Burton Cummings: the Canadian Man behind "American Woman"

cry every night, Oh you, these are told. It was nine and for a while the guests who were as big as it gets, and if you're Canadian, they're even bigger, the first huge Canadian rock and roll act, paving the way for border crossing superstars from Arcade Fire to Justin Bieber and Nickelback. It was a long road from rec hall rehearsals in Winnipeg to the top of the world, though even at thirteen, the precocious Commings got a taste of glory when he wasn't in home room bands. When

they reach a certain level of fame, everything changes. I know when I was in my first band, I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen, still living at home. We were treated like the Beatles. Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, it was like a whole other world. And Monday morning back to high school and back to normal, back to earth. When you at that level, it's wonderful. It's all music. It's not business yet, it's not pressure yet, it's not peer pressure.

It's just pure fun for the sake of the music. Then I got into the guests who I just I wasn't quite eighteen yet. The guess who was already huge in Canada. They had had shaken all over and they had toured with the Turtles and Dionda Mucci, and they had toured with Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown and all these famous people to be the King's Men doing Louis Louis. And they had toured with all these people, and they phoned me. I was still seventeen, and they asked me

to join the band. You grew up with your mother, mother, mother, and grandmother. My dad was a useless drunk who beat the hell out of my mother when I was about ten months old. It was a bitterly cold night in Canada, Christmas time, about thirty below. She grabbed me, blood all over her, ran down the street a half a block to where my grandparents lived and got me out of that hell. You remember that, I remember, seriously, I do. I wasn't even a year old yet, and I remember

when the police came. My mother was covered in blood and my grandmother and grandfather were freaking out. And I remember it was Christmas time and the police. I was crying like crazy and the policeman gave me a tiny little candy cane. And they say, you can't remember stuff past two or three years old. That's not true. I remember it very very clear. He gave me a little

candy cane to stop me crying. And I never saw my dad again till I was about twenty three, and I only saw him once, and he was a pathetic drunk. Even twenty three years later, he was a pathetic and came back Alec I had a wall full of gold records. He came back when I was twenty three and asked me, can I get you something? Do you need a pair of pants? That's you know what what Mark Twain's Mark Twain said once the difference between fiction and fact is

that fiction has to make more sense, you know. That's for me, that night was like playing a really bad part in a soap opera. It was awful. But when you were a child and you're growing up with your mom, your musical from the get go. When from when you're a little kid. Bless my mom's heart. She started me on lessons when I was five. I've and so by the time I was eight or nine, I play. I played piano. I was a piano pianist from day when I took classical lessons. You know. I at one time

I could play Rockman and off Beethoven. Whatever you put in front of me, I could site read it the way you and I can read words. Can't do that anymore. I used to be able to, but I can't do it anymore. But I you know, the funny thing was, I had a wonderful piano teacher, but when I started falling into Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino and a little Richard, I wanted to be a pounder, you know.

And she was so against that. Man. She she wanted to straight ahead Beethoven and rockmaninoff and you know, for release and all the wonderful classics. So there's nothing wrong with that, but man, I wanted to I wanted to rock a bit, you know. She was against that. You did play the sacks. I played sacks. Yes, I learned how to play sacks. I bought a sacks. I bought a sax for twenty bucks from a guy in West

Caldonan in Winnipeg, and I figured out the fingering. And I listened to Johnny and the Hurricanes and the Rebels and some of the other saxophone groups and figured it out myself. Now here's a weird thing. I didn't know. Nobody ever bothered to tell me that the fingering was the same on a flute. So years later, we're doing this record cause she's come undone, which got a lot of airplane. There was a flute solo in the middle Undone.

That's me on flute, and and and the funny thing was I had been playing sacks for a few years already, and we were opening a Yamaha store in Winnipeg and they were selling flutes, and there was a flute in the glass case. So Randy Backman, the famous Randy Backman, taking care of business. You ain't seen nothing yet bt O parts. At that time, he and I were together, and he after the guests. Yeah, but he and I

wrote These Eyes and all those things together. So we're sitting waiting, waiting to do our show at this Yamaha store and there's a flute in the glass case, and we love this group called Traffic. They had a flute player named Chris Wood and we love Jethro telling me flute was coming into rock and roll. So Randy says, look, man, you of Traffic, and Jethro told there's a flute right there. Why don't you learn how to play it? I said, but I don't know the fingering. The Yamaha guy says, well,

the fingering is the same as a sax. I said, you're kidding me. I grabbed it as soon as I got the aperture right and could make a note with my lips. I played it on stage that night. Oh my goodness, you had an instinct as a musician, you said, instinct. Backman bought me a little book about chords, and he said, you damn well learned how to play rhythm guitar. And about three weeks later I was playing rhythm guitar. Mcgever, you're like the mcgui music. Get it all done. I

just I like all instruments. I would love to be able to play a trumpet or a horn, but I just don't have the lips for that. But Chet Baker and stuff like that. When you're seventeen years old. Now, granted you're you're you're mostly in Canada, performing in Canada. When you guys don't break out into the US, into your how old sixty nine? I was a twenty These Eyes when These Eyes came out, I was twenty, so

that was a monstrous record. And when when when you're in the band in your seventeen years old, the first thing they asked you to was what played keyboards and woodwins and everything. I joined basically as a piano player and a background singer because they still had chat Allen in the band of the front man. And he he's saying shaken all Over, which was a pretty big hit. Right when he left? Why did he live? He went

back to university. He wanted to He didn't trust show business, you know, And I had my teachers tell me the same. Can you believe it? Alec, my my high school principle, told me show business isn't a profession. Can you believe that? They did have a point. That's a dinosauric type. I said to you know what my response was, I said to him, tell that to Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, or Paul McCartney. But show business isn't a profession. But

he was ridiculous. But you also have the great pleasure of music is something that you can you can enjoy completely on your own. Burton Cumming is considered a keyboard at home and get real pleasure and real joy from myself out playing music. Music can be very self fulfilling and it's it's very very cathartic sometimes time. So if I'm stressed or something. Sure, Now when you're seventeen and they call you and you come in and do that, then he leaves to go back to university, are you

the front man? Then they can be suddenly I'm singing everything. Were you a singer prior to that? Well acquire as a boy in the yes. As a matter of fact, I was in the Anglican Church choir for three or four years. My real training, if you could call it training, my vocal training came in high school. I did the tenor lead in HMS Pinafore and the following year was trial by jury. And as you would know as an acts are a huge, huge undertakings. It's not just a

bit of singing. It's you know, I am poor in the essence of happiness rich only in never ending unrest and me there meet a combination of antithetical elements at eternal war with one another objective influences, you know Gilbert and Sullivan. Man, it was pages and pages of dialogue. Then you'd break into a song. So I did all that at fifteen and sixteen. That's pretty good training. So they knew you good thing when you came on board. Oh, I think so, and the and the Devrons before I

was in the guests who the Devrons? We were? We were kind of breathing down their neck. But we were the young guys in town in Winnipeg, so there was a nachalon and we had worked our way up to probably be in the second or third best next to them. They were so much better than anybody else. Now, can you I don't want to, I don't want to treat you like some kind of a jukebox here, but can you play for us? We just so, it just so happens. We have a keyboard, beautiful. That thing in front of

you is a yama. No, can you play for us? What's the song you would play when you were with what was the name of the group Devrons? Playing oh, well, we were we we did all kinds of stuff. Um I I would try and do things that other singers weren't singing. In other words, I would try and do something like this. They asked me how I knew my

true of them was true. Ones reply, something here inside cannot be denied, stuff like that where they're not everybody has the chops to get those notes, you know what I mean, Or or things like, um oh, those Walker Brothers records. Remember the Walker Brothers. If you really love him and there's nothing I can do, don't try to

spare my feeling. Just tell me that went through. And I was trying to do the more complex songs and ballads and everybody else was just doing and bone him and ron I was trying to make our band a little bit different. And I noticed that we were getting more female attention from these big ballads because not everybody can do. I mean, you saw what what Elvis fans. They would go lose that. And I read what you wrote about love songs when they recorded American Woman, those

ballads or what Live on Forever. Well, the funny thing was these eyes. I mean, that's a goodness gracious. Can you imagine being a twenty year old white boy from Winnipeg, Canada, from the Prairies, and you have this monstrous record called These Eyes. In nine. Radio is still segregated at this point, very very segregated. What happens? Junior Walker and the All Stars, one of the biggest acts on Motown, record These Eyes, and they have their own hit version of it the

same year as ours. Randy Backman and I were flabbergasted. This is a hero of mine. He had Shotgun and Shaken Finger Pop and Cleo's Mood, and he had a million hit records of what does it Take to Win Your Love for Me? This was Junior recorded your song. He did These Eyes and he is went top ten in Billboard the same year as ours because he got played in urban areas where our whitebread version didn't necessarily move in. So when you're with the first band, the Devrons,

are you songwriting them? I tried and tried and tried. From the time I was fourteen or fifteen, I tried to be a songwriter. I was so enamored with First of all, before the Beatles, in the British invasion, there were wonderful writers. You know. Jerry Goffin Carol King, Thomas and Schumann, Lieber and Stoller, Bert Back, Iraq and Hall David, all these incredible songwriting teams. And I was such a fan of the writers. Then when I got a little older, I was more of a fan of the writers that

that's sang their own stuff. And then Bob Dylan came along and he was all his own incruis Paul Simon, Yeah, and then you know Paul and John, I mean, forget it, And that's that you're downgrading yourself as a writer when you get into the guests who in these huge monster songs. If you're these beautiful songs, did you write them with with with with Randy? Yeah? Randy and I we wrote these Eyes in about twenty eight minutes. It wasn't you

got more skillful at writing songs. And I think we were good for each other because he was a guitarist. I was a pianist, so the yin and yang bounced off each other. I would show him piano riffs sometimes, he would show me a guitar riff sometimes. And we did a song called No Time, which was a very big record, and I know that one too. I love that one because I'll tell you why Alex you sang no Time? Well, yeah, and I mean your voice is all over the way to better things. I found myself

on Wings. It's a good record, and Randy had this great riff. He was playing rude doo doo doo doo doo, and he started singing no Time left for you, and I sang over him like a round on my way to you can't do both at once, No time left for on my way to No Time. Yeah, So I sang over him like a round and he liked the way that sounded, and I worked on the lyrics for a while, but there was no piano on that record. See that's a guitar song. And that's when we started

getting taken a little more seriously as a band. That's when Rolling Stone finally gave us a nod and said, well, maybe they're not the Ohio Express. So maybe they're not you know, the Ohio Express. You've got great references. So when you sit down and you do these Eyes does it?

There's obviously the opening notes of that on a keyboard, and we did the songwriting begin there were the song begin Interesting thing about these Eyes I'm the piano player, but that piano riff was Randy's, and I always thought I was so impressed that a guitar player could come up with those are very clever chords for a guitar player playing on piano. And but he wanted to call it these arms, you know. So we worked on it, and I had that energetic part in the left, that

energy that was all mine. I've seen a lot, a lot, but I've never gone with you and kept taking it up a whole tone by the time it got up with so you're seven, So you're seventeen years old? And where are you playing when you're with the guests? Of the guests, who was playing where? Predominantly in those early days, a lot around Winnipeg. We would sometimes go as far east as Canora, hundred and thirty miles into the province of Ontario. We flew in nineteen sixty seven. We went

to England. It was February. I just turned nineteen, and the whole thing fell apart when we got to England. Now, the great part was we were in swinging London in the sixties. Nineteen sixty seven in London, are you kidding? I was the bag of nails one night in Soho and I'm playing a slot machine. I'm having a brown nail. It's the guy next to me with pretty long here. I didn't really look up, and I'm playing a little more. Finally,

after about ten minutes I turned. I looked as Bill Wyman from the and he's just in a pub, Alic in a pub having a drinking a break. We did a little film with The Who in some club, but that was the real British Invasion days and I was only nineteen and I was taking it all in. When you come back the scope of the guests who brought We came back in sixty seven beaten, beaten and ashamed, and I was ashamed to leave the house for a week because everything had fallen apart. We plodded on through

that summer of sixty seven. We were just about ready to break up as a band, and along come CBC Television Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that they offer us a weekly half hour show for thirty six weeks. Yeah, and that saved us. We got out of debt, paid for our lovely silk suits, which we were still trying to pay off, paid for our lovely amps, our new guitars. You did thirty six half hour shows. So that's eighteen hours of shows. What do you play for eighteen hours? Every week? We

did what was ever on the charts. We weren't writing a lot of our own stuff. Cover to Van Morris. When we went to New York for a trip, we'd come back and we do so by the Everly Brothers because we had seen them in New York. We do Van Morrison because we saw him whatever was on the charts. We had to learn about twelve new songs every week. You know. We at one point, Alec we were doing four one hour shows a night, and I was doing all the singing. We do six sixty minutes ten minutes off.

My secret was I was eighteen nine, have a very durable, durable voice. Still smoked cigarettes, I drank beer. I did a lot of the wrong things for a singer. You're saying those songs you smoked cigarettes. But but here's the thing. I sang all the time. So it's like running, always jumping or the pole vaulting if you're doing it all the time. They were always in tune. So what year do you go to the next spot where you're you're in the US market and you're gonna interesting story so

we did the television for one year. Okay, we got we got great chops from that because we had to read read some music and all the different we were doing things from the fifth dimension to to Van Morrisson. What did you do from the fifth mention? Oh? Up up in a way, paper cup, paper cup, very very sort um. Last night I didn't get to sleep bad. And uh we had some great great records. Man, so sweet blindness and h I love great down to the stone pick. So I will tell you this. We did

the TV show for one year. They wanted us back the second year. We said absolutely, this is steady money, no traveling, right, we're in our hometown. Second season starts the producer, bless his heart, he said, I know you and Randy are writing some songs together. You've got a national audience here, captive audience every Thursday at five thirty

for half an hour. Why don't you do a couple of your original songs on the show, as Irony would have it, as Cinde Cinderella stories are written this way. One of the ones we chose to do was These Eyes. Our producer, Jack Richardson, who lived in Toronto, whom we had not really met yet happened to be watching the show that day and heard the song and believed so much in the song, Alec he mortgaged his house to fly us to New York and record our first album

for our ce A. And after These Eyes everything changed. Well. And when you first performed in the U s. Where did you go? I mean in a big venue? Well, we we did. We started off in New York at the Felt Forum. We weren't able to sell out the entire Madison Square Garden, but there's a great place called the Felt Forum where the Doors played there and the Kiss at the beginning of it. So we started at the Felt Forum. As things got bigger for us, we

started playing some of those big festivals. And I'll tell you that people ask me sometimes, what's one of your greatest memories of the career you've had. I'll be seventy this year, so I've got a lot to remember. The Seattle Pop Festival, Alec May of sixty nine. We got to play all three nights. It was eighty thousand people. Now at that time that was a lot of people. We only had These Eyes it on the strength of

one hit record. We got to play all three days listen to this, The Birds, the Burrito Brothers, Bo Diddley, I Can, Tina Turner, Frank Zappa and the Mothers, the Jefferson Airplane, It's a Beautiful Day, The Young Bloods, and The Last Night, led Zeppelin and the Doors, both on stage back to back. So you go there on the strength of one song, as you say, what are some of the songs? The other songs? Right? So what are some of these some have named a couple of the

other songs. There weren't these big heads, because you have a lot of songs that I remember that are beautiful songs. No Time and Undone, and we had a huge record called Clap for the Wolfman, which was a bit of a novelty. But we had been on Midnight Special so much. I got to be very good friends with wolf Man Shark, and he was a fascinating guy. We stayed up late a few nights, drank beers till toasting the sun coming up, and I couldn't get enough of hanging with him because

he knew everybody. He knew all my heroes personally, he knew d Ain't Eddie and Bobby Darren and all these people that you know. The early days of rock and roll. So his stories were endless, and after being friends with him for a while, I came up with these lyrics Clapped for the wolf Man. It went top five in Billboard. It was kind of a novelty little thing. But we didn't see it coming. We didn't see American Woman coming. We didn't see it coming number one in Billboard for

three weeks. I I never would have even imagined like every band in their early days of success, Uh, they get robbed, they make deals with people. Did you get rich off these songs? You don't know. We lost a lot of money to bad business managers and the producer and his company had all the publishing on the first few songs, so we didn't really When I left the guests who I didn't have that much? I really didn't.

When did you move to my life? For nine seventies six, I moved here and I did my very first album. I got to my manager, Laurence Safer got me hooked up with Richard Ry. Uh, fantastic producer who did Carly Simon and the Pointer Sisters and god knows how many big hit records he did. So he did my first album. He did Stand Tall and I'm Scared was another song on there, and that was fantastic working with him. Now along the way, did you get married, if any kids?

A fact? I'm married. I got married in eighty one. I guess it was. Yeah, we're still married. No kids neither. My wife's a homeopathic doctor. We're far too busy. The dogs are enough to look after. We have two dogs. We've always had two dogs through the years, and we're both far too busy. And you know, some people they have kids before they realized they don't want them, and then it's too late. We talked about this ages ago,

and I don't I don't. You know, people say, oh, don't you didn't you want to have a kid in it? What about your legacy? And you know what, that's never can't keep me awake at night night when there's nothing here except my old pianos. I'd almost give my hands to make you seem my henway, something you're feeling right now, it's selling Burden Cummings. Rock and roll didn't dominate popular

music in the nineteen sixties. It was still a huge appetite for easy jazz and big orchestras and herb opera satisfied it in nineteen sixty six, his tea Juana Brass outsold the Beatles. We had a command performance for the Queen of England. We played there in the band Sea were Brass. Yeah. Band sounded great. And then meet Prince Charles who said heavoly record in the in the den. Herb Alpert's stories from his sixty years of making music

on Here's the Thing Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing Church Dates. She's go, She's rost. She's Burton Cummings main songwriting collaborator in the early years of the Guests, who was Randy Bachman, the band's guitarist. Their collaboration changed the sound of the late sixties, but their differences in temperament ended up pulling

the band apart. Today the men have reconciled. Here's Bachman alongside Cummings as they're inducted together into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Grateful to meet this guy who was born to be wild when I was born to be mild, and together we put something I think that was kind of magical and I'm really thrilled with that. But it took a long time to get back there. We fell out Randy, Um, Randy turned Mormon in sixty six. Now where is he from original He's from Winnipeg. When how

did that happen? We should turn in Regina. We spent the whole summer of sixty six in Regina. How about their seven guys in two hotel rooms? Or in one room, three and another? We played every single night that summer. We'd drive to some tiny town, play for a hundred people, pack up our stuff, drive back to that same hotel the whole summer. That was my introduction to the luxury of the rule. Two months of absolute hell. But it

toughened us up, and it toughened my voice up. But Randy married a Mormon girl in sixty six, and everything changed between him and me and between him and the rest of the band. First of all, now he wouldn't he wouldn't ever have a Coca cola again, or cup of coffee, nothing with caffeine. He would not want us to have a cigarette within fifty feet of the bus. You couldn't have alcohol. You couldn't do this, You couldn't do that. You can't do this, you can't do that.

And Randy just turned into a scout master and that's not cool and kind of the opposite of that. Before that, no, he I mean, it wasn't a wild man. No, it wasn't a wild man. Heed. He'd have a vodka and orange juice with you and maybe smoke a pipe. But but suddenly he was this task master and it just got it just got ridiculous. You know, we were still writing songs, but the joy and the love was gone

out of it. And then he tried to convert the rest of the guys in the band and taking it want on us to come to the temple with him. You know, hey, man, I'm I'm the easiest guy in the world to get along with, but you're not going to convert me to some new religion, you know, because you are. And and as close as Randy had and I had been, it was over at that point. He just got completely immersed in the Mormon thing. From that point on, How long do you stay together before your

break up? Oh it was still rather three years. I mean we he met her in sixty six. The whole thing kind of fastered over. So while you're making it, while you guys are really busting with her, you split up with Brandy what year seventy? Who replaces him? Kurt Winter and Greg Lescue the two best guitarists in our hometown back in Winnipeg, and I immediately thanking the music gods. I immediately had a new writing partner in Kurt, and

you have success with him as well. I I wrote Share in the Land by myself, but with with him. Kurt wrote hand Me Down World. He came into the band and Hand Me Down World followed up American Woman, and those words are still pretty good today. Anybody here see the sky weeping tears for the Ocean? Man, that's forty seven years ago, and that's still pretty pretty powerful. Anybody here see the noise, see the fear and commotion. I think we missed it. Anybody here see the sky

weeping tears for the ocean? Yeah, Kurt had these great so he He had another song called bus Rider, which was on our Share of the Land album. Kurt and I wrote a song called Albert Flasher. Not long after that, Kurt and I wrote a song called Heartbroken Bopper. We had another one that went Top twenty called rain Dance. Don't you want to rain Dance with Me? Don't you want to rain dance. It was a great song, Thief. He said to Don the Baker, can you show me

how to make another bun on? And I'm still sitting with my next star, never saying where'd you get the gun? John? Don't you want to rain dance with me? So we we had a bunch of records that we did very very well, another one called Star Baby Um, and we kept getting asked back on Midnight Special. So that's how I knew we were doing okay because that was a live show. You had to play live on there. But share the land you wrote together? Where the land I

wrote myself. That was a big, big record for me. And there was a song that begin. They still call it one of the anthems of the hippie era. But but how does this song like that begin? Have you been around? Have you done your share of coming down different things that people do? Nice, nice way to start it, But you gotta have that hook, you know. So it was there was the hook. Maybe I'll be there to shake it hand, Maybe I'll be there to share the land.

They'll begin anyway when we all live together. We're talking about together now. That one came quick, about twenty minutes half a now you're kidding me. I don't see. I'm not one of these Carol King guys, and don't don't misconstrue that. I think she's a genius. I love Carol King's work. But there's there's these writers, you know, they get together at twelve noon and oh it's only ten to twelve is it time to be brilliant yet? Oh, we'll get together and we'll write on Saturday at six pm.

I've never been one of those flying at if it's not If it's not happening, I will not sit and try and force it. On the other hand, at three thirty in the morning, and if I wake up and I got it, I'll run to the piano and recorded and write down lyrics and stuff. So I've never been one of those guys that forces it, and I've done over thirty albums by not forcing it. Who were some people that you worked with like that, that you played

with them? Open for them, they open for you. Eventually, doesn't matter who did you dig, who did you like? We did you like anybody that? Anybody that's my age that has any music in them. The Beatles blew everybody away. I mean it was It's It's almost silly to talk about the Beatles in the same breath as anyone else. They were that far above everyone else. I really do transform themselves much. And and you think of this, Alec. They weren't even together for seven years. They changed the

entire world. The length of your hair and my hair today has something to do with the Beatles. The Beatles came along, and then the Stones, the Kinks, the Zombies, Manfred Man, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Eric Burton and the Animals? Are you kidding me? Did you? And Randy right undone He wrote that, He wrote, I I changed a bit of it, but I mean, basically it was it was really his, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to put my name on Those are

very nice chords. She's coming. She didn't know where she was headed. Fun Ran I found what she was headed. Fun It was too late. It's a good song. No time for us, summer friend, no time father, love you sin. She's unchanged and so did right. You need not wonder why when you guys really really shut that up. You need not wonder that was going to God God cat got out of time. When you when you guys would rampa, Were you the only one singing or did you guys

get all? We all they all background, So we all jumped in and I would do the lead vocal and then I would join them to reinforce the background vocals as well, because at that point things had just changed from eight track to sixteen track. This is when I'm talking historically now, and it was also all of a sudden. It was a big change. You had sixteen tracks instead of eight, so you could spread more over the drums to have better drum sound. You could double your vocals

with the Now you can have a hundred tram. I mean now it's it's all different and a lot of auto. We used to drive five miles to Minneapolis to record in four tracks. Now, when you you go solo, what was that like for you? Did you miss being in a band? Terrifying? I've talked to Neil Young about this too, when he left the Buffalo Springfield and went solo on his first few solo albums, and he Kneels from Winnipeg too.

We all grew up at the same time, me and Backman and Neil Young, and we all used to play the same little coffee houses so there was some kind of energy in Winnipeg, Alec. Something was going on there because it's just a dot and well he's you know, we love him, Oh he's uh if if Gordon Lightfoot's favorite singer were Rod Stewart, Maggie something to say the rock and roll but oh Maggie, I wish I never seen your did you did you do much acting because you said to perform one film. I actually got to

work with Paul Sorvino. We did a film called Melanie Glennis O'Connor, starting it, shot it. We did the interiors in Toronto and the exteriors here because it was supposed to take place in l A. And I did a racquetball scene with Paul Sorvino, which is you know, I brag about that a lot in the film. It's about two minutes. It took four days that we didn't want to go on and do more of it. I well,

why I couldn't. You were in natural the voices you do sitting around You couldn't take the sitting around us to God. You act for you. You act for three minutes, you play cards and eat for seven hours in a twelve hour day. You act for about I mean, honest to god, I drove me. I've got O C. D. And I'm very energetic and it made me nuts. I can go on stage and keep you interested for two hours as long as I have this. You know, I'm

not an actor. When you say you win solo when it was terrifying, Well, because you're used to the you're used to the cocoon of a band, you know, and and and and then suddenly you're a solo guy and it's hired guns tour by tour. It's not really your band anymore. You're hiring guys just for that tour, so the emotional connection is never quite as strong. And then you don't see them anymore. But when you're in a real band, you're gonna see guys all the time, but

you know you hire them by the tour. It's different, man, It's it's the things change. You wanted to be in a band again. I've had the same band now since Millennium Night two thousand. Uh. Yes, yes, uh, we just call ourselves the Burton Cummings Band. That's perfect. But I've had the same guys for fifteen years, so it's um, it's the best of both worlds. Are you still writing? Oh? Absolutely. I had a new album, new album. It was two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. It was a

double album's nineteen songs. I wrote everything on it myself. I'm still oh. And I have a poetry book that has just come out. Actually, I brought one for you, a book of poems, fifty two poems that I've worked on over the last nine years. It's it's serious poetry, it's it's about all different things. And I've always loved poetry. I wrote it in school. I was always encouraged the writing, you know. So I I'm a creative guy, stay up late at night, I Google, I read endlessly. I'm building

a man magnificent music library. I have three hundred and seventy five thousand songs in my hard drive now. It's two point four years of music continuously, all with proper artwork. It's a Smithsonian. Oh my god. And did you ever want to stop? Have you ever said? No? Not even retired, just walk away from it and like, I don't want to say Palett Cleanser, but something like that where you just kind of per yourself and reset. Never did that.

I did it once. My My manager was shep Gordon for years, and when he first got his place on Maui, he was still here in bel Air all the time. Summer of seventy seven, he said, why don't you go over and stay in the house for a while. So I stayed for eight weeks. And it's it's beachfront and Maui. That place has been on Lifestyles of the Rich and famous. It's remarkable. I had a maid cooking for me, making

me fresh taboui. In the morning. I'd go out in the front yard and pick a mango off the tree and then go down to the water for a while, and you know, it was wonderful. It was wonderful. So briefly you walked away, Yeah, for that one summer. But honest to god, I'm I'm an O C D guy with a lot of energy and I don't like to be too idle when you perform live. Now, when you go in front of an audience, Now, how does it feel? Does it feel the same in general? Is it always

the same? You know, there's a lot of times alec I will be on stage. It'll be a Saturday night, it'll be about nine o'clock and it'll take back fifty something years to the same feeling I had in the North. It's nine o'clock on a Saturday. There you go. Uh, you know it's it's honest to God, I get that same feeling that I did when I was fourteen, you know, fIF fifty five years ago. So when you perform, you still get excited. Oh absolutely, I'm nervous too. Really, I'm

honest to God. My hands still sweat, My heart rate goes up. You see me about two minutes before I go on stage of my hands are dripping with sweat. And I'm always worried of I got the chops? Have I got the vocal chops? Tonight? Am I gonna hit the notes? Everyone? I've talked to pretty big people about this, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart. They still get nervous. I think

if you really care, you get nervous. You don't care, and you don't give a ship movie to always say we we we'd walk out and go, we'd wonder is this the night it's went it to me? What do you mean? Go? Is this the night they find out that I don't really haven't got it? This the night they find out the truth about That's the same basically you're paraphrasing what I just said exactly. Is this? Am I going to have the chops? You know? What have you? What have you done for your voice to maintain them?

And ovously or someone who's your voice is like this clarion sound. I think, you know, honestly, very simply, um quit smoking. I finally quit tobacco. Quit tobacco, UM about five or six years ago. That that long ago. No. I smoked for fifty years, over over fifty years. But you know what's funny, I'm all my favorite singers were smokers. Think of a guy like Roy Orbison saying like a bird, you know, saying like a bird all the time. Chain smoker.

Never would have thought when I was in the Devrons, we got to open for Roy Orbison's about nineteen sixty four sixty five and Winnipeg, I wasn't even in the guests who yet we got to open for Roy Orbison, and of course I stayed later and I wanted to talk to him after the show. Alec He's sitting talking to me with Red Marlborough's. One of the strongest cigarettes there is, lighting one off the other chain smoking one

of this is the guy that's saying rawly lonely. But did you have to adjust the key you singing some of the songs? Um? You know what? We do everything down one half step that's not bad for forty years, Um, we're still doing most of the songs. It's just a half step down. And that that wasn't even me so much as my band they like to do things a half step down because they have their own singer. They

do a lot of gigs when I'm not around. They have their own singer and he does a lot of Beatles and Zeppelin and stuff way up, and he needs that extra half step down, and I must submit. You know, songs like Stan Tall and these Eyes they're a little tougher to do now forty plus years later, but that half step allows me to. I'd rather do the songs a little How to stand tall sound half stepped down? Oh goodness, let me see well sometimes late at night

they never been this blue. I never knew the meaning of a heart ache, But then again, I never lost a love before. You're waiting for me to go away up there, no no stands all, don't you far, for God's sake, don't go do something foolish? All you're feeling right now, silly human pride. No, no, no, no, hey man, I'll sell you something. A lot easier is like this clap for wolf Man. He gonna rate your record high. See, that's a lot easier. You sing to know and people go,

I know who that I know that song? You know if you sing you know. Sometimes later at night you sing that song and people go, I know who that is. You know, they know your whole thing. And you are a great, great, great musician, and you are a great singer. I'm very humbled by this, and I was my pleasure to be here and see you, really and truly. I didn't know that you knew all the songs and stuff, but lonely, feeling deep inside fund the corner where I

can hide. No sugar tonight, and with coffee, no sugar tonight, and I tea no sugar to stand beside me, no sugar to wrong. Wouldn't be no dunder down under round dud dud down under round under Burton Cummings. I still had more questions, so I called him up to hear how life on the road feels when you've been doing it for forty years and when everyone wants to hear the same four hits. You know. The thing is, I've

been asked a million times through the decades. Don't you get tired of singing the same songs over and over? Maybe some people do, but I certainly don't. And here's the thing, don't. Don't people remember how hard it is to get a hit record in the first place. I mean, the odds are stacked against you, no matter who you are as far as getting a hit record. So why would I why would I even think twice about not, you know, not wanting to perform them for the rest

of my life. I'm thrilled to get out there and sing the songs that everybody knows. Yeah, exactly, exactly, we know what. Like you said, that's a very good point, how hard you worked to get a hit in the first Well, I mean, it's the thing is that the odds are stacked against you, and and and that was back then when a lot of people had hit records. There are a lot less people today having to have a hit single. Today, it's like jumping through hoops. It's

almost impossible. Yeah. Well, it's also like classical music, anything good, anything great, like you know, Beethoven's Fifth that doesn't matter. You're not gonna listen to it every day, but you can come back and hear it again and appreciate what it has to offer, whether it's beautiful music or rock music or whatever. You Now, the other question I have is I looked at your book of poetry that you gave me, which was very nice. I appreciate that. But the question that I have is that how do you

distinguish what's poetry and what's lyrics? Well, that's a that's a very good question too. They are completely two separate universes. When I'm writing a song, I'm already thinking of melodies to go along with whatever the lyrics might be. Whereas with poetry, it just has to stand by itself. It doesn't have the backing of a band with drums and guitars and melodies and you know, uh, the same shading that uh poets. Poetry just has to stand as words on paper. So I when I'm writing poetry, it's a

completely different thing. I'm I'm hearing it as I write the poems. I'm hearing them in my own head. And that's the way when someone reads a poem, they're hearing it in their own voice. You know, whereas with songs it's it's a completely different situation. The lyrics have to marry to the two. You've got to put two things together. It's more than just words on paper, whereas with the poetry they have to the words have to be very strong. They have to convey some kind of a message that

makes the reader think something. And you find with poetry you can do whatever you want. It's a different world, you know. Songwriting and poetry two different worlds completely. I like both. I wouldn't say I prefer one over the other, but I've probably had more experienced writing songs because I've done over thirty albums and written most of the stuff myself. Have you ever thought about singing your poems? Um? No, they don't lend themselves, so they don't lend themselves to

vocal season change. You need not, you need not time. He'll always be known as guests who front Van Burton Cummings, but don't overlook his poetry. That book he gave me sold out. This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to here's the thing to