Rushing in, in the early morning and you're wondering.
Got a minute for another cup of coffee before you run.
And the silver bird is gone,
And you wonder where you belong.
(First verse)
Burton Cummings, I would think is the culprit blowing the ‘pocket piano’ for this distinctive riff on Silver Bird. There is no harmonica credited on the album cover. It’s a ‘C’ harmonica – D4 D3 B2 D1. So simple, but so effective. I’ve recently revived several of my old car cassettes by playing them through the stereo system and this album was a highlight. From memory, I picked this out of a sale bin on the basis of buying a single of theirs many moons before.
‘The Way They Were’ were seven tunes that The Guess Who recorded back in 1970 preparing for a forthcoming album release. It was stopped in its tracks (deliberate pun) when Randy Bachman suddenly left the band. These songs went unreleased for years until in 1976 when RCA and producer Jack Richardson resurrected them and released them on ‘The Way They Were’. It was even rumoured they would have followed up American Woman with a single called Palmyra from this album, which had a similar guitar line to No Time. Here are links to the other tunes from the album; Runnin’ Down The Street, The Answer, Species Hawk, Take The Long Way Home and Miss Frizzy.
Included in my first year of purchasing singles from money earned from my newspaper round, was Albert Flasher by The Guess Who. The song was originally a boogie woogie warm up for Burton’s keyboard fingers. The song came about when Burton had a radio interview in Canada. Cummings noticed the DJ pressing a button on the desk console labeled ‘Alert Flasher’, signifying the imminent return to live air following a news or advertisement break. Under the influence of hoochie smoked prior to the interview, Cummings misread the button as ‘Albert Flasher’. Initially released as the B-side to Broken, it was quickly flipped to the A-side. The tune landed at number twenty eight on the Oz National Charts and peaked as high as number five on the Melbourne Charts.
Other tunes Burton throws a bit of harp on are: Framed, Niki Hokey, Humpty’s Blues (Live) and Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon (Live). Also, if you haven’t before, checkout a couple of personal faves Pain Train by The Guess Who and Burton’s Stand Tall.
Tell me where do you go from here
Where do you belong, my friend?
Tell me where do you run from here
You've been running too long, my friend
(Chorus)
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Harmonica Riff Raff 