Track Listing: 1) C'mon Little Mama; 2) Vancouver; 3) Never Trust a Chorus Girl; 4) Raisin' Hell on the Prairies; 5) Sweet Young Thing; 6) Keep on Shining; 7) Moon Wave Maker; 8) Laid It on Me Anyway
Personnel: Jim Kale (bass, vocals); Kurt Winter (guitar, vocals); Don McDougal (guitar, vocals); Vance Masters (drums, vocals)
For my money, bar none, the greatest Canadian rock band ever was/is The Guess Who, with due nods to acts like The Tragically Hip, Rush... hell, The Guess Who is even better than Serial Joe! Anyway, the period we usually refer to as their golden years were from the late 1960's to the early 1970's, when Burton Cummings was the front man. No self-respecting Canadian can get away without being able to sing along to at least one of their hit singles.
After the band dissolved in the mid-1970's, someone at RCA nonetheless decided to get the band back together. And "The Guess Who" did record a few more records. I put the band in quotation marks because hardcore Guess Who fans usually wrinkle their nose at this outfit, from which Cummings was glaringly absent. Instead, bassist/vocalist Jim Kale became the front man, and although on a couple of tracks, he's trying really hard to get his voice into the upper register to try to fill Burton's long shadow. This album isn't great, but nor is it the sacrilege that Burtonites will have you believe.
One can always find used records of The Guess Who at any second-hand music shop- it's Canada, right? But finding one of the Kale albums is a discovery, predominantly because they took a quick hike to the delete bins, and only occasionally resurfaced "used". The greatest sin GUESS WHO'S BACK commits is of course trying to fill Burton Cummings' shoes, and it's not a bad attempt, really. Despite Kale's thin voice, there are nice harmonies that are signature to the sound, and Kurt Winter's guitar solos are as ear-splitting and show-stopping as always.
Other than that, the music is amiable at best, even if the ambition was rather modest to begin with. Tracks like "C'mon Little Mama" or "Raisin' Hell on the Prairies" are indicative of the usual good time party rock that fills a thousand albums. Gone is the intensity, the firey youthful lust, and the autmnal mourning. For its day, GUESS WHO'S BACK would be the perfectly undemanding, vacuous soundtrack from someone's 8-track deck while travelling on a lonely Canadian highway searching for the next Tim Hortons. Today, it's an also-ran.
Tightwad rating: *** /5
Happy record hunting!
Love,
The Doctor
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