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“I saw Keith Richards on TV with Ronnie Wood the other day saying, ‘The new rock bands are terrible. They all rock, but they don’t know how to roll.’ And the interviewer says, ‘What does that mean?’” says Randy Bachman, guitar hero since the ’60s and renowned for not one but two hit-making bands – the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
“Keith said, ‘Rolling means you don’t play to a click track. You get together, you rock out, and you speed up when you get excited. It’s like you're jogging. You take off with a start, you slow down, you get to a pace, you speed up again. Very few bands can rock and roll anymore.’ And the interviewer asked, ‘Which bands do you mean?’ and Keith said, ‘Well, like the Guess Who’ – and he named a couple of other bands like us who play live and don't have a click track.”
Bachman has every right to be proud of his band’s reputation. Like that of his admirer Richards, the Guess Who has a heritage that goes back six decades to the birth of amped-up rock ’n’ roll, building a name along the way for compelling songwriting and fiery guitar playing.
The Canadian group’s heyday might be some years in the rear-view mirror, with the classic lineup doing its best work between 1965 and 1970, but their catalog still has a loyal following, as the reaction to their recently announced Takin’ It Back spring-and-summer 2026 tour has proven.
Not that getting to this point has been plain sailing for Bachman and his long-time songwriting and performing partner, singer and keyboardist Burton Cummings. The Guess Who have been touring for some years in a new line-up formed by the group’s best-known bassist, Jim Kale, doing good business nationwide – until Bachman and Cummings stepped in with legal action. The situation was resolved out of court in 2024, allowing the two musicians to form a new line-up and announce Canadian and U.S. live dates.
“We went after them for false impersonation, fraud, things like that, and then our lawyer and I shut down the publishing from BMI,” Cummings says, with audible relief. “The promoters were told that if they hired this band, they were breaking the law because the band was playing unauthorized, unregistered songs and they would be sued, so the promoters actually shut it down.
“There was a lot of meditation and mediation. It took another year and a half or two years to get that done. Finally, the whole thing was settled.”
Now that the authentic Guess Who lineup has been re-established, fans are in for a treat in May, when the spring portion of the tour kicks off in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Bachman and Cummings, now 82 and 77 respectively but on fine guitar and vocal form, will be backed by guitarists Tim Bovaconti and Joe Augello, bassist Jeff Jones, percussionist Nick Sinopoli and drummer Sean Fitzsimons, delivering songs from their entire catalog.
Shoehorning all the fan favorites into a standard set will be no easy feat, simply because of the band’s long and prestigious history.
The first iteration of this group appeared way back in 1958, when the Winnipeg-based singer Chad Allan formed a local band called Al and the Silvertones. By 1962, the lineup included Bachman, Kale and drummer Garry Peterson and, after a sequence of singles and a change of name to Chad Allan and the Expressions, the local Quality Records label released a cover of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ Shakin’ All Over.
A domestic chart-topper, the single bore the words “Guess Who?” on its sleeve, reportedly because the group’s manager wanted people to think that it might be by a famous British Invasion band working anonymously. The same slogan appeared on the 1965 album Hey Ho (What You Do to Me!); within a year or two, the name had stuck.
True success didn’t come until 1969, when the albums Wheatfield Soul and Canned Wheat yielded the hit singles These Eyes, Laughing and Undun; stardom followed with the immortal American Woman in 1970, something of an anthem for a generation despite some confusion over its lyrics, thought by some to be anti-American.
The American Woman album was a Canadian Number 1 and charted highly in the U.S. and U.K., while the singles No Time and No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature also made an impact.
Bachman departed the band in 1970, somewhat curiously given their newfound success, although he had the last laugh, forming Bachman-Turner Overdrive with two of his brothers and scoring with a series of hits, notably the huge-selling You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet in 1974. The Guess Who continued under Cummings’ leadership until 1975, followed by occasional reunion tours and an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1987.
Thirty-nine years later, the original Guess Who singer and guitarist will be treading the boards together once again, as the two men explain – dropping in plenty of guitar adventures along the way.
![The Guess Who onstage in 2026: Randy Bachman [left] is playing Steve Lukather's lightweight backup Les Paul goldtop](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/svYFWyNH77zgYTdPcWiDRg-1200-80.jpg.webp)
This is set to be a busy year for the Guess Who. How does it feel to be back on the road?
Randy Bachman: My whole year is going to be rock and rolling. I’m really looking forward to it. We kept getting offers and offers and offers, and finally, we got a really good one, too good to refuse, for January in Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls. It sold out in an hour.
Then we got asked to do the Rock and Roll Legends Cruise in February that goes from Florida to Jamaica and back, and then we announced our tour in May, right across Canada, and boom, it’s 80 percent sold out already. The fans are going crazy. [In March we announced] U.S. dates soon for June, July and August.
After that, in September, October, November, I’m touring with BTO. My three brothers passed away during Covid, so I inherited everything. I owned it anyways, but I got no speed bumps in my way to stop me.
How is the Guess Who lineup sounding with the new members?
Berton Cummings: We just did a week of rehearsals in Toronto, and I was just so proud of everybody and very proud of how the songs were sounding. We’re going out to give the music to the people that really want to hear the guys that made the records. And Randy has never played better.
Bachman: Let me say that Burton sounds incredible on vocals. When there’s a song you haven’t played for 30 years, and you play it and it sounds exactly the same as ever, it’s fantastic.
Cummings: What’s great is that there have only been a few bands in history that have had three lead guitar players. I can think of the Allman Brothers and Moby Grape and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and that’s about it as far as well-known bands. And now, last week at rehearsals, here was Randy as the general of a guitar army.
We never had that before in the Guess Who, and the stuff sounds great. Back when we recorded some of these records, Randy did all the guitar parts, so when we played live, we could never sound like the record. Now we can, and it’s very exciting.
No backing tracks needed, then?
Cummings: I don’t like them. We’ve never used them. No band that I’ve been in has ever used them. We brag on stage that everything you hear tonight is being played live. We don’t use machines. I don’t even want to go there.
Bachman: I also think people come to hear mistakes. They know that everything they hear on the radio has been sung or played on guitar 30 times, so they’re hearing a close to perfect record. You see us play live, and sometimes you start in the wrong key, or you play the wrong note, and you go, “Oops.” And everybody goes, “Wow.” It’s like jazz guys improvising. Like in Spinal Tap – play it once, it’s a mistake. Play it again, it’s a cool jazz transition note.
You also play the guitar, Burton.
Cummings: A little bit. Randy taught me just enough guitar to be annoying. He gave me a book with all the chord formations and he helped me learn certain chords, so I switch to rhythm guitar once in a while on stage. I’m not that good, but it’s nice to put on an old Gibson once in a while.
Randy, your treasured 1957 Gretsch 6120 was stolen from you in 1976 and you only got it back in 2022. I assume you’re not bringing it out on the road.
That’s what I played on These Eyes, that’s the beginning of Laughing. It’s the rhythm track on American Woman, but then I put my ’59 Les Paul on top of that
Randy Bachman on his Gretsch 6120
Bachman: No, although I did play that Gretsch on every Guess Who song. It’s a very clean guitar, a big hollow-body. If you turn it up loud, you get an incredible honking feedback, so I use it for rhythm.
That’s what I played on These Eyes, that’s the beginning of Laughing. It’s the rhythm track on American Woman, but then I put my ’59 Les Paul on top of that, which is very thick, sounding like a cello or a viola. They go well together.
That’s a classic ’60s combination.
Bachman: Well, in those days, in the middle and late ’60s, there were no pedalboards. You had an amp, usually a Fender, or maybe a Marshall if you were British, and you got your tones from three guitars.
You had a Gibson if you wanted to sound Clapton-esque, you had a Strat if you wanted to sound like Hendrix, or you had a Gretsch if you wanted to sound cleaner, like John Fogerty. And then if you had a 12-string, obviously it was a Rickenbacker, like Roger McGuinn and the Byrds.
But no, I will not be playing the Gretsch live. It’s never going to leave my house again. It took me 46 years to get it back. If I lost my Gretsch again or somebody stole my ’59 Les Paul, how do you replace that? You can’t.
How did the 6120 come back to you?
Bachman: Here’s what’s amazing. The guy who found my Gretsch, his name is William Long. He did it from facial recognition of the pattern of the wood and my pickguard on my guitar. Since then, he also found Neil Young’s ’59 Gretsch.
I saw Neil two weeks ago; it was his birthday in Malibu. He and I are gonna do a video together where he’s got his Gretsch and I’ve got mine. We’ll play our Gretsches and sing together, because we both got them from the same store, Winnipeg Piano in Winnipeg, back in – holy cow – ’62 or ’63.
Which guitars will you take out in May?
Bachman: It’ll probably be a ’57 goldtop reissue Les Paul. That’s a lighter guitar. I was touring before and I got a call from Gibson saying, “Why aren’t you playing your ’59 Les Paul? That was your sound.” I said, “Well, mine weighs 14 lbs. That’s why I’m not playing it.”
If you put a 15 lb. brick on your shoulder for four hours a day for decades and decades, you’ll have a screwed-up shoulder, and I have a screwed-up shoulder and back, so I only play it sitting down in the studio. And they said, “What would it take to get you playing a Gibson again?”
I said, “Make a lighter one,” and they said, “We’ve got a lighter one, a goldtop ’57. It’s Steve Lukather’s backup guitar. He’s on tour in Japan with Toto and he’s not coming back for two weeks, so we’ll send you his goldtop. We’ll make him another one for when he gets back.” They sent me the goldtop and I’ve been playing it ever since.
Any other guitars in the current arsenal?
Bachman: I was in Nashville at a Christmas party for Kevin Shirley, the producer. He’s a really good friend of mine, and he produced my Heavy Blues album [2015]. At his party, I got to meet Paul Reed Smith, who says to me, “You’re a legend.” I said, “Are you kidding? You’re a legend. You’re the new Leo Fender. You’re the new Les Paul. You’re the new Orville Gibson.” And Kevin Shirley says, “Two legends get together, what are you going to do?”
And I said to Paul, “I’m looking for a lighter guitar, even lighter than my ’57, because I’ve got a back issue. I had my left knee replaced. I’m a cancer survivor. I had four cancers, and I can hardly stand up. I’m learning to walk and balance again.
Standing on one foot and operating your pedals is like tap-dancing, and I can’t do that yet. I’m still building up. I work out every day in a pool with weights.” And he said, “I’ve got a new guitar. It’ll be under 4 lbs.” So I got his number. I’m typing him a letter right now.
Will you be taking an amp and effects out with you?
Bachman: I’m using a Fender amp. I found a guy in Florida who takes the Roland blues pedal [Boss BD-2 Blues Driver], removes the little transistors and puts in military-grade ones, so they’re more stable and more solid. I have two of those. One of those on half will give me a rhythm like the beginning of an AC/DC song.
Has any effects company ever offered to make an American Woman pedal?
Bachman: We did that about 12 years ago. I bought a Tech21 SansAmp, the little black pedal, and then the rackmount, and I'm clicking through the tones on the rackmount and I get to number 48 and it says American Woman. So I turn it on, and I plug in, and it’s the American Woman sound off the record, which is my ’59 Les Paul, a Garnet Herzog amp and an RCA tube mic into a 3M tape machine.
It’s all that distortion and sustain all put together. So I called this guy in New York City and I said, “Can you just take that sound out of there and put it in a pedal for me?” and he said, “We don’t have a casing big enough to put in, so we’ll jam it in an old casing.”
He took what he thought was two preamps in there and put them in the casing, but when I would step on it on stage, it was so jammed in there, it would short out because the switch would be touching the metal. I’d have a roadie crawling on stage trying to push the buttons. Nobody could see him, and he was trying to push the buttons, or loosen it up, so I could get my sound back.
The American Woman solo is a classic. How do you compose your solos?
Bachman: I grew up playing violin, and all you play in violin is lead; it’s a lead instrument. But when I was 14, I saw Elvis on TV and I said, “What is that?” They told me it was a guitar and that this was rock ’n’ roll. I said, “Well, I want to do that, it’s wild.” Elvis was going crazy, and I loved the guitar player behind him, Scotty Moore.
I wanted to play that way. Then I met [jazz guitarist] Lenny Breau in Winnipeg, who was a year older than me, and he could play that way, so I hung out with him for two years. He taught me that if you can sing a guitar solo in your head, other people can sing it in their head.
The simpler you play, the more people will remember it. I can do that shredding stuff, but it just shows people you’re the fastest gun in town. It’s not memorable, so I try to play solos you can sing, like American Woman.
Is it true that you collected hundreds of Gretsch guitars over the years while you were trying to find the original 6120?
My midlife crisis wasn’t a young blonde chick and a red Corvette; it was finding my Gretsch. It became an obsession. I ended up with 350 of them over the years
Randy Bachman
Bachman: It is. This was way, way, way, way back. My guitar was stolen in 1976 in Toronto, so I went to the Ontario Provincial Police and the Mounties, and they said, “Your guitar’s probably gone east to Montreal,” because it was really easy to cross the border then; in the mid-Seventies, there wasn’t a whole lot of border crap going on. Bands would come to New York and then play Montreal and Quebec City and go back into New York.
So, my guitar was gone. I got a letter every month from Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Norman’s Rare Guitars in L.A. and Pete’s Rare Guitars in Minneapolis, saying “Hey, man, we’ve got a Gretsch here that we paid some guy $100 on a trade-in. We want to make $50. Will you pay $150? We’ll send you the Gretsch.”
How come they were so cheap?
Bachman: Nobody wanted Gretsches then. The factory had burned down in Brooklyn. They were being made in Arkansas, and they weren’t made that well, but they looked beautiful. So I’d say, “OK” and send them $150 when I was on tour, and when I got home, there were 20 guitars at my house. I’d open each one up, and it was never my guitar. The years went by, and my midlife crisis wasn’t a young blonde chick and a red Corvette; it was finding my Gretsch. It became an obsession. I ended up with 350 of them over the years.
What did you do with them?
Bachman: I got a call in the mid-’90s from Fred Gretsch and from Duke Kramer, who was the head of his production at the time. And he said, “Do you really have this many Gretsch guitars?” And I said, “Yeah, it’s my obsession, because I still haven’t gotten back my 1957 6120.”
Fred says, “We want to come and see them,” so he comes to my basement, where I’ve got a white wall that’s all White Penguins and White Falcons, I’ve got an orange wall that’s all 6120s and 6121s, and I’ve got a sparkle wall of gold and purple and champagne Sparkle Jets.
He looks at it and he goes, “This is truly amazing. I’ve only been able to make Gretsch drums for the last 10 years, but through corporate shuffling and divorces and people owning the copyright, I can now make Gretsch guitars again, but all my templates are gone. They were burned in the factory. Can I borrow your guitars and we’ll copy them, and then we can put out new Gretsches?”
I started lending him five or six at a time, so every Gretsch that’s out in the world from the mid-’90s onwards is a copy of one I had in my collection.
Which songs are you most looking forward to performing on tour?
Cummings: My favorite Guess Who song has always been No Time. When we do it on stage the people sing every lyric with me. I’ve always liked that song because before that, we had Laughing, Undun and These Eyes, and they were all softer songs. When No Time came out, I think we started getting taken more seriously as a rock band.
Bachman: I’ll tell you this much – I heard No Time on the radio the other day. It sure didn’t sound that old. It’s still pretty rocking. And I always love doing No Sugar Tonight and New Mother Nature together. We do that live, and the people just sing along with every word. It’s amazing.
It’s going to come back to No Time. It’s got everything. It’s got guitars. It’s got great lyrics. It’s got a good melody.
Randy Bachman
What did you think of Lenny Kravitz’s 1999 version of American Woman?
Cummings: I liked the way they put the background vocals in with harmonies. On New Year’s Eve a while back, there was a broadcast of Lenny Kravitz and Prince together, and they were doing American Woman.
Oh, man. Two of my all-time favorite artists, and there they were, jamming stuff that came out of Randy’s head and my head. That was pretty special for me, I’ll tell you. Prince was an amazing, amazing guitar player. The solo he does is incredible. Hey, Randy, were you with us when we played it with Lenny in Toronto?
Bachman: I was there – it was the MuchMusic Video Awards [1999]. At the end, it was cool because Lenny and I were trading vocal ad-libs. It really worked very well.
What's the best song you guys wrote together?
Bachman: It’s going to come back to No Time. It’s got everything. It’s got guitars. It’s got great lyrics. It’s got a good melody. Tailored to a three-and-a-half-to-four-minute single, I think it was a perfect record for us.
Good times ahead, then?
Cummings: Oh, yes. We’ve got six guys singing now on stage. I’ve always been a stickler about the vocals, and I have never heard the vocals sound better in any band I’ve ever been in in my 60 years in the business. So for many, many different reasons, this is exciting and it’s valid, and Randy and I are very happy that all the fake, false stuff is over with. The future looks great for us. We’re coming out to honor the music.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
