We all know the big Guess Who / Burton Cummings Hits that crossed over from Canada to be on American Top 40 and Billboard Charts.
In NW Ohio, Toledo and Detroit we were able to pick up the powefull radio station CKLW the Big 8 at 800 AM (now broadcasting out out of 580 AM CKWW).
That meant we would hear Canadian artists and songs that didn’t get much play in America. Burton Cummings and the Guess Who would be one of the bigger artists that we would hear.
So here are several little known or not played often Guess Who songs.
Orly:
Follow Your Daughter Home:
Running Back to Saskatoon:
Rain Dance:
Sour Suite:
Loves Me Like a Brother:
Rosanne:
When the Band Played “Shakin’ All Over”:
Solo Burton:
I’m Scared:
Fine State of Affair:
Your Backyard:
Did you ever hear these? Take a listen if you haven’t.
People my age may remember this song. “The Lord’s Prayer” by Sister Janet Meade. On the fiftieth anniversary of the song and at Easter we will remember it.
When our church, St.Catherines in Toledo, Ohio was trying to start a guitar /folk mass,( something a lot of churches were doing at the time) this rock version was climbing the charts to No. 4 in April, 1974. Do you remember?
About once a year I pull out my CD of TJ’s 40th anniversary: the complete singles list.
I play it in my car for a week or so front to back and then go back to repeat many favorites.
Of course Crystal Blue Persuasion is still my No. One song after all these years, so that song gets played a few more times.
But there are four love songs that Tommy has recorded that just bring back so many memories.
One is appropriately called “Love Song”. No matter how many times I play it, the opening intro takes me back to August /September 1972.
The same goes for ” Boo Boo Don’t cha be Blue. The opening notes take me back to February and March 1973 when our local stations WOHO 1470 and WTTO 1520 AM played them it’s seems all the time despite the fact they didn’t climb very high on the charts.
Tommy’s delivery, voice , production the memories connected with them , the time of my life, everything just make these two songs the highlight of my collection. It also helped that a different girl crush was connected to each song.
“She ” is another love song that resonated in my life. Around Christmas time 1969 memories.
And last but not least is Tommy’s love song from “Hi Fi” : “You Take My Breath Away”. Tommy was talking about his “next” album at a concert in 1985. He played “Go”. I looked for it nearly every week for several years. I gave up looking.
Then in an interview with Tommy on the Dick Bartley oldies show, they played his new song “Go” on Labor Day weekend 1990.
The album was only on CD at the local record stores. I didn’t have a CD player yet and had to order the cassette tape, since vinyl records were on the way out in 1990.
“You Take my Breath Away” turned out to be the new love song to my future wife, Barb. And it was played on a local radio station a few times.
Recently I’ve been hearing a song by the Cranberries. “Dreams” stands out for several reasons, first I remember it only played on certain stations as like an “indie band”. And not played very often. It wasn’t on the Top 40 stations or on Casey’s countdowns.
Second back in 1999 or 2000, my late friend, Jim Cendrowski, was telling me about this great new band he heard on a coworkers tape player /CD player.
I can’t for the life of me remember how he described the music or the band but I said sounds like the Cranberries and they weren’t new. He couldn’t believe I was familiar with them. Their two single were in 1993 so not new by any standards.
At his memorial I mentioned his favorite groups. Lobo, Lynyrd Skynyrd s- Free Bird from the 70’s, John Mellencamp from the 80’s and Bare Naked Ladies and the Cranberries from the 90’s.
Third item: the Cranberries songs Dreams and Linger are played more now than in 1993 and on more station genres than ever.
I think of James Cendrowski often when certain songs come on. Miss you Jim, and your antics and your company chasing frogs, bugs and mantids. I was telling the younger Metroparks naturalists how you and I were some of the early Frog Monitoring volunteers back in the 1990’s before the early onset Alzheimer’s showed up in 2002 to eventually take his life at 48.
He passed in February 2004.
RIP Jim. I understand your buddy Larry “bird” Lutz, RIP ,has recently joined you. And the lead singer of the Cranberries ,Delores O’Riordan, RIP, has joined you.
Unusual Perspectives 