It’s Turntable Tuesday…because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off and listen to some music! Live music is best, analog is great, digital if you have to but crank up the speaker and make some noise! Let’s get right into this weeks’ feature album.
If you would like to listen to my companion podcast you can listen here or subscribe for free on any of the streaming services you use. My podcast is easily searchable on any streaming service where you get your podcasts by searching “Andrew Talbert.” Look for the World Wide Music Media logo.
Tune in this week for a podcast with special guest drummer Garry Peterson of the Guess Who as he talks about the history of the artwork for the album and what is going on for the Guess Who’s 2021 tour. Andrew will also talk track by track and share some stories about the 1971 release “The Best of The Guess Who Volume One.”
I start the story this week in Meridian, Mississippi where I lived on 52nd Avenue which was the last street before you reached open grassy fields and the surrounding woods at that time in the “neighborhood.” Meridian Junior College was in the distance if you rode your bike through the woods on trails that the kids in the surrounding houses had blazed through kudzu vines that could grow a foot a day in the red clay. Southern pine trees grew all around these trails as you made your way over to a local recently-built “strip” shopping center. This was the same cluster of stores that one time had a theater where I went as a 5th grader alone to see the movie “Concert for Bangladesh.” I’ll tell that story sometime as I have the vinyl album package!
Back in the early 1970’s there were glass liter bottles and 12 ounce glass bottles that were returnable for a deposit just like today in many places. At this very young age I had figured out how to collect bottles from local spots where passing cars would toss too many of these things along the ditch on College Drive. The Safeway in the shopping center would give you cash for these bottles and I was known to haul a few in for some cash from time to time and save the proceeds for music I wanted to add to my collection whether it was a seventy-nine cent 45 RPM recording or the holy grail at that time which was the “album.” I was also a young business man willing to mow a yard if the opportunity presented itself in the blistering hot Summer sun to buy a record. That was most of what I wanted even then as I was very young as most of what I did in my time when not in school was to read stacks of books and listen to music. I remember scratching a few bucks together over time and riding my bike over to the local discount store “Roses” to drool over the album rack and check the prices. Soon I had enough money to buy my first two records which were Carole Kings’ “Tapestry” and “The Best of the Guess Who.” I bought both of them on the same day and took them home. I still have those copies in my collection but honestly I haven’t seen them in a while. One day I will try to organize this collection of vinyl but it is not on the 2021 plan. By the time I bought these records I had a really cheap second hand “stereo” with a turntable and AM FM receiver in some fake Spanish styled wood in my bedroom. This was a cast-off my from my Dad’s finance business located in downtown Meridian next to Peavey’s Melody Music Company on 22nd Avenue where Hartley Peavey started Peavey Electronics.
By the time I was listening to my new records I had even managed to get my hands on some headphones from Radio Shack that allowed me to listen late at night without anyone hearing the music. I can remember more than once going to sleep with headphones on in those days. Soon I knew every word and song on this best of this “Best of the Guess Who” record.
This album has been released in many formats which of course are usually 2 channel stereo vinyl pressings. This album was also released by RCA in a 4 channel quadraphonic version, 8-track tape, as well as cassette. This album was even released at one point on reel to reel tape! There was also of course cd versions including Super Audio CD as well as a later remastered vinyl version. I asked Randy Bachman a couple of months back about new vinyl presses for the Guess Who and the Bachman Turner Overdrive albums as many of our collections consist of early presses and some have a bit of age-related damage. For the record (pun intended) I asked Randy via a Facebook question which was answered on a You Tube live stream of Bachman and Bachman’s “Friday Night Trainwreck” which I have faithfully watched 39 times without fail on Friday Night. Back to the question…Randy looked right into the camera and said that some new special vinyl releases in the form of box sets are in the works and on delay due to the pandemic. I am really looking forward to these new vinyl packages as I need to get some good clean copies of my old favorites. More to come on those as more information comes out.
I am not going into great detail here about the album as there is a great deal of material online about this particular album. I will dig into more details as I go through track by track on the companion podcast and add a story or two. I will say the pandemic prevented me from seeing my first live show with Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman in Chicago in 2020. I had plans to attend a show there and I will not relent until I get to a Bachman Cummings show if I have to fly to Canada. I have never had an opportunity to see these talents in a live setting but I want to be there and tell the story afterwards.
That’s all I have for you this week. Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.