Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap Stories
Randy Bachman
VIKING CANADA
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published 2011
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)
Copyright © Randy Bachman, 2011
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Bachman, Randy, 1943– Randy Bachman’s Vinyl tap stories / Randy Bachman.
ISBN 978-0-670-06579-0
1. Bachman, Randy, 1943– —Anecdotes. 2. Rock music—Anecdotes.
I. Title. II. Title: Vinyl tap stories.
ML420.B113A3 2011 782.42166092 C2011-904612-1
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Contents
Introduction
Portage and Main
What’s in a Name?
Lenny, Neil, and Me
The Story Behind the Song, Part 1
Randy’s Guitar Shoppe
Close Encounters of the Six-String Kind, Part 1
Shadows and Reflections
The Story Behind the Song, Part 2
Close Encounters of the Six-String Kind, Part 2
Conclusion
Randy’s Favourites
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction
Born and raised in a prairie town
Just a kid full of dreams
We didn’t have much but an old radio
Music came from places we’d never been
Growing up in a prairie town
Learning to drive in the snow
Not much to do so you start a band
And soon you’ve gone as far as you can go
Winter nights are long, summer days are gone
Portage & Main fifty below
Springtime melts the snow, rivers overflow
Portage & Main fifty below
—“PRAIRIE TOWN” BY RANDY BACHMAN
Radio was my lifeline as a kid growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s. It connected me with the wider world outside our little prairie city and offered me my first introduction to rock ’n’ roll and the guitar sounds and styles I wanted to play. Radio gave me my life’s direction. It’s been a constant for me no matter where I’ve lived.
Long before MTV, MuchMusic, the internet, or iTunes, teenagers tuned in to their radios to hear the message of rock ’n’ roll. And I was one of them. Whether you grew up in a big city like Toronto or Vancouver or a little town in Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia, I’m sure you can all remember the first time you heard rock ’n’ roll on the radio. Growing up in Winnipeg, the first time I heard it was on the two local radio stations, CKY and CKRC. And because Winnipeg is located at the top of the Great Plains, I would go to bed at night with my little rocket radio and tune in to WLS in Chicago, WNOE in New Orleans, or places far away like Shreveport, Memphis, or Wichita that sounded exotic to a prairie boy. These stations played rock ’n’ roll. The next day at school, the topic of conversation among my friends was along the lines of “I picked up Des Moines, Iowa, on the radio last night and they played ‘Rock Around the Clock’!” My parents would yell at me to turn my radio off and go to bed, so I’d take it under the covers and carry on with my nightly ritual. Just like kids nowadays surfing the internet, in the 50s I surfed the radio dial. I remember hearing Chuck Berry’s “School Days” for the first time and being completely blown away. I’d never heard guitar like that.
But unlike most teenagers, I went from listening to the radio to being heard on radio, making records that would actually get played by a deejay. You can’t imagine the thrill of hearing yourself on the radio for the first time.
Playing in a band in Winnipeg, I got to know many of the local radio deejays at CKY and CKRC, guys not much older than me like Doc Steen, Boyd Kozak, Dino Corrie, Daryl B., Jim Christie, PJ the DJ. They were cool because they got to talk on the radio and play records, the records I loved to hear. So even though I was playing in a popular band, making records, and becoming well known, I still envied them and their gig. (Who knows, they probably envied me for being in a band.) They got to spin the discs and do all the “platter chatter.” But I never dreamed that one day I’d be on the radio spinning those discs and sharing my stories.
In more recent years, I used to listen to Finkleman’s 45s on CBC Radio when I was home on a Saturday night. Danny Finkleman was a fellow Winnipegger and often told stories about growing up in the North End of the city, the area I came from. I’d met him once or twice at the CBC in Winnipeg when the Guess Who was the house band on CBC-TV’s Let’s Go back in 1967–68. But when I heard he was retiring, I thought to myself, “Why would anyone want to quit playing records and talking once a week for a couple of hours? Who wouldn’t kill to have that gig?” So I told my wife, Denise, “What’s so hard about doing what he’s doing? I could do that. And I love to share my stories and experiences.”
Like a lot of events in my life, things just happen. No master plan or calculation; they just happen. I owe as much to serendipity as I do to premeditation in my career. Three of the biggest hits I’ve been associated with—“American Woman,” “Takin’ Care of Business,” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”—all sprang from happenstance, a moment in time. I’ve learned to accept that when opportunities present themselves, you have to grab them because they don’t come around again. So I decided to take a shot at being a radio deejay on CBC. Trouble is, I had no idea how to go about letting the powers that be know that.
I wrote a letter to the CBC—no one specific, just the CBC— explaining my concept, and I gave it to one of the technicians when I was a guest on Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe radio show. He later passed it along to Jennifer McGuire, at the time the head of CBC’s English-language radio programming. Here’s what I wrote in the letter:
Dear CBC Radio,
I’m a big fan of CBC Radio. This past Saturday’s show of Finkleman’s 45s I noticed that Danny said he was retiring. I would love his time slot, and my proposal is that I play music from my own record collection and tell personal stories about the artist, song, etc. Instead of Finkleman’s
45s you could call the show Randy’s Rockin’ Records or Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap, like Spinal Tap.
from Randy Bachman
Jennifer contacted me and thought the idea was terrific. So we arranged a demo of the show just to see how I would come across on the radio. At the first session I was all over the place, yelling “Whoa! Yeah, baby! Let’s rock!” like Wolfman Jack, and speed-jiving like crazy. It was way over the top, and CBC producer Chris Boyce suggested I simmer down a bit. After all, it’s an early evening show. When I was a kid in Winnipeg, CKY had a smooth-talking deejay named Richard Scott who spoke in this low, sexy, resonating tone to all the housewives every afternoon, cooing, “Hello, kitten. Relax. Light up a cigarette. It’s just you and me.” So I tried that approach, but they thought it was too mellow. We did several more attempts at finding the right “voice,” pacing, and style for the show until we finally hit on the right formula. The trick was to tape the shows after dinner when I was a bit mellower and laid-back. No shrieking or hushed whispers.
Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap debuted as a summer replacement show in 2005, and it was such a hit that the CBC ran it again in reruns over the fall and signed me to a contract to do the series beginning in 2006. After doing the show alone, I realized I needed some help. Denise came on board, answering all the emails and real mail we started getting, which makes the listeners and people who write in all feel like part of the Vinyl Tap family. Her mailbag segment has tons of fans. When we poll the audience about something like the first records they ever bought, Denise sorts out all the responses and then reads each person’s little story. I then add facts about the music or performer. Denise also does the research, so that when I tell a personal story that relates to the music, she has already provided me with correct dates, names, places, etc. to put my stories into proper context. It all works organically and synergistically. Since the beginning, the format has evolved only slightly because it works as it is. Denise loves music and has her own eclectic musical tastes, which balance out mine. We complement each other very well, and it keeps the show moving at a good pace.
Putting together a show takes us many hours of listening to music, getting the original or best performance of the song, and finding ones for which I know something about the artist, writer, producer, or musicians so that I can tell an original story. We then sequence the songs in a strategic order (like a stage show) and I burn a CD for Tod Elvidge, our producer. Denise prints out the info, I get a guitar, and we usually record three shows at a sitting.
Denise is the only other voice on Vinyl Tap. CBC didn’t want it to be a show that featured guests. They wanted it to be all me, my song choices and stories. CBC and I agree that it’s really about my storytelling. The music is secondary to that. It’s my ability to give an insider perspective and personal insight, experience, and knowledge about the music that is the strength of Vinyl Tap. I have so many ideas for concepts and so many stories to share with listeners. I love doing the show and hope to continue the fun and the run for many years.
One of the great features of Vinyl Tap has been the feedback we receive from our listeners. We get emails and letters from around the world. Sometimes some of the fact junkies take me to task about a date or fact I got wrong, and that’s cool. I’m not perfect. For me, it’s the story that matters, not the exact date. Often we get suggestions for themes for future shows, many of which we’ve followed up on.
Some of my favourite themes have been “Mondegreens” (Denise’s idea), “From Demos to Hits,” “The Cowbell Show,” and “Guitarology 101.”
I never realized the amount of work involved in preparing a radio show. In my naïveté I just thought I would show up with an armful of vinyl, 45s and albums, play them and talk in between. Not so. But once I got into the rhythm of doing the shows, it was great fun. Initially I taped the shows at my home recording studio in the Gulf Islands, but now we do it at CBC’s studio in Victoria. For thousands of Canadians and millions of listeners on Sirius Satellite Radio, their Saturday night routine involves tuning in to Vinyl Tap. I’m very proud of that and I don’t take the responsibility lightly.
What started as a summer replacement series has turned into a wonderful thing for me. It’s a dream come true. After more than forty years in rock ’n’ roll, I’ve finally got a real job.
Over the years many people have asked me when I was going to collect many of the stories I’ve shared on the show in a book. Well, for all those who asked and for all the other Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap listeners, here it is. Enjoy!
Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap Stories
Portage and Main
Winnipeg is a working-class city that breeds a toughness and durability in its inhabitants. It’s a city of extremes. The winters are brutally cold and long while the summers tend to be hot, humid, and mosquito infested. In between is the occasional flood. But for those born and raised in Winnipeg, the city never leaves you, no matter where you go. Although I haven’t lived in Winnipeg since 1972, it is and always will be my home and hometown. The thing about Winnipeg is that it’s built on two rivers, the Red and Assiniboine, and the two big important streets follow those rivers: Main Street follows the Red River and Portage Avenue follows the Assiniboine. Where they meet is just behind Portage and Main, the centre of Winnipeg. That was the most famous intersection in the city because not only did it follow the meeting of the rivers but you would also change buses there going from one end of the city to the other. And that was also where all the radio stations were and all the big buildings downtown began. So Portage and Main meant a lot of things to me growing up. I remember that when the Winnipeg Jets hockey team signed “The Golden Jet” Bobby Hull, they did it at Portage and Main, and thousands of Winnipeggers blocked the intersection to witness the event.
In 1993 I wrote a song about growing up in Winnipeg entitled “Prairie Town,” and in the chorus I sang, “Portage and Main, fifty below.” As a kid in Winnipeg I would pass by Portage and Main, and right at the intersection there was a great big Coca-Cola sign that flashed the time and the temperature all day long, back and forth. So you’d pass by on the bus or in your car and see “8:25 a.m.” and then “45 below 0.” And the radio stations there would simply say, “The time is …” and look out the window at the Coca-Cola sign. Then they’d say, “And the temperature at Portage and Main is …” So when I wrote “Prairie Town” I remembered that sign and put in the line “Portage and Main, fifty below.”
Music was always such a big part of my life growing up in Winnipeg. My parents wanted their children to play a musical instrument. We couldn’t afford a piano, so my older brother Gary was given an accordion and I received a little half-size violin. I wasn’t even school age yet, but I started taking violin lessons. I remember my first day of school and the teacher asking everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Of course you had the typical responses like bus driver, nurse, and fireman. When it came to my turn, I said “musician” because I’d already been playing violin. As far as I was concerned that was who I was and wanted to be.
After about a year of lessons in the neighbourhood, I got a different teacher and was required to ride the bus to his house. Alone. I was six or seven years old and I couldn’t even read the street signs. So I’d look for the toy soldiers outside Toyland at Eaton’s Portage Avenue department store, get off the bus with my green transfer in my hand, and wait there right downtown all alone for a bus that had “Cor” on it. I could read that much. That was the Corydon bus, and I would take it all the way to the south of Winnipeg until I saw a big school and playground. I would get off the bus and walk two blocks to Mr. Rutherford’s house for a one-hour lesson. Then I retraced my steps, transferring at Eaton’s to my bus, which took me near my home in West Kildonan in the North End. I’d walk the rest of the way home. I did this every Saturday. I didn’t even know where I was going, but I remember my parents telling me not to daydream on the bus because I might miss my stop: “Pay attention!” Every Saturday I was terrified I might
miss my stop, and then what would I do?
One Saturday that happened. I wasn’t paying attention and I missed getting off at the toy soldiers. Crying, I ran to the driver. “Stop! Take me back to the soldiers! I have to get off at the soldiers!”
“I can’t,” he told me. “It’s a trolley bus. It doesn’t back up.”
I thought I was lost forever and would never see my parents and my house again. The driver managed to stop the bus in the middle of the street and let me off. Here I was, this hysterical little kid with a violin case, walking back to the toy soldiers. As I’m walking I look up and see the Corydon bus pass me by. I was panicking because in my mind I thought that was the only “Cor” bus and I’d missed it. Nowadays even little kids have cell phones. I had nothing. I didn’t know where I was going or even how to get home. So I started running after the bus. The driver saw me and stopped to let me on. He recognized me, the little kid with the violin from every Saturday morning. The sheer terror of that moment has never left me. It astounds me to this day that a six-year-old kid rode the bus in a big city like Winnipeg all alone. I would never let my kids or grandkids do that today.
But of course, I wasn’t going to be playing the violin forever. Music was changing. There was a television commercial a few years ago that I used to get a kick out of watching. It was of a young boy, supposedly Jimi Hendrix, looking in the window of an accordion store, and across the street is a guitar store. He’s trying to decide which one to go with: accordion or guitar. I think the commercial was for a soft drink, but it was one of those ads that are more than the product. In the background someone is playing Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” on an accordion. I can relate to that scene. Can you imagine hearing “Takin’ Care of Business” on a violin?
My mother always had the radio on around the house. I grew up with the radio. We didn’t even have a television for several years. My brothers and I would come home at lunch and tune into CKY or CKRC for a whole hour listening to rock ’n’ roll. Country music was still big in Winnipeg and the Prairies, but they were starting to play rock ’n’ roll.
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