Burton Cummings (born December 31, 1947) is a Canadian musician and songwriter. He was the former lead singer and frequent keyboardist for the Canadian rock band The Guess Who. During his 10 years in the band, from 1965 to 1975, he sang, wrote or co-wrote many hit songs including “American Woman”, “No Time”, “Share the Land”, “Hand Me Down World”, “Laughing”, “Star Baby”, “New Mother Nature”, “These Eyes”, and “Clap for the Wolfman”. His solo career includes many hit singles including “Stand Tall”, “My Own Way to Rock”, “Fine State of Affairs”, and “You Saved My Soul”. (More from Wikipedia)
That brings me back to the original topic at hand: If Germans and Dutch could fluently speak the language of rock and roll, how much easier is it for Canadian rock musicians to blend in seamlessly with the larger rock world. Canadian rock stars are common, even if not everyone knows that they are Canadian: Neil Young is a long-time favorite of mine who is from Toronto, Ontario; the Guess Who, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, had numerous hits in the 1960’s and 1970’s and had a spinoff band as well called Bachman-Turner Overdrive, with lead singer Burton Cummings also having a lucrative solo career; Steppenwolf evolved from a Canadian rock band called the Sparrows (Mars Bonfire, a former Sparrow wrote their massive hit “Born to be Wild”); and the band that Janis Joplin headed for her final album, Pearl (after she left Big Brother and the Holding Company), the Full Tilt Boogie Band is from Stratford, Ontario. Even the seemingly quintessential American band called The Band was actually composed of Canadians with the exception of Levon Helm; they once released a single under the name the Canadian Squires.
(April 2013)
