Burton Cummings: A Few Good Moments

Burton Cummings is that rare artist who transcends time, genres, and generations with a body of work that continues to resonate through the decades with fans both old and new. Still at the top of his game as performer, singer, songwriter, and recording artist, Burton will be bringing his talents to Saginaw’s Temple Theatre on August 9^th as part his current A Few Good Moments Tour.

As lead singer and songwriter for Canada’s original rock ‘n’ roll superstars, The Guess Who, Burton scored an unprecedented string of international hit singles and albums including “American Woman,” “These Eyes,” “Laughing,” “No Time,” “Share the Land,” “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature,” “Clap for the Wolfman,” “Albert Flasher” and others, all written or co-written by Burton.  By 1970, The Guess Who had sold more records than the entire Canadian music industry combined before breaking up in 1975.

The group achieved a long list of firsts including first Canadian group to reach #1 on Billboard charts -- holding that spot for three weeks -- and first to earn a platinum album for U.S. sales of more than one million copies.  Rolling Stone magazine hailed The Guess Who as “one of rock’s most consistently fascinating maverick bands” with a succession of songs “that has few equals among contemporary North American groups.”

Beginning his career as a solo artist in 1976, Burton continued his winning streak with a gold record for his solo debut single “Stand Tall,” produced by legendary hitmaker Richard Perry. He followed his inaugural solo success with more than a dozen hit singles and albums including “I’m Scared,” “My Own Way to Rock,” “I Will Play a Rhapsody,” “Timeless Love,” “Break It to Them Gently,” “Dream of a Child,” and “You Saved My Soul.”  Sold-out tours across Canada and the United States solidified Burton’s stature as a top entertainer, earning five Juno Awards for Best Male Vocalist and Best Album.  Burton’s 1978 album Dream of a Child became the first quadruple platinum-selling album by a Canadian artist.

As the VOICE of all The Guess Who hit songs, Burton has toured with his long-time band, for the past twenty-four years across North America as well as joining Randy Bachman onstage as Bachman Cummings, performing songs from The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Burton’s solo career.

Described as Canadian rock ‘n’ roll royalty, a national treasure, and a living legend, for Burton Cummings there has always been one constant: he remains true to himself and his own way to rock as he continues to perform his songs live in concert with his band.

Fresh off the release of his new album A Few Good Moments, Cummings continues to tour with his band, captivating audiences with live performances of his timeless songs. Recently The REVIEW had the pleasure of sitting down with Cummings for this exclusive interview and found him to  remain true to himself and his own way to rock — a constant that has always defined his illustrious career.

REVIEW: I’d like to start at the beginning of your journey into this magical and often intensely competitive world of popular song and am curious how you first got involved with music and what sparked your interest to pursue it as a career?

BURTON CUMMINGS: I was always a big fan of the radio when I was a kid growing up in Canada and we had great radio in Winnipeg. There were three AM radio stations and they were all competing for the same audience so when Randy Bachman and I started writing songs we were exposed to everything that was coming out.  It was just great and I think when we first entered into songwriting, the fact we grew up in Winnipeg and were exposed to all this music made a huge difference. Winnipeg was really the Rock n’ Roll capitol of Canada at that time. It was the place to be.

REVIEW:  That’s so cool!  So can you tell me what artists inspired you the most and informed your sensibilities as you were cultivating your talents and your whole approach to songwriting?

CUMMINGS: Definitely, I think Fats Domino was the biggest influence on me. I liked all the piano players that sang - artists like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Plus, I also loved early Elvis Presley before he came back from the army.  We were just very lucky. One of the radio stations in Winnipeg was a 50, 000 watt Clear Channel station, so it was a pretty big deal and people were hearing this music all over that part of Western Canada, not just in Winnipeg.  We were exposed to really good A.M. radio and that's what I was weaned on - those artists creating these great three minute songs is what I grew up on and what inspired me.

REVIEW:  It's my understanding that 3/4 of the original Guess Who came from this band out of Winnipeg called Chad Allen & the Reflections and their first hit was ‘Shakin’ All Over’, only they changed their name in 1966 when you joined the group.  Can you tell me how you came to join the band?

CUMMINGS:  Yeah, I was in this band called The Devrons and we were one of the most popular local bands in Winnipeg. We all played together one night opening for Gerry & the Pacemakers when they were headlining a show in 1965, so it was right around the height of Beatlemania days. I went on with The Devrons first and then the Chad Allen band followed, so they all saw me perform that night. Because Chad was going back to university they were going to need to replace him, so after they caught me perform that night is when they made their decision to bring me into the band. I was performing in front of 20,000 people that night and was still only 17-years old, so I guess they were impressed.

REVIEW: One of the things I've always loved about your work with The Guess Who is that it had these really catchy lyrical hooks, but they were colored with these Jazzy flourishes that carried this shimmering brilliance none of the other pop bands of the time were doing, apart from The Zombies. Once you joined The Guess Who the sound became so iconic and groundbreaking because it blended jazz, folk, and pop sensibilities, but yet later it got harder and more political with songs like ‘American Woman’ and ‘Share the Land.’  At what point did you realize the band could achieve something really special and totally unique?

CUMMINGS: Well, I think my mind-blowing day was when we got the phone call from New York that American Woman had gone number one on Billboard, and that was pretty unusual for a bunch of guys from Winnipeg, you know? It stayed there for three weeks and the flipside was No Sugar Tonight, so we had a double-sided number one single that stayed number one for three consecutive weeks.

REVIEW: How did you feel when all of this happening?

CUMMINGS: It’s funny, but I always knew I was going to be successful. From the age of fourteen when I was in my first band, I never walked around thinking that we weren’t going to make it. That’s just the way I was wired. I always dreamed we would make it and then when The Beatles happened, we believed that even more. It really was a magical time.

REVIEW: After this incredible flourish of success that lasted until 1975, you and Randy Bachman decided to leave the band, which had to be a difficult decision to make, but what was it that prompted you to depart in order to pursue a solo career, especially with this amazing string of hits you guys had cultivated?

CUMMINGS:  The Guess Who had turned into a Fusion band.  We made a huge mistake getting Domenic Troiano as our lead guitarist and that just never worked out. He wanted to do Fusion music and didn’t like the singles we had. It was the biggest mistake we ever made and we never should have brought him into the band.  I had seen Peter Gabriel leave Genesis around that time, and Neil Young had left to do a solo career, and I thought maybe I’ve got a shot at this so decided to also pursue a solo career.

REVIEW: That was an incredible lexicon of hit songs you created with The Guess Who, but then you went on to have another string of hits as a solo artist, which is kind of rare in the sense you have these famous front men like Mick Jagger and Brian Wilson go solo, yet never really register that level of popular success with their solo work as you’ve managed to achieve. So what do you feel distinguishes your talent as a songwriter that makes it register so strongly with fans & critics apart from your work with The Guess Who?

CUMMINGS: Oh gosh, I don’t know - I’m not that existential. I don’t sit around and think about what I achieve very much because I’m always thinking about the way I am now, or the next album, or future songs I want to write. I’m always thinking about the future and don’t sit back to think about what I accomplished so much.   Although, I’ll tell you this much, I still love the two hours on stage that I spend while touring. Those two hours are the best part of my life. We do a great two-hour show, it’s full of hit records, I have a tremendous band and that’s what keeps me going.

REVIEW: How does the creative process work for you with your songwriting - do you develop a strong hook or melody line first, or do you shape the music to fit the lyrics?

CUMMINGS: Nope. I have no method to my songwriting. Every song I’ve written has come about differently. Sometimes I’ll get a title and work from there, sometimes I’ll get just a hook or an idea for lyrics, sometimes it will be a melody and sometimes just a simple thought.

The new album is called A Few Good Moments and there’s a song on it called Arrogance that I like very much because I never created it to be a song with two verses and a chorus and an instrumental bridge; it’s just a thought that I set to music, so that’s a good example of non-regular run-of-the-mill songwriting. It was just an idea that I put to music. It’s shorter than an ordinary song, but it got my point across, so that’s a good example. I don’t have a songwriting method. I just get inspired and run to the piano and like to keep it simple.

REVIEW: What do you think is the biggest challenge for an artist in terms of evolving their music when it comes to songwriting, as opposed to falling into the trap of repeating themselves over and over?

CUMMINGS: I think the most important thing is to write your own stuff. You have a little bit of control over your future, but if you don't write your own material, you have no control over your future. A  big artist who didn’t write his big hits was Elvis Presley, or guys like Kenny Rogers. They never wrote anything and when the song writing machine runs dry around them their careers are more or less finished, so my advice is try and write your own stuff. That way you have a little bit of control over your future.

REVIEW: Let’s talk a bit about your new album. It’s gotten great reviews. What are some of the goals and directions you’re striving to achieve with your new music?

CUMMINGS:  Honestly, I’m not going in a specific direction at all. I’ll tell you the big difference for me now is that I’m not writing teenage love songs anymore. I’m writing more about having lived longer and experienced more and what’s going on in the world around me. That’s where I’m at right now.

.REVIEW: You’ve had an opportunity to collaborate with a lot of amazing musicians.  I caught you perform with Ringo’s All Stars in the mid-90s with Todd Rundgren, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmidt from The Eagles. What was it like touring with Ringo?

CUMMINGS: It was terrific. We went around the world in a private plane for about nine months and Nils Lofgren and Dave Edmonds were also in that band. It was terrific. We had eight singers and two drummers and four guitar players and there was no music we couldn’t reproduce. There was nothing we couldn’t do.

REVIEW:  I’ve got one more question for you. When you look over the expanse of your career what are the memorable moments or highlights that kind of stand out the most in your museum of recollections you will never forget?

CUMMINGS: Well, there are so many, but one of the first things I can think of was when I was on the Dinah Shore show and one of her other guests that day was Ray Charles. They sat me next to him and I got to talk with him for the whole afternoon. He had been a childhood hero of mine and it was phenomenal to get to sit and talk to him for a while.

There are so many different things, you know.  I lived in L.A. for a long time and I went to The Forum and saw these fabulous live shows. I saw Queen when Freddie was still healthy. I saw Bowie there. I saw The Eagles there. I saw so many great acts at the L.A. Forum, so that’s a great part of my memories from my younger years.

I never did get to meet Marvin Gaye, who is one of my all-time favorites and I never did meet Fats Domino, which I really regret.   Other than that, I’ve met most of my musical heroes. I sat and talked with Frank Zappa for about half-an-hour and nobody gets to do that, so I’m very happy about the people I’ve managed to meet.

REVIEW: Anything else you might want to touch upon that I haven’t mentioned?

CUMMINGS: I hope you check out and listen to the new album and enjoy it. I hope everybody takes a chance to at least listen to this album. As you noted, it’s getting tremendous reviews from the critics and I’m very proud of it. Thanks for chatting and stay safe!

Burton Cummings ‘A Few Good Moments Tour’ comes to The Temple Theatre, 201 N. Washington Ave. in Downtown Saginaw on Saturday, August 9^th at 8:00 PM. Tickets are available at the Box Office by visiting TempleTheatre.com or by phoning 989-754-7469. Tickets start at $47.65.