In February of 1967, Bachman,
Peterson, Kale and yours truly headed off
for England to "see if we could make it
over there" ... if we could find success
in England, then surely it would transfer
back home, or so we thought ... the
managerial details for the debacle are
numerous, complicated, and boring, so
there's no need to name names and
conditions and situations ... but in
short, the whole mess fell apart, almost
on the same day we arrived in London.
We had been sent off from Winnipeg with
cheering crowds, front page coverage in
both the Free Press and the Tribune, as
well as radio and press coverage equal to
few in the history of our home town ...
We were off to show The Beatles how it was
done ... period ... and that's the way
Winnipeg sent us off that night ...
"Heroes' farewell" ...
Oh brother ...
Within 48 hours of arriving in the
swinging London of 1967, we found that we
had no record contract, no tour, and no
live gigs ... just exactly how we found
ourselves in this position is a bit hazy
for me, as I tended (by choice) not to be
too involved in the business side of the
group's affairs. I was content to do
the dreaming, and leave the books to other
people ... the business side of things
always bored me to tears ... whereas, some
of the other guys were absolutely
fascinated with the money and the books
... no names, please ... if it looks like
a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks,
chances are it's a duck ...
Somehow, we managed to weasel our way into
recording four songs, if two of them would
be "their songs", meaning the contacts we
still had at King Records and their
publishers. In other words, King
Records would finance a session for us,
four songs, if two of the songs we'd
record would be two on which they held the
publishing ... so from them we got "Miss
Felicity Grey" and "This Time Long Ago",
both decent songs ... the other two the
group decided on were Neil young's "Flying
On The Ground Is Wrong" (which I heard
Neil hated, saying that we'd "gummed" it
up) and a great song of Randy's called
"There's No Getting Away From You" ... the
guys (especially Randy) encouraged me to
do my "Gene Pitney" on No Getting Away,
and if you listen to it nowadays, you can
hear that I'm doing a "slight Gene" ...
the session was over in two short days and
that was that ... our "great conquering of
England" was over ... it took some time to
raise the money to get us all home again
... while we were still there, I tried to
forget about my dubious future, and did my
damnedest to immerse myself in swinging
sixties London ... drank brown ale, played
slot machines and ate steak and kidney pie
at little street shops near Piccadilly
circus ... our per diem was one pound a
day, which at the time was about five
dollars, so we weren't living the life of
success ... just about getting by was more
like it. No money for the great
British clothes and boots of the day ...
Nothing ...
Fortunately, huge cans of brown ale were
cheap and I drank my share of Watney's and
Courage brands ... I was still 19 so this
was highly illegal ... oh my goodness ...
I was at some crazy hostel one night in
Earl's Court and I was too drunk to make
it back to our hotel which was near
Piccadilly, so I ended up crashing on one
of many mattresses in a huge room ... all
over the mattresses couples were shtuping
and drinking madly until well after dawn
... I'd led such a sheltered life under
the strict rules of my mother and
grandmother back home in the prairies of
Manitoba, that all this seemed pretty wild
to me ... now that we have metal detectors
in movie theatres and elementary schools,
it seems tame ... but I was still very
young and naive and it was a much squarer,
more prudish world before the internet
wiped away all taboos ... I guess I just
wasn't prepared to be in a whole room full
of people fucking without a care in the
world ...
After about three weeks of "scraping by"
in London, we returned to Winnipeg, heads
down, tails well between our legs ... our
dreams were shattered and our future was
nowhere. That morning on Bannerman,
when my mother was asking me about all of
it, I sang her "This Time Long Ago" and
"Miss Felicity Grey" on our old piano,
trying to pretend that all was well ...
all was not well ... I had tears in my
eyes while I was singing to my mom, lying
about how great everything was ...
Truth be told, it was almost the end of
the band right there.
We'd incurred so much debt for the trip,
new clothes, amps, guitars, etc. And
shipped it all over there ... we had
almost no earning power anymore, even in
Canada, and we owed untold thousands ...
it wasn't good ... no ... ... it
wasn't good ...
Note: On June 27,
2024, additional information came to
light regarding the trip to England
and was posted to the Manitoba Music
Musuem's Facebook page by John
Einarson, correcting a longheld
misconception that Bob Burns was
responsible for the failed London
trip. Excerpt of
that recent finding may be read HERE.
Then during the late summer of 1967, CBC
Winnipeg television was auditioning for a
new weekly series, and they needed a house
band ... we'd already done some weekly CBC
radio the year before during the winter,
so we had a feel for the weekly grind ...
but television required an entirely
different level of commitment ... and
physical energy ...
In one sense, the CBC saved The Guess
Who. We faked our way through the
audition (an entirely separate story) and
landed the slot of house band for the
series called "Let's Go" ... it came from
a different Canadian city each day Monday
to Friday ... our slot was Thursday ...
first season it was called "Let's Go" ...
We did so well that first year, we were
asked back for a second season ... the
second season the show was called "Where
It's At".
Bachman was already learning about things
the rest of us still didn't know. He
wrote a short "theme" for the show, and
got paid every week for it, separately
from the other three of us ... when the
pace got so hectic we needed charts for a
lot of the songs, Randy and I told
producer Larry Brown that we'd do the
charts, and we did, and both Randy and I
got paid separately from the other guys
for that ... so now I was learning too ...
and I was still only 19. I was
already developing a bit of a killer
instinct, which you definitely need to
survive in show business. Anyone who
doesn't think so should never even
consider getting up in front of an
audience of any kind. You'll never
last without it ... everyday of the week
countless performers get chewed up and
spit out by a business that doesn't find
them tough enough ...
I often wonder what would have happened to
any of us if we hadn't nailed that CBC
television show in the sixties ... fate
moves strangely sometimes. Our
second season of weekly television, Larry
Brown the producer knew that Randy and I
were writing our own songs. Larry
encouraged us to do a few of them on the
show, and one of the ones we did was
"These Eyes". Jack Richardson
happened to see that show and believed
enough in the song to fly us to New York
to record "Wheatfield Soul" ...
Ya never know what's around the corner ...
Peace tonight ...
BLC - 2012 |
