Randy Bachman - Randy Bachmans Vinyl Tap Stories

Randy Bachmans Vinyl Tap Stories

Randy Bachman

VIKING CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright Randy Bachman, 2011

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Bachman, Randy, 1943 Randy Bachmans Vinyl tap stories / Randy Bachman.

ISBN 978-0-670-06579-0

1. Bachman, Randy, 1943 Anecdotes. 2. Rock musicAnecdotes.

I. Title. II. Title: Vinyl tap stories.

ML420.B113A3 2011 782.42166092 C2011-904612-1

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Contents

Introduction

Born and raised in a prairie town

Just a kid full of dreams

We didnt have much but an old radio

Music came from places wed never been

Growing up in a prairie town

Learning to drive in the snow

Not much to do so you start a band

And soon youve gone as far as you can go

Winter nights are long, summer days are gone

Portage & Main fifty below

Springtime melts the snow, rivers overflow

Portage & Main fifty below

PRAIRIE TOWN BY RANDY BACHMAN

Radio was my lifeline as a kid growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s. It connected me with the wider world outside our little prairie city and offered me my first introduction to rock n roll and the guitar sounds and styles I wanted to play. Radio gave me my lifes direction. Its been a constant for me no matter where Ive lived.

Long before MTV, MuchMusic, the internet, or iTunes, teenagers tuned in to their radios to hear the message of rock n roll. And I was one of them. Whether you grew up in a big city like Toronto or Vancouver or a little town in Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia, Im sure you can all remember the first time you heard rock n roll on the radio. Growing up in Winnipeg, the first time I heard it was on the two local radio stations, CKY and CKRC. And because Winnipeg is located at the top of the Great Plains, I would go to bed at night with my little rocket radio and tune in to WLS in Chicago, WNOE in New Orleans, or places far away like Shreveport, Memphis, or Wichita that sounded exotic to a prairie boy. These stations played rock n roll. The next day at school, the topic of conversation among my friends was along the lines of I picked up Des Moines, Iowa, on the radio last night and they played Rock Around the Clock! My parents would yell at me to turn my radio off and go to bed, so Id take it under the covers and carry on with my nightly ritual. Just like kids nowadays surfing the internet, in the 50s I surfed the radio dial. I remember hearing Chuck Berrys School Days for the first time and being completely blown away. Id never heard guitar like that.

But unlike most teenagers, I went from listening to the radio to being heard on radio, making records that would actually get played by a deejay. You cant imagine the thrill of hearing yourself on the radio for the first time.

Playing in a band in Winnipeg, I got to know many of the local radio deejays at CKY and CKRC, guys not much older than me like Doc Steen, Boyd Kozak, Dino Corrie, Daryl B., Jim Christie, PJ the DJ. They were cool because they got to talk on the radio and play records, the records I loved to hear. So even though I was playing in a popular band, making records, and becoming well known, I still envied them and their gig. (Who knows, they probably envied me for being in a band.) They got to spin the discs and do all the platter chatter. But I never dreamed that one day Id be on the radio spinning those discs and sharing my stories.

In more recent years, I used to listen to Finklemans 45s on CBC Radio when I was home on a Saturday night. Danny Finkleman was a fellow Winnipegger and often told stories about growing up in the North End of the city, the area I came from. Id met him once or twice at the CBC in Winnipeg when the Guess Who was the house band on CBC-TVs Lets Go back in 196768. But when I heard he was retiring, I thought to myself, Why would anyone want to quit playing records and talking once a week for a couple of hours? Who wouldnt kill to have that gig? So I told my wife, Denise, Whats so hard about doing what hes doing? I could do that. And I love to share my stories and experiences.

Like a lot of events in my life, things just happen. No master plan or calculation; they just happen. I owe as much to serendipity as I do to premeditation in my career. Three of the biggest hits Ive been associated withAmerican Woman, Takin Care of Business, and You Aint Seen Nothing Yetall sprang from happenstance, a moment in time. Ive learned to accept that when opportunities present themselves, you have to grab them because they dont come around again. So I decided to take a shot at being a radio deejay on CBC. Trouble is, I had no idea how to go about letting the powers that be know that.

I wrote a letter to the CBCno one specific, just the CBC explaining my concept, and I gave it to one of the technicians when I was a guest on Stuart McLeans Vinyl Cafe radio show. He later passed it along to Jennifer McGuire, at the time the head of CBCs English-language radio programming. Heres what I wrote in the letter:

Dear CBC Radio,

Im a big fan of CBC Radio. This past Saturdays show of Finklemans 45s I noticed that Danny said he was retiring. I would love his time slot, and my proposal is that I play music from my own record collection and tell personal stories about the artist, song, etc. Instead of Finklemans 45s you could call the show Randys Rockin Records or Randy Bachmans Vinyl Tap, like Spinal Tap.

from Randy Bachman

Jennifer contacted me and thought the idea was terrific. So we arranged a demo of the show just to see how I would come across on the radio. At the first session I was all over the place, yelling Whoa! Yeah, baby! Lets rock! like Wolfman Jack, and speed-jiving like crazy. It was way over the top, and CBC producer Chris Boyce suggested I simmer down a bit. After all, its an early evening show. When I was a kid in Winnipeg, CKY had a smooth-talking deejay named Richard Scott who spoke in this low, sexy, resonating tone to all the housewives every afternoon, cooing, Hello, kitten. Relax. Light up a cigarette. Its just you and me. So I tried that approach, but they thought it was too mellow. We did several more attempts at finding the right voice, pacing, and style for the show until we finally hit on the right formula. The trick was to tape the shows after dinner when I was a bit mellower and laid-back. No shrieking or hushed whispers.