A Photographic Retrospective By John Robert Rowlands

      The Guess Who    

     Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman    

     The Guess Who was Canada's most popular rock band of the 60s and early 70s.    

             The group had its roots in a band called Chad Allan And The Reflections,           

          formed in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1962. That group itself came out of two others,        

         Allan And The Silvertones and the Velvetones. The original line-up of Chad Allan     

         And The Reflections consisted of Allan (b. Allan Kobel; guitar/vocals), Jim Kale (bass),      

       Randy Bachman (b. 27 September 1943, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; guitar), Bob Ashley (piano)     

      and Garry Peterson (drums). Their first single, 'Tribute To Buddy Holly', was released on the    

          Canadian American label in Canada in 1962. Singles for the Quality and Reo     

        labels followed. By 1965 the group had changed its name to Chad Allan and the Expressions     

        and recorded a cover of Johnny Kidd And The Pirates' 'Shakin' All Over', released on       

        Quality Records in Canada and picked up by Scepter Records in the USA.      

It became a number 1 single in Canada and number 22 in the USA.

            Ashley left the group and was replaced by Burton Cummings, formerly of the           

              Canadian group the Deverons, who shared lead vocal duties with Allan for a year.            

            In 1966 the group released its first album, Shakin' All Over. In order to give the impression           

        to potential buyers that the group was English, Quality printed 'Guess Who?' on the cover,        

             prompting the group to take those words as its new name. In 1966 Allan departed      

            from the group. He was briefly replaced by Bruce Decker, another ex-Deveron, who         

               quickly left, leaving the group as a quartet with Cummings as chief vocalist.                     
           Although they faded from the US charts for three years, the Guess Who remained popular in Canada.         

                In 1967 they had their first UK chart single with 'His Girl', on the King label.            

                    A brief, disorganized UK tour left the group in debt, and it returned to Canada,              

               recording Coca-Cola commercials and appearing on the television programme Let's Go,              

                 which boosted their Canadian popularity even further. They continued to release singles in            

                        Canada on Quality, and on Amy and Fontana Records in the USA. In 1968, with financial                 

                         backing from producer Jack Richardson, the Guess Who recorded Wheatfield Soul in New York,                  

                          released in Canada on Richardson's own Nimbus 9 label. The third single from the album,                   

                             'These Eyes', written by Cummings and Bachman, reached number 1 in Canada and earned                   

                       the group a US contract with RCA Records. The single reached number 6 in the USA in                     

                   spring of 1969. That year, the group's second album, Canned Wheat Packed By The Guess Who,                     

                       also charted, as did 'Laughing', the b-side of 'These Eyes', itself a Top 10 hit, and 'Undun', which              

                         reached number 22 in the US. The group's busy year was wrapped up with                         

                            a number 5 single, 'No Time'.                                  
                     In March 1970, the hard-rocking 'American Woman' became the Guess Who's only                

              US number 1 The b-side 'No Sugar Tonight' also received considerable radio airplay. American Woman               

                     became the group's only Top 10 album in the US during this time. In July 1970 Bachman left the group,                     

                 finding the group's rock lifestyle incompatible with his Mormon religion. He resurfaced first with Chad Allan in      

                 a new group called Brave Belt and finally with Bachman Turner Overdrive (minus Allan), which itself - ironically -        

                   became a popular hard rock group in the 70s. A Guess Who album recorded while Bachman was still in      

                 the group was cancelled. Bachman was replaced in the Guess Who by guitarists Kurt Winter and    

                  Greg Leskiw. Another US Top 10 single, 'Share The Land', finished up 1970 for the group.          

               They continued to release charting singles and albums in the early 70s, including 'Albert Flasher'    

               and 'Rain Dance' in 1971, and their Greatest Hits reached number 12. In 1972 Leskiw and      

              Kale left the group, replaced by Don McDougall and Bill Wallace, respectively.         

              In 1974 Winter and McDougall left, replaced by Domenic Troiano, former guitarist of the James      

           Gang. That year, the single 'Clap For The Wolfman', written for US disc jockey Wolfman Jack,       

             reached number 6 in the USA. It proved to be the group's final hit. In 1975 Cummings

              disbanded the Guess Who and began a solo career.            
            In 1979 a new Guess Who group, featuring Allan, Kale, McDougall        

          and three new members, recorded and toured but were not successful.         

              Similar regroupings (minus Cummings) also failed.          

         A 1983 Guess Who reunion aroused some interest and resulted in an album and         

          concert video, and Bachman and Cummings toured together in 1987, although they failed to win large audiences.     

            The new millennium finds The Guess Who again together touring Canada and the United States.       

            The Guess Who, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman photographs by John Robert Rowlands