November 6, 2024 • 12 mins
This episode features Canadian legend Randy Bachman revealing the unexpected twists that led to the creation of "American Woman." Plus, hear Andy Kim share a secret about "Be My Baby" and feel the energy of Sass Jordan's "Tell Somebody." Dive into the vinyl grooves and discover the tales behind the tunes. Don't miss out!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Careful now clock clocklocker boy, so cool to be playing
violin on took to wreck it off the TI table.
You ready for this?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to Behind the Vinyl. Here's your host, Stu Jetbreys.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Welcome to Behind the Vinyl the Podcast. I'm the guy
who was voted most likely the host Behind the Vinyl
The Podcast also noted Stu, thanks for joining me. As
we continue our journey to feature artists playing their biggest
songs on a turntable and providing us the backstories coming up,
Canadian Icon Randy Backman shares his side of the story
for American Woman that.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Was written live on stage in Kitchener Waterloo in a
curling arena that's now the True Value Hardware.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
So you're going through True Value Hardware.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
There's a thing in the paint section on the floor
that says American Woman was written.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
Here.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
More from Randy in a few minutes. First up, as
we start this episode, what could be the most grateful
man in music? Andy Kim talks about his hit song
be My Baby and shares something with us he hasn't
told anyone before about the song.
Speaker 6 (00:58):
Here's Andy, So here's what's happening.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Baby. I love you.
Speaker 6 (01:05):
It's kind of a blueprint for a lot of songs,
especially this song.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
So all the guitars that.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
You're hearing, and I played several times until we got
the right one, and then I kept playing over and over.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
And over again.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
And it's it's an interesting ride with this one because
I ended up doing the Dating Game and they asked
if I would sing this song, So I think the
Dating Game.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Started with me performing this song, which was really kind
of cool.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
I don't know if you ever watched Dating m or
A people even remember Dating Game, but it's okay. It's
where somebody chooses three bachelor's or a bachelor chooses three ladies.
But this song was one of those songs that I
makes me smile because somewhere, if you're listening closely, you
(02:06):
will hear that. After playing so many times that I
got my fingers and my wrists were kind of a
little dragon and you can actually hear it slow down.
But we haven't gotten there yet, and so I listened
(02:27):
to it on the radio and I kind of like,
go ooh, But I don't know if I've said anything
wrong where now every time that record plays, you're gonna
hear it. But it was a million cellar around the world.
Love loved the song When I Do Alive and here
I want to just hear if I can hear that part.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Coming up?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I think.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
I don't know if you just heard it.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
It just slowed down that little part, and oh but
it didn't stop it from you know, being a top
forty record and selling millions of records around the world.
So this first time I've admitted this, Am I going
to be in trouble now?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well?
Speaker 6 (03:29):
People want their money back from all from nineteen whenever
that came out.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
So thank you for having me here today. I appreciate it.
A classic for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That would be my baby for music legend Andy Kim
on behind the vinyl of the podcast, Thanks for listening
her first name, explains her personality to a T. SaaS
Jordan joins our episode with her up tempo power song
tell Somebody.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Okay, so let us listen to the dulphic tones with
the SaaS Jordan, Who's he? You may ask, Well, I'm
here to tell you that he is a she And
basically essentially I am here to talk about this, uh,
this fabulous recording which was actually on vinyl, which I
(04:18):
think is the only the only thing I've ever done
that was actually on vinyl. So I'm very pleased to
be here listening to it on this Yeah alright, except
for the new one which is coming out, which will.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Be on vinyl too.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So anyways, what does this song make me think of?
It makes me okay, so this has gotta be So
this is nineteen eighty nine, al right, and this is
the record that made me get that Juno Award. I
(04:51):
remember when this record came out and it was sent
out to the radio stations. They didn't have they had
the cover, that's it. They had the cover, and all
the program directors would look at the cover and go, sorry,
I'm not we're not playing that. It's dance, right, And
I remember the promo people at the record company going.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
No, listen to it. It's not dance. We swear it's
because of the way it looked.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I guess that people thought it was dance, you know
what I mean, sort of like cute pop check anyways, and.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
They're like, no, no, no, no, it's rock.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
It's rock.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
We swear, we swear to any they put it on,
and then they'd be like, is this a Tina Turner
Records who was very big at the time.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Tina Turner.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I'm like, I'm very, very very flattered to think that
anyone would have ever thought that I was Seena Turner.
Sadly I wasn't at any rate. This song was filmed
for a video in Montreal, Quebec with this group of
(05:55):
people who were fresh out of school, like film school
and stuff. They all went on, I might add, they
all went on too huge careers in film, like famous
film director Eric Daniuelle is his name? My god, I
just downloaded that. You gotta respect that, I mean, because this,
(06:15):
you know, this is a milliment.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
This is a couple of moments ago.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Anyways, they did the video with me, and I remember
we had so much fun filming out in the country,
like around Montreal, like close to the airport door Veal,
and it was freezing cold, as it always is in Canada,
as you know, actually not right now, which is good.
(06:42):
But anyways, we were filming in this old barn and
they had all these improvised kind of things that they
were putting cameras on instead of like improvised stuff as
opposed to like you know, nowadays we have the the
what do you call it, the tracks that they send
(07:04):
the cameras down on. But in those days, we didn't
have the money, let alone, you know, any kind of
access to that kind of stuff. So we were our
camera guy was doing stuff on skateboards and stuff. I
think people ended up doing that like legit, you know,
but in those days it was every man himself, make
(07:27):
it up as you go along, and so, holy moly,
I forgot about that.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
I'm remembering all this.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Cascade stuff, folks.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Here's the trick.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Never get older, because then you just have all these
memories that you forgot about and they come flying out
in a disjointed manner.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Shall we say?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I don't remember anything else about this damn song.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
What a great track she's got sas because she iss
SaaS Jordan, there's Telsa.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
You're listening to.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Behind the vinyl of the podcast, I'm Stu Jeffries. Wrapping
up this episode with Canadian icon Randy Backman, producer, songwriter, singer, musician,
radio host, guitarist, storyteller. Here Randy talks about the massive
hit American Woman and how the song came to be,
along with a series of mishaps that made the song massive.
Here's Randy with the whole story.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
That was recorded, that was written live on stage in
Kitchener Waterloo in nineteen sixty eight in the winter in
a curling arena. That's now the true value hardware. So
you're going through true value hardware. There's a thing in
(08:51):
the paint section on the floor that says American Woman.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Was written here.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
So I was with the guests who we played this
curling arena, and I had a fifty nine less Paul guitar.
I broke a string. I didn't have a spare string.
I didn't have a tuner or a spare guitar or
a roadie, so I had to change the string myself.
So Britain said to the crowd, we're taking a break around.
He's changing his string to change a string on fifty
(09:19):
nine less Paul with the bigs beat the strings going
over the bridge, under a bar, over a bar, run
a hook on it thing so your wang bar works.
It takes a long time. At the side of the
stage with a table and a tech. I didn't have
a tech, so I'm on my knees with this guitar.
Didn't have a tuner, so I put on the string
and as I'm tuning it I'm on my knees on stage,
hitting an E and a B on Burton's piano and
(09:41):
tuning to his piano because we didn't have a tuner then,
but we had the piano in the band. But I'm
tuning up the guitar down. When I started to play
d and the little crowd's talking because we're on a break.
When I started to play, the riff heads turn around
and look at the stage and I go, oh my god,
(10:02):
I can't forget this riff. So I stand up and
I start playing it. I see the band out, so
I gesture with my head. Gary Peterson, the drummer, comes
on stage, starts during Jim Kale comes on. Burton's waiting
to back outside with the zamblone. He's gooming and out
of this curling arena and he comes running on stage.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
He said, what is this?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
So I'm just making it up? Sing something, Sing anything,
And the first words out of his mouth where American woman,
stay away from me. And he must have sang that
like four times, and then I solod he sang it
four times. That was kind of it. And the next
night we tried to create it again, couldn't do it.
He had to leave the stage. I started from scratch,
(10:43):
tuned up the guitar, played it again. I don't know
if I remembered it correctly or not. We went to
record it about a couple of months later, couldn't do
it in the studio. Jack Richardson, who is our producer, said,
how did you write this? Told me it's okay, everybody
out of the studio. Randy's just going to start playing around.
(11:04):
Tune up your guitar, get into the mood and start
to play it as you do, and we'll leave the
tape running. So I did that on one take, and
the band came in and did it, and then we
kind of learned it written by then had written lyrics
about war machines, ghetto scenes and all that other rhyming.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Stuff that he put in there.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
And we recorded the song and it went to number
one in May of nineteen seventy or earlier than that,
and some there's three trades in Cashbox, Record World and Billboard.
So I went to number one and all trades, and
the album went to number one too, and before American
radio realized it, it was an anti war song sung
(11:43):
by four Canadians because they weren't allowed to play anti
war songs. They couldn't play one, two three, What are
We fighting for? They were allowed to play fighting Men
with the green birdret, that Sergeant Barry Sandler kind of thing.
So this was really a great song, kind of broke
through that wall, that firewall. They're of anti war songs.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Amazing when you hear how a series of mishaps helps
create a massive, life changing song the world has loved
for well over fifty years. That was Randy Backman with
American Woman. And that's it for this episode of Behind
the Vinyl. I'm Stu Jeffries with a giant group hug
and a huge thank you for taking the time to listen, comment, share,
and subscribe. We've got lots of episodes. If you haven't
heard them all yet, feel free to catch up. If
(12:25):
you feel like binge listening, we'll be.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Back with more.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
This has been Behind the Vinyl, the podcast hosted by
Stu Jeffries. Audio production courtesy of Doug Morehouse, Derek Welsman
and Troy McCallum. Thanks for listening.
Careful now clock clocklocker boy, so cool to be playing
violin on took to wreck it off the TI table.
You ready for this?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to Behind the Vinyl. Here's your host, Stu Jetbreys.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Welcome to Behind the Vinyl the Podcast. I'm the guy
who was voted most likely the host Behind the Vinyl
The Podcast also noted Stu, thanks for joining me. As
we continue our journey to feature artists playing their biggest
songs on a turntable and providing us the backstories coming up,
Canadian Icon Randy Backman shares his side of the story
for American Woman that.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Was written live on stage in Kitchener Waterloo in a
curling arena that's now the True Value Hardware.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
So you're going through True Value Hardware.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
There's a thing in the paint section on the floor
that says American Woman was written.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
Here.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
More from Randy in a few minutes. First up, as
we start this episode, what could be the most grateful
man in music? Andy Kim talks about his hit song
be My Baby and shares something with us he hasn't
told anyone before about the song.
Speaker 6 (00:58):
Here's Andy, So here's what's happening.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Baby. I love you.
Speaker 6 (01:05):
It's kind of a blueprint for a lot of songs,
especially this song.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
So all the guitars that.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
You're hearing, and I played several times until we got
the right one, and then I kept playing over and over.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
And over again.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
And it's it's an interesting ride with this one because
I ended up doing the Dating Game and they asked
if I would sing this song, So I think the
Dating Game.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Started with me performing this song, which was really kind
of cool.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
I don't know if you ever watched Dating m or
A people even remember Dating Game, but it's okay. It's
where somebody chooses three bachelor's or a bachelor chooses three ladies.
But this song was one of those songs that I
makes me smile because somewhere, if you're listening closely, you
(02:06):
will hear that. After playing so many times that I
got my fingers and my wrists were kind of a
little dragon and you can actually hear it slow down.
But we haven't gotten there yet, and so I listened
(02:27):
to it on the radio and I kind of like,
go ooh, But I don't know if I've said anything
wrong where now every time that record plays, you're gonna
hear it. But it was a million cellar around the world.
Love loved the song When I Do Alive and here
I want to just hear if I can hear that part.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Coming up?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I think.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
I don't know if you just heard it.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
It just slowed down that little part, and oh but
it didn't stop it from you know, being a top
forty record and selling millions of records around the world.
So this first time I've admitted this, Am I going
to be in trouble now?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well?
Speaker 6 (03:29):
People want their money back from all from nineteen whenever
that came out.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
So thank you for having me here today. I appreciate it.
A classic for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That would be my baby for music legend Andy Kim
on behind the vinyl of the podcast, Thanks for listening
her first name, explains her personality to a T. SaaS
Jordan joins our episode with her up tempo power song
tell Somebody.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Okay, so let us listen to the dulphic tones with
the SaaS Jordan, Who's he? You may ask, Well, I'm
here to tell you that he is a she And
basically essentially I am here to talk about this, uh,
this fabulous recording which was actually on vinyl, which I
(04:18):
think is the only the only thing I've ever done
that was actually on vinyl. So I'm very pleased to
be here listening to it on this Yeah alright, except
for the new one which is coming out, which will.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Be on vinyl too.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So anyways, what does this song make me think of?
It makes me okay, so this has gotta be So
this is nineteen eighty nine, al right, and this is
the record that made me get that Juno Award. I
(04:51):
remember when this record came out and it was sent
out to the radio stations. They didn't have they had
the cover, that's it. They had the cover, and all
the program directors would look at the cover and go, sorry,
I'm not we're not playing that. It's dance, right, And
I remember the promo people at the record company going.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
No, listen to it. It's not dance. We swear it's
because of the way it looked.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I guess that people thought it was dance, you know
what I mean, sort of like cute pop check anyways, and.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
They're like, no, no, no, no, it's rock.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
It's rock.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
We swear, we swear to any they put it on,
and then they'd be like, is this a Tina Turner
Records who was very big at the time.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Tina Turner.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I'm like, I'm very, very very flattered to think that
anyone would have ever thought that I was Seena Turner.
Sadly I wasn't at any rate. This song was filmed
for a video in Montreal, Quebec with this group of
(05:55):
people who were fresh out of school, like film school
and stuff. They all went on, I might add, they
all went on too huge careers in film, like famous
film director Eric Daniuelle is his name? My god, I
just downloaded that. You gotta respect that, I mean, because this,
(06:15):
you know, this is a milliment.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
This is a couple of moments ago.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Anyways, they did the video with me, and I remember
we had so much fun filming out in the country,
like around Montreal, like close to the airport door Veal,
and it was freezing cold, as it always is in Canada,
as you know, actually not right now, which is good.
(06:42):
But anyways, we were filming in this old barn and
they had all these improvised kind of things that they
were putting cameras on instead of like improvised stuff as
opposed to like you know, nowadays we have the the
what do you call it, the tracks that they send
(07:04):
the cameras down on. But in those days, we didn't
have the money, let alone, you know, any kind of
access to that kind of stuff. So we were our
camera guy was doing stuff on skateboards and stuff. I
think people ended up doing that like legit, you know,
but in those days it was every man himself, make
(07:27):
it up as you go along, and so, holy moly,
I forgot about that.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
I'm remembering all this.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Cascade stuff, folks.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Here's the trick.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Never get older, because then you just have all these
memories that you forgot about and they come flying out
in a disjointed manner.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Shall we say?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I don't remember anything else about this damn song.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
What a great track she's got sas because she iss
SaaS Jordan, there's Telsa.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
You're listening to.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Behind the vinyl of the podcast, I'm Stu Jeffries. Wrapping
up this episode with Canadian icon Randy Backman, producer, songwriter, singer, musician,
radio host, guitarist, storyteller. Here Randy talks about the massive
hit American Woman and how the song came to be,
along with a series of mishaps that made the song massive.
Here's Randy with the whole story.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
That was recorded, that was written live on stage in
Kitchener Waterloo in nineteen sixty eight in the winter in
a curling arena. That's now the true value hardware. So
you're going through true value hardware. There's a thing in
(08:51):
the paint section on the floor that says American Woman.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Was written here.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
So I was with the guests who we played this
curling arena, and I had a fifty nine less Paul guitar.
I broke a string. I didn't have a spare string.
I didn't have a tuner or a spare guitar or
a roadie, so I had to change the string myself.
So Britain said to the crowd, we're taking a break around.
He's changing his string to change a string on fifty
(09:19):
nine less Paul with the bigs beat the strings going
over the bridge, under a bar, over a bar, run
a hook on it thing so your wang bar works.
It takes a long time. At the side of the
stage with a table and a tech. I didn't have
a tech, so I'm on my knees with this guitar.
Didn't have a tuner, so I put on the string
and as I'm tuning it I'm on my knees on stage,
hitting an E and a B on Burton's piano and
(09:41):
tuning to his piano because we didn't have a tuner then,
but we had the piano in the band. But I'm
tuning up the guitar down. When I started to play
d and the little crowd's talking because we're on a break.
When I started to play, the riff heads turn around
and look at the stage and I go, oh my god,
(10:02):
I can't forget this riff. So I stand up and
I start playing it. I see the band out, so
I gesture with my head. Gary Peterson, the drummer, comes
on stage, starts during Jim Kale comes on. Burton's waiting
to back outside with the zamblone. He's gooming and out
of this curling arena and he comes running on stage.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
He said, what is this?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
So I'm just making it up? Sing something, Sing anything,
And the first words out of his mouth where American woman,
stay away from me. And he must have sang that
like four times, and then I solod he sang it
four times. That was kind of it. And the next
night we tried to create it again, couldn't do it.
He had to leave the stage. I started from scratch,
(10:43):
tuned up the guitar, played it again. I don't know
if I remembered it correctly or not. We went to
record it about a couple of months later, couldn't do
it in the studio. Jack Richardson, who is our producer, said,
how did you write this? Told me it's okay, everybody
out of the studio. Randy's just going to start playing around.
(11:04):
Tune up your guitar, get into the mood and start
to play it as you do, and we'll leave the
tape running. So I did that on one take, and
the band came in and did it, and then we
kind of learned it written by then had written lyrics
about war machines, ghetto scenes and all that other rhyming.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Stuff that he put in there.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
And we recorded the song and it went to number
one in May of nineteen seventy or earlier than that,
and some there's three trades in Cashbox, Record World and Billboard.
So I went to number one and all trades, and
the album went to number one too, and before American
radio realized it, it was an anti war song sung
(11:43):
by four Canadians because they weren't allowed to play anti
war songs. They couldn't play one, two three, What are
We fighting for? They were allowed to play fighting Men
with the green birdret, that Sergeant Barry Sandler kind of thing.
So this was really a great song, kind of broke
through that wall, that firewall. They're of anti war songs.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Amazing when you hear how a series of mishaps helps
create a massive, life changing song the world has loved
for well over fifty years. That was Randy Backman with
American Woman. And that's it for this episode of Behind
the Vinyl. I'm Stu Jeffries with a giant group hug
and a huge thank you for taking the time to listen, comment, share,
and subscribe. We've got lots of episodes. If you haven't
heard them all yet, feel free to catch up. If
(12:25):
you feel like binge listening, we'll be.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Back with more.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
This has been Behind the Vinyl, the podcast hosted by
Stu Jeffries. Audio production courtesy of Doug Morehouse, Derek Welsman
and Troy McCallum. Thanks for listening.
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