#44 These eyes watched you bring my world to an end

By the year 1970, a Canadian rock band had sold more records than the entire Canadian recording industry up to that point. They were even outselling The Beatles.

Yes, England had its Lennon & McCartney; Canada had Bachman & Cummings. But, in the midst of the 1960s British invasion, the first great Canadian rock band almost never happened. You had to be a British band to get played on the radio in Canada. An American band had a slight chance. A Canadian band had none. A single was sent to Canadian radio stations without stating the name of the band. Hand-written on the brown paper sleeve were the words “Guess Who?” Deejays assumed it was a new British group and played the record, and the song became an instant hit. When told that the band was Canadian, however, The Guess Who was blacklisted. Without any radio airplay, the record label sold the group’s recording contract for a mere $1,000. Under the new label, a licensing deal was struck with RCA in the United States, later heralded by them as the beginning of the “Canadian Invasion”. A full-length album of Bachman-Cummings originals was released called Wheatfield Soul. Radio stations indicated they would not support “any inferior Canadian music, especially the new Guess Who record” so RCA hired promotional people in key cities to launch the album’s single “These Eyes” in 1969. The song became a million-selling single in the U.S. reaching No. 3 on the charts. Canadian DJs were surprised at the band’s States-side success, and decided to play it in Canada. Needless to say, it became the 10th biggest song of the year in Canada. And it is our 44th favourite song of all-time by a Canadian artist.

Lyrics

These eyes cry every night for you.
These arms long to hold you again.
The hurtin’s on me yeah,
But I will never be free no my baby, no no.
You gave a promise to me yeah and you broke it, you broke it. Oh, no.

These eyes watched you bring my world to an end.
This heart could not accept and pretend.
The hurtin’s on me yeah,
But I will never be free no no no.
You took the vow with me yeah.
You spoke it, you spoke it, babe.

These eyes are cryin’
These eyes have seen a lot of loves
But they’re never gonna see another one like I had with you.

Summary

Song: “These Eyes”
Album: Wheatfield Soul
Year: 1969
Artist: The Guess Who
Origin: Winnipeg

To view other songs in the Top 50, click on 50 Favourite Songs in the Categories menu on the right-hand column.

 

Recording Certifications (1973-75)

The biggest development in the Canadian music industry in the mid-70s was that the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) began to present various certification awards (gold, platinum, diamond, etc.) to albums and singles that attained sales of a defined number of units. Albums that sold 50,000 copies were certified “Gold”; 100,000 “Platinum”; 200,000 “2x Platinum”; 1 million, “Diamond”. On 1 August 1975, the first three Canadian albums were certified Platinum: Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s Four Wheel Drive, Beau Dommage’s self-titled album, and Paul Anka’s Anka.

 

In the mid-70s, the world was being swept up in ABBA fever. Canadians were taken up in this whirlwind as well but another foreign band became Canada’s favourite and was by far more successful in Canada than in another other country. Its name was Supertramp. Canada’s love affair with Supertramp was to continue on well beyond its retirement in 1982. Two of the band’s albums were to reach diamond status. In terms of homegrown talent, the mid-70s was one of the most productive periods in Canadian music history. The biggest year of the decade for Canadian music was 1974. Three of the Top 10 songs of the year (including #1) were by Canadian artists. But let’s begin with 1973.

 

1973

The two biggest Canadian songs of the year were “Last Song” by Edward Bear (#16) and “Danny’s Song” by Anne Murray (#50). The third biggest was by a short-lived outfit called Skylark (“Wildflower” – #52). The most significant thing about this Vancouver-based band was that one of its members went on to become an internationally famous music producer and composer, responsible for smash hits from such artists as Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Chicago, Josh Groban, and many others. His name? David Foster. We will profile him later on in a special entry dedicated to Canadian music producers.

 

British-born Keith Hampshire never became a superstar but had two big hits in 1973: “Daytime Night-time” and his cover of Cat Stevens’ “First Cut is the Deepest”. Another import from the U.K. was Scottish-born Murray McLauchlan, one of the most significant folk singers of the 70s. He had a big hit in ’73: “Farmer’s Song”. New Brunswick’s French folk singer Edith Butler began composing her own material in 1973 and, with growing recognition (she won a number of awards) and popularity, she found her albums going gold in the 80s.

 

One-hit wonders duo Gary and Dave scored with “Could You Ever Love Me Again”. They were fairly popular in Europe but left the music business to become airline pilots. Another short-lived outfit was The Defranco Family, comprised of five Italian-Canadian siblings. Their debut single “Heartbeat, It’s a Lovebeat” reached #3 on the Billboard charts and sold 2 million copies. They were also successful with “Abra-Ca-Dabra” and “Save the Last Dance for Me”.

 

The real-life brother of hoser “Doug McKenzie” (eh), Ian Thomas got going with the hit “Painted Ladies” from his debut album. It reached #4 in Canada and #34 in the U.S. He’d started out in the band Tranquility Base at the turn of the decade. Several other Top 40 hits followed well into the 80s: “Liars”, “Coming Home”, “Hold On”, “Chains”, and “Levity”. We like “I Really Love You” (a 70s synthesizer ballad) and “Harmony”, both of which received radio airplay.

 

Chilliwack, named after a medium-sized city in British Columbia, grew out of a 60s band called The Collectors. They made the Top 10 in ’73 with “Lonesome Mary” and scored several more hits in the decade culminating in their and #1 hit in the early 80s: “My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)”.

 

1974

“We had joy. We had fun. We had seasons in the sun.” These words typified the year, and the song that housed them, after spending four months on the charts, was not only the biggest of the year but also of the decade; it sold 11 million copies worldwide making it one of the most successful singles of all-time. Previously, we’d mentioned The Poppy Family, consisting of a husband-wife duo who scored two big hits. After their divorce, the husband—Terry Jacks—embarked on a brief solo career, which yielded this one lone hit. It won a Juno Award two years in a row for best-selling single, resulting in Winnipegger Jacks himself being awarded with male artist of the year in 1974. After the success of “Seasons in the Sun”, Jacks moved on to producing for such artists as The Beach Boys, Nana Mouskouri, DOA, and the aforementioned Chilliwack.

 

The third biggest song of 1974 was Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” and the ninth was Paul Anka’s “You’re Having My Baby”. Andy Kim and Joni Mitchell had big hits this year with “Rock Me Gently” and “Help Me” respectively.

 

The Guess Who scored a hit with “Clap for the Wolfman” (#68 of the year). As we’d mentioned, Randy Bachman had left the group. And what was good ol’ Randy up to? Forming his own band. The early 70s was a time of sappy, soft rock, which wasn’t for everyone. The last echoes of harder rock that had dominated the 60s faded out with the retirement of Creedence Clearwater Revival in ’72. But Randy Bachman picked up the slack that same year when he, with brothers and friends, formed Bachman-Turner Overdrive. They began recording in 1973 but it took a year before radio began airing their gearhead, workingman rock. Were they popular? You bet. Their rock anthem “Takin’ Care of Business” continues to be popular today and finished the year ’74 in 66th spot. They did even better with the song that launched arena rock, always a favourite at roller and skating rinks—”You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet”—the 16th biggest song of the year.

 

Believe it or not, there were two bands whose albums outsold B.T.O.’s. Their names? Harmonium and Beau Dommage. Unlike B.T.0. they were each able to achieve multi-platinum certifications for a couple of albums. Three of Harmonium’s albums appear in Bob Mersereau’s “Top 100 Canadian Albums”.

 

Canadian news anchor Byron MacGregor read a newspaper editorial written by Gordon Sinclair about the United States which garnered such a huge response that he was asked to record “The Americans” over the soundtrack “America the Beautiful” performed by The Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The record became a big hit, reaching #4 on the Billboard singles chart and #1 in Canada. It finished the year ’74 in 67th place. It was re-released in 1979 after the Iran hostage crisis and in 2001 after the 9-11 Attacks. The recording has sold over 3 ½ million copies and all of his proceeds have been donated to The American Red Cross.

 

1974 was also the year that saw the debut from new age guitarist (one of the best in the world) Liona Boyd. Italian Montrealer Gino Vanelli realized his breakthrough with “People Gotta Move”. And Diane Juster, after becoming popular via performances of her songs by Julie Arel began to shine on her own.

 

1975

Paul Anka, teamed up with Odia Coates, continued his comeback with three huge hits: “One Man Woman/One Woman Man” (the biggest Canadian song of the year), “I Don’t Like To Sleep Alone”, and “(I Believe) There’s Nothing Stronger Than Our Love”. Bachman-Turner Overdrive also scored a hat trick with “Hey You” (2nd biggest Canuck tune of the year), “Roll On Down the Highway”, and “Quick Change Artist”. The Stampeders had two big hits: “New Orleans” and “Hit the Road Jack”. Quebec’s Michel Pagliaro scored an English hit with “What the Hell I Got”.

 

A newcomer that year was Hagood Hardy. “The Homecoming”, an easy listening tune of great beauty, was the third biggest Canadian hit of the year. Hardy was born in the U.S. as his mother was an American citizen. After studying at the University of Toronto, he played the vibraphone in jazz clubs before recording solo works. Later on, he scored the music for CBC-TV’s “Anne of Green Gables” series. Pianist Andre Gagnon came out with a winning album, Neiges. It became the first Canadian album to reach multi-platinum status in the country and won a Juno Award for Album of the Year. Children’s music got a big boost when Raffi released his debut album.

 

1975 also saw the debut of one of the most popular singers of the late-70s, Dan Hill. This year he scored a moderate hit; his “You Make Me Want to Be” broke into the Top 30.

 

The Guess Who

 

Origins: Winnipeg

Years Active: 1965-1975

 

Primary Members:

 

-  Chad Allan (vocals, rhythm guitar; 1965-66)

-  Randy Bachman (guitar; 1965-70)

-  Jim Kale (bass; 1965-72)

-  Garry Peterson (drums; 1965-75)

-  Burton Cummings (vocals, keyboards; 1965-75)

-  Greg Leskiw (guitar; 1970-71)

-  Kurt Winter (guitar; 1970-73)

-  Donnie McDougall (guitar; 1972-73)

-  Bill Wallace (guitar; 1972-1975)

-  Domenic Troiano (guitar; 1974-75)

 

Genre: Rock

 

Achievements:

 

-  Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1987)

-  Canadian Walk of Fame (2001)

-  2 Juno Awards (Band of the Year 1970 and 1971)

-  30 Top 30, 13 Top 10, and 5 #1 Songs in Canada

-  13 Top 30, 7 Top 10, and 1 #1 Songs in the U.S.

 

Biggest Hits:

 

“American Woman” (1970)

-  3rd biggest song of the year in Canada

-  3rd biggest song of the year in the U.S.

 

“These Eyes” (1969)

-  10th biggest song of the year in Canada

 

Other #1 Hits in Canada:

 

-  “Shakin’ All Over” (1965)

-  “Laughing” (1969)

-  “No Time” (1970)

 

Some Other Hits:

 

-  “Undun” (1969)

-  “Share the Land” (1970)

-  “Hand Me Down World” (1970)

-  “Albert Flasher” (1971)

-  “Rain Dance” (1971)

-  “Runnin’ Back To Saskatoon” (1972)

-  “Clap for the Wolfman” (1974)

-  “Star Baby” (1974)

-  “Dancin’ Fool” (1975)

 

Three shards of irony come to pass. The first hit from a Canadian band to top the American charts is anti-American. Band members leave when the band is at its pinnacle of success. And Canadian radio’s disdain for homegrown talent launches the greatest Canadian rock band of all-time.

 

Winnipegger Chad Allan started up a band in the late-50s called Al and the Silvertones, then Chad Allan and the Reflections in 1962. They released their debut single, “Tribute to Buddy Holly” that year. But it and subsequent singles over the next few years failed to chart.

 

Beatlemania was so huge in Canada that five of the Top 10 songs of 1964 were Beatles’ songs! Probably, in part, owing to this, Canadian radio stations were snubbing homegrown talent. To them, American music was good; British was much better. Canadian music? A joke. Canadian acts who’d moved to the States were played and there were some regional stars and novelty hits. But, aside from their giving the nod to the irresistible Bobby Curtola, Canadian disc jockeys were predominantly anti-Canadian.

 

Meanwhile, in 1965, their name now Chad Allan and the Expressions, the five lads from Winnipeg recorded a rendition of British Johnny Kidd’s “Shakin’ All Over”. Quality Records felt it had potential but that once radio stations knew it was Canadian (and not British) they would not grant it airplay. Producer George Struth invoked a marketing ploy. Promotional copies of the single were mailed to radio stations across the country without the band’s name and with “Guess Who?” printed below the song’s title. It was hoped that DJs would assume they were listening to a mysterious new English band. The strategy worked and the single topped the charts and finished as the 20th biggest of the year. It won an RPM award and hit the Top 30 in both the U.S. and Australia.

 

The name Guess Who stuck and became an ideal moniker, given the number of personnel changes that were to come. The first of these was that, for some reason, despite their success, Bob Ashley and Chad Allan left the group; keyboardist Burton Cummings became lead vocalist. They began churning out a number of hit singles (including three that made the Top 10) in Canada, but were not successful outside the country. This changed with their release of “His Girl” which made the Top 20 in Britain and was their first hit in England.

 

Apparently, when Canadian radio stations found out that the Guess Who were not English but homegrown musicians, they stopped playing their records. And the resulting poor record sales prompted Quality to sell The Guess Who’s recording contract to the Nimbus 9 label for the incredibly low price of $1,000. Big, frickin’ mistake!

 

In 1968 Nimbus 9 signed a $3,000 licensing deal with RCA in the States, later heralded by RCA as the beginning of the “Canadian Invasion”. A full length album of Bachman/Cummings originals was released called Wheatfield Soul. Radio stations indicated they would not support “any inferior Canadian music, especially the new Guess Who record” (JAM Pop Encyclopedia) so RCA hired promotional people in key cities to launch the album’s single “These Eyes” in 1969. The song became a million-selling single in the U.S. reaching No. 3 on the charts. Canadian DJs were surprised at the band’s States-side success, and decided to play it in Canada. Needless to say, it became the 10th biggest song of the year in Canada.

 

The Guess Who’s follow up album, Canned Wheat, resulted in three very successful songs: “Laughing”, “Undun”, and “No Time”. This album is hailed as their crowning achievement by music critics. But it was The Guess Who’s next album, in 1970, that housed their biggest hit, the edgy title track, “American Woman”. Ironically, despite its anti-American themes, it became the band’s only U.S. chart-topper. The Guess Who was invited to perform at the White House before U.S. President Nixon.

 

Trouble was brewing on the horizon, however. Randy Bachman decided to leave the group. An unfinished album They Way They Were was abandoned but released later in 1976 after The Guess Who folded. Bachman first teamed up with another ex-Guess Who member—Chad Allan—before forming the immensely successful Bachman-Turner Overdrive in 1973. Despite several lineup changes, The Guess Who managed to trudge on, continuing to rock their way up the charts.

 

The Guess Who’s next album was Share the Land which scored three Top 10 singles in Canada. They continued with several more hit albums and singles, their last Top 10 being “Clap for the Wolfman” featuring dialogue by renowned disc jockey “Wolfman” Jack. During their lifetime, the band toured extensively. Canadian appearances included annual concerts at the CNE before audiences of up to 20,000. The band, as led by Cummings, gave its farewell concert at the Montreal Forum in September, 1975. Burton Cummings embarked on a successful solo career.

 

In 1997, Bachman and Cummings decided to bury the hatchet and perform together for the first time in more than a quarter century. Two years later, the original members of The Guess Who (Bachman, Cummings, Kale, and Peterson) reunited to perform four songs at the closing ceremonies of the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg before a crowd of 22,000. When they were told that the concert drew a television audience of over 900,000, they decided to launch a reunion tour the following year:  Running Back Thru Canada. Grossing nearly $5 million, it was one of the most successful in Canadian music history. In 2003 they performed a set at the SARS benefit concert in Toronto before an estimated audience of 450,000. The show was the largest outdoor ticketed event in Canadian history.

 

The Guess Who were the ones who made it okay to be Canadian and who proved that you didn’t have to leave the country to make it big. They were the first to have a Canadian hit top the charts in both Canada and the U.S. at the same time, a feat that wasn’t repeated until Nickelback accomplished it 32 years later. The songwriting team of Bachman / Cummings became Canada’s answer to Lennon / McCartney. In 1970, The Guess Who sold more records than the entire Canadian recording industry to that point, even outselling The Beatles. From 1969 to 1975, The Guess Who released 20 million-selling singles. They are, quite simply, rock legends.

 

Rise of the Heavyweights (1965-1969)

In the late-60s Canadian music became a major force and rose as steadily as the so-called British invasion declined. This set up what became known as “The Canadian Invasion” of the early-70s in the United States. The act that spearheaded this invasion was what some consider to be the greatest Canuck rock band of all-time: The Guess Who. But it took some tricks for them to be noticed at all in the beginning.

 

Besides Canadian and American hybrid bands, who churned out some big hits, other purely Canadian outfits emerged in this period. Toronto-based Little Caesar & the Consuls scored hits, beginning with “My Girl Sloopy” which won an RPM award for best produced single. Their song “You Really Got a Hold on Me” (a cover of The Miracles’ 1962 hit) topped the charts in 1965. The following year, they cracked the Top 10 with “You Laugh Too Much”. Also big in 1966 was “The Merry Ploughboy” by the Carlton Showband. Douglas Rankin & the Secrets ate up the charts with “(Clear the Track) Here Comes Shack”. This novelty song, which charted for nearly three months in Toronto, peaking at #1, was about hockey star Eddie Shack who played for the Leafs.

 

1967 was Canada’s centennial birthday and the biggest Canadian hit came from the short-lived band The Ugly Ducklings; their “Gaslight” was the 7th biggest song of the year and the second most popular Canadian song of the late-60s. The Lords of London also had a major hit with their “Cornflakes & Ice Cream”.

 

In 1969, eight of the Top 100 songs of the year, according to Toronto’s CHUM radio, were by Canadian artists. Besides aforementioned selections, The Poppy Family scored with “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” It won Song of the Year at the Junos and sold over two million copies worldwide. They had another big hit two years later: “Where Evil Grows”. The Poppy Family, like Ian & Sylvia, was a married duo who divorced a few years after success came. The husband, as a soloist, scored one of the biggest international hits of the 1970s; we’ll talk about Terry Jacks later.

 

In terms of solo artists, the most successful of the late-60s, perhaps, with several hits, both domestically and internationally, was Andy Kim. His first big hit was “How’d We Every Get This Way” (1968). The following year, “Baby I Love You” did even better, finishing in 20th place in the year-end charts. And let’s not forget to mention that it was Kim who co-wrote one of the biggest-selling singles of all-time: The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar”. Claude Dubois scored an everlasting hit with “J’ai Souvenir Encore”. This gifted performer and Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee has enjoyed a lengthy career. The godfather of French Canadian rock appeared in the late-60s. His name: Robert Charlebois. Following suit was rock ‘n roller Michel Pagliaro who released a string of hits at the end of the decade and crossed over to the English-speaking market in the ’70s. The only other soloist worth mentioning is Barry Allen due to the success of his song “Lovedrops” in 1966.

 

Canadians continued contributing to the world of country thanks to Stompin’ Tom Connors and showed no signs of slowing down in the flourishing folk music industry. Two of the greatest folk artists arose in the late-60s, both of whom have been inducted into the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their names—Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.