 b/w Broken, a # 55 and, for reasons known only to producer Paul Williams, omitted from this compilation.

Late that summer Rain Dance topped out at # 19 b/w One Divided on RCA Victor 0522, and in December, Sour Suite hit a bit of a sour note as it could only get to # 50 on RCA Victor 0578 b/w Life In The Bloodstream. The struggles continued into 1972 as Heartbroken Bopper could only manage a # 47 on RCA Victor 0659 b/w Arrivederci Girl, Guns, Guns, Guns could get no higher than # 70 in June on RCA Victor 0706 b/w Heaven Only Moved Once Yesterday, and that fall Runnin' Back To Saskatoon, recorded "live" in concert, just barely made the Hot 100 at # 96 on RCA Victor 0803 b/w New Mother Nature (the A-side is also left out of this volume).

Leaving the group in 1972 were Kale and Leskiw, replaced by guitarist Don McDougall and bass player Bill Wallace, but the changes showed only modest improvement in their hits fortunes as Follow Your Daughter Home stalled at # 61 in February b/w Bye Bye Babe on RCA Victor 0880 for their only hit in 1973, the same year that Domenic Troiano, former guitarist with The James Gang, replaced both Winter (who would pass away at age 51 in December 1997) and McDougall.

That paid dividends of sorts in early 1974 as they returned to the Top 40 for the first time in over a year when Star Baby peaked at # 39 b/w Musicione on RCA Victor 0217 and then, a few months later, Clap For The Wolfman - which included a few bits of dialogue by legendary DJ Wolfman Jack - hit # 6on RCA Victor 0324 b/w Road Food. Their final hit single then came late that year when Dancin' Fool finished at # 28 b/w Seems Like I Can't Live With You, But I Can't Live Without You on RCA Victor 10075.

The band disbanded in 1975. Much of this is detailed in the 5 pages of liner notes written by Michael Hill, although there is no proper discography of the contents (which is why I gave that extra information in this review).

With the exception of those two minor hits, this is how a "greatest hits" compilations needs to be done.