Episode 116 Robert Lawson Who is the Guess Who?

On November 10th 2023 Burton Cummings & Randy Bachman launched a false advertising law suit against former bandmates Jim Cale & Garry Peterson.
In this episode I spoke with one of the leading experts on all things "The Guess Who", Robert Lawson about this news.
Robert's book "Wheatfield Empire" details pretty much everyone you could ask about the history of one of Canada's most successful bands.
He spoke with members of Burton Cummings team days before we recorded this interview & has an inside scoop as to the motivations of all involved.
This is another good one folks, so grab a beverage , put on your headphones & have a listen to our chat.
Copy & paste the following link to Robert's Facebook profile into your web browser for more info about his books & his inside knowledge. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007850040446

And if you enjoy my show & would like to help us keep it going why not follow this link to buy me a coffee? https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tsolobandq

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tommy-solo-s-famous-friends--4318572/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:23):
Welcome to Temmy Solo's famous friends.This is a special addition to do with
bands and those who claim to bethose bands, etc. And the legal
aspects involved. And it's just acoincidence that a few days ago I made
a social media post ranting about howsometimes when a band breaks up or when
they retire, another band just stepsin and takes over the name. And

(00:45):
we got quite a bit of fussand muss over that, and one of
the people commented something about, yeah, the Guess Who, And then my
guest today who literally wrote the bookon the guests Who said, don't even
get me started. And then andthen there was a lawsuit. So,
Robert, what's going on with theGuess Who? Right now? It's pretty

(01:07):
interesting. I guess it's been brewingfor a long time. Some of your
listeners might not know the rights tothe name The Guests Who. Original bassist
Jim Kale has owned the rights tothat name for many, many years now,
and he's toured for decades with variouslineups that he calls the Guess Who.

(01:29):
And original drummer Gary Peterson has beena part of it for a really
long time. A couple of yearsago, Jim Cale retired from touring,
making Gary Peterson the only original memberor even just from the original era Guess
Who member in what currently tours mostlyin the US as the Guests Who Right,
And it's been a bone of contentionfor a long time, I know,

(01:53):
And as always in these situations,there are people buying tickets to shows
and they expect and Cummings and RandyBachman to be there, and of course
they're not. And from what Iunderstand, Burton Cummings at least has had
some conversations with Jim Cale and GaryPeterson over the years about it, and
there were some see some and desistletters sent recently. So what's finally happened

(02:17):
and it was just kind of announcedon Monday of this week. Editor's note
We originally recorded this interview on Novemberone, twenty twenty three, as the
news of this lawsuit was just breaking. Now back to the show, was
that Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman havefiled a lawsuit against the current Guess Who

(02:39):
saying that they are misleading the fans, that they're not really honest about who
they are, and there's speaking tostop them from It's not even so much
about using the name the Guess Who, because I don't think Burton is really
going to He's not going to starttouring with his band and call the Guess
Who. I really don't think he'sgoing to do that. But it has

(03:00):
to do with the fact that whenthe current Guests Who Kale's Guests who run
ads either on radio or even onInstagram on Facebook promoting their shows, they'll
often use music recorded by the actualreal Guess Who. So it's easy to
see how somebody could be misled thatat the very least Burton was going to

(03:22):
be there, because you're hearing hisvoice during the commercials. And yeah,
over the years, I've seen manymany posts on social media people who've gone
to see the Guests Who and werereally surprised who came out on stage.
And it's kind of notable too tosay that in twenty twenty two there were

(03:43):
many many concerts by the Guests Whoin the States that even Gary Peterson wasn't
present for they substituted him for theguy who used to drum in the band
Tesla. Oh. So I don'tknow why Gary wasn't there, but he
missed a lot of He may havemissed the majority of any twenty twenty two
tour dates that they did, andthey do a lot of cruise ships and

(04:05):
casinos and stuff like that, statefairs, he missed a lot of that.
He may have missed the majority ofthat tour. So that means that
if you saw the guests who intwenty twenty two, there's a good chance
that there wasn't even a single originalmember on stage. Wow. And from
what I understand, I know thatyou shared a Rolling Stone article on this

(04:27):
issue, and from what I understand, the yet Peterson Kale lineup has been
using Randy and Burton's images in theirpromo material as well. Yeah, that's
right, there's been. And they'llalso do things like like when it's the
anniversary of you know, I don'tknow, like the American Woman's single that
was first released, they'll post iton their social media as if it's a

(04:49):
memory that the current band all sharethat you know, remember when this came
out. But Gary's the only oneon that record. None of the guys
in the current band we're on thatrecord, So that that's a little odd.
The other thing that they do orthat they've done, and I double
checked it today, I'm not anextreming guy, but I do use Spotify

(05:11):
at my work. So if youlook up the guests who on Spotify and
you just want to listen to theShare of the Land album, the band
picture that you're going to see onyour screen is of the current lineup,
which does make it kind of seemis that they're the guys playing on that
record, and of course they're not. Well, there is a line absolutely,
And there's another similar situation right nowthat's going on with the band Toronto.

(05:34):
And it's interesting that when I spoketo Holly Woods a couple of years
ago, I asked her how shefelt about the band Toronto carrying on without
her, and she said something tothe effect of, well, if you
were a successful business and you hadto retire, wouldn't you want that business
to continue to be successful. Butnow it's come out that she never really

(05:56):
gave her permission for the name tobe used. And I know that Brian
Allen and Hollywoods, I think,along with Sharon Alton, are pursuing legal
options. But it's a real cesspoolonce you get into it, you know,
and there's there's other bands like theHeadpins. I know that Darby Mills
wasn't the original lead singer in theHeadpins, but she was the singer that

(06:18):
everybody associates with the Headpins and TooLoud McLeod. So there's no original Headpins.
There's no original CCR, you know. And now we've got this situation
with the guests who and it getsdown to using other people's images and using
the music. That's to me,that's just dirty. Well, and there's

(06:40):
different ways to do it. LikeI my understanding is that the current lineup
of Foreigner that tours there's no originalmembers, but I think they're like licensed
somehow, or or they're allowed todo it. They're kind of authorized to
be some sort of almost a Foreignertribute band, even though they don't name
themselves that and from what I fromwhat I stand to Bick Jones, at
least up until recently, was comingout and playing a couple of songs with

(07:03):
that band, So they're a licensedForeigner And the same thing recently happened with
April Wine and it's kind of interesting. A few years ago, somebody suggested
to me, Miles Goodwin is goingto retire, you should audition to be
his replacement. Not that h Idon't know. I guess maybe you know
somebody has confidence immed to that level. But I looked into it and in

(07:26):
my Google searches I came up withan interview with Miles and he says,
well, I don't really want toretire. I just want to stop doing
the live shows. I want tocontinue all the recording and the songwriting and
just have somebody else do all thework. And I thought, huh,
and we'll be right back after this. That would just be a tribute band

(08:03):
and nobody would get any gravy butMiles. But at the same time,
now Miles has retired from touring withApril Wine, although he is touring with
Jim Henmon on the East Coast.He has given his replacement for license,
and Trooper has done something very similarwith Ray McGuire and Brian Smith. Anyway,
that the guys from Trooper have giventhe go ahead for the guys that

(08:26):
were in their band to continue underthat name, but there's no such agreement
here. I understand too, thatyou've been speaking with Burton Cummings legal team,
not specifically his legal team, butI am in touch with just kind
of the team that works with Burton. Let's put it that way, not
exactly management, you know, butyou know, some people have asked,

(08:48):
like, why is it taking solong for this to happen, Like why,
after all these years is Burton suingJim Klee and Gary Peterson? And
I would just say delicately that inthe past, I feel Burton did not
have maybe the proper team behind himwho would pursue something like this or even
thought that it was worth correcting.And now he does have those people behind

(09:09):
him, so he's got some peopleworking with him to correct this. The
story for what a lot of peoplemight not know. So in nineteen seventy
eight or seventy seven, there's basicallyis no guess who The guests who broke
up in seventy five, they theydon't exist. Jim Kale decides he wants
to play again. So that's fine. And there is a distinction here,

(09:31):
which is why I think it's importantto bring it up. So Jim Kle
wants to play again, and hegets Donny McDougall, who of course had
been in the Real Guests Who.And he gets Kurt Winner who'd been in
the Real Guests Who. And atthat point the story is that he does
ask Randy and Burton, is itokay if I do some stuff as the
guests Who. Now, in nineteenseventy eight, Burton's solo careers through the

(09:54):
roof, a lot of big hits, some great solo albums, Randy lot
of success with Backman Turner Overdrive.And you know, at the time,
we didn't have this kind of classicrock mentality. You know, the name
the Guess Who didn't mean that muchat the time. You wouldn't think that
by the time CDs came, everybodywould be like rebuying their whole collections again,
and now we're rebuying them all againon vinyl, And you know,

(10:18):
that didn't really exist in nineteen seventyeight. It was all about going forward,
and both Burton and Randy were goingforward. So for Jim to put
out on an album what she didin nineteen seventy eight called Guess Who's Back,
and it's an okay kind of record. It sort of sounds a little
bit like the Guess Who, becauseDonnie is doing most of the singing and
Kurt even sings a little bit onone song. That's one thing. And

(10:39):
when they would play they would playa lot of that new material along with
old although not that whole at thetime Guess Whose songs, that's a little
different. Over the years, thatmorphed into kind of a Guess Who tribute
band where they're doing almost all classicmaterial from the vintage era of Burton's era,
really, and that's when it reallygets murky that now you're not just

(11:01):
like a new band with some differentguys, but some of the old guys
are there. And you know,I think that that original Jim Cale version
of the Guests Who has some validityto it. I don't think it's great.
It's definitely not as good as theBanattayne album or the Artificial Paradise album
or any of them really, butit still has some validity because of who's

(11:22):
in it. And then after awhile you get it's like just Jim Kle
and a bunch of you know,guys from Toronto and stuff. That's when
it really changes. And then nowit's at a point where, like I
said, Gary's missing dates, Jim'sretired. I saw an interview not that
long ago. It was with Garyand with the current lead vocalists of the
Guests Who, and they tried tomake the point that because the current vocalist

(11:46):
has been in the band longer thanBurton was, which is true. You
know the original Guests who's like ninetysixty five to seventy five. So they're
trying to make the point that becausethis guy's been there longer than Burton,
that's what makes this version of theGuests Who so valid that this guy has
he's more a member of the GuestsWho than Burton ever was. I would
to be play the devil's advocate onthat. I would have to talk about

(12:09):
the body of work. I mean, what kind of a body of work
has come from that lineup? Well, and that's exactly my point. His
name is Derek, and he's confusingthe quantity of the amount of time that
he's been in the Guests Who withthe quality of the work that he's put
out. And it's no coincidence thatwhen they go out on stage, the
majority of the material that they're playingis from that earlier guy. So to

(12:31):
say like, oh, Burton wasonly in the band for ten years,
you know, well, it's hissongs you're singing every night. So apparently
in those ten years he did somepretty good stuff. You know, the
Guests Who put out a new albumthis year, and you know, tell
me how many hits off of ityou can name, yeah right now or
not one? Have you listened toit? I have? I have?

(12:54):
Ok Okay, I guess we don'thave to really. I take one for
the team, Tommy, Yeah,okay, I don't want you to send
me a copy, but anyway,that's great now. I mean, sometimes
there's a progression in a band,as we all know. I mean,
look at the Beatles. It wasn'tthe Fab four initially, you know,

(13:16):
Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best and whatnot. I think about the guests who originally
Chad Allen was the lead singer rightnow, they, as far as I
can remember, they had one hit, albeit a big one, you know,
shaken all over that being said,once Burton Cummings joined the band,
they went through the roof literally.I mean, all the hits are Burton

(13:39):
Cummings with the exception of that one. And as you said, I can't
name any new guess who songs notone? Well, some people get caught
up in a lot of things thatI don't think are really really that big
a deal, Like the Rolling Stonearticle mistakenly refers to Randy and Burton as
both being like co founders of thegroup. So yes, that is a

(14:01):
mistake on the part of Rolling Stone. Burton is not the original lead singer,
but for all intents and purposes,he is the singer from the beginning
of Yes, they're a huge hitsand I'm a big fan of the Chad
Allen earic. Don't get me wrong. They did have some regional hits after
Shaken all Over. I like thatstuff a lot. The original piano player,

(14:22):
Bob Ashley, he's a friend ofmine now, so I liked I
like those albums a lot. Butyeah, when people think of the guests
who, and especially if you buylike a Greatest Hits or some kind of
a compilation of the guests who,it's probably gonna start with like No Time
or these guys and go forward fromthere, no doubt. I think about
Journey as well. The original Journeylineup did not have Steve Perry in the

(14:43):
bag. It was Greg Rowley singingand Neil Sean singing and Astley Dunbar on
drums, and I think Steve Smithon bass. Editor's note, the actual
original lineup of Journey was, infact Neil Sewan on guitar and vocals,
Greg Rowley on keyboards and vocals.They also had a rhythm guitarist named George

(15:03):
Tickner. On bass originally was RossValerie and on drums was Prairie Prince.
Now Ainsley Dunbar and Steve Smith wouldboth join later on. Anyway, back
to this show, that said,once Steve Perry joined the band, very
analogous to what happened with the guestswho all of a sudden to the moon,

(15:24):
right, And when you think aboutJourney, you think about Steve Perry
as the singer, and I thinkit's very much the same with the guests
Who and Burton Cummings. And eventhough Randy Bachman was not the longest tenured
guitarist, he's certainly the one thatpeople associate with being the guitarist and the
guests who, Yeah, a littlebit to a fault because ever since this

(15:46):
news broke on Monday, but Randyand Burton souon the guests Who. I've
seen many many social media posts peoplesaying if Burton and Randy aren't on stage,
then it's not the guess who,or you know, the guess who
has to include Burton and Randy andthat's not really true either, because yes,
the Guess Who did great albums,and they had a lot of great
songs after Randy left. So GuessWho fans aren't always the most knowledgeable with

(16:11):
some of that stuff, which ishow the current guess Who gets away with
it because people will go down,people will go to the shows and sometimes
not know better that they didn't seethe real guess Who. And how many
people at those state fairs are yellingout, let me hear Dominic Troyano play
and we'll be right back after this. You know, I mean, I

(16:47):
love Dominic Trano and you know hisbrother is a great guy and all that,
but we don't associate Dominic Troyano asthe guitar player with the Guess Who.
No, but I mean the youknow, the right after Randy left,
where you have Kurt Winter, whowas not only a great guitar player,
but brought a lot of his ownmaterial and was a songwriting force.
You know, that's where I haveto get a little kind of technical and

(17:10):
say, well, the guess Whodid a lot of good stuff without Randy.
Don't get me wrong, but it'sstill the original era, which would
be Burton is the main anchor forthat in the same way that Bill Wallace
isn't the original bassist, but hereplaced Cale and he's on albums like Number
ten in Artificial Paradise, So Istill consider him a Bassis from the original
era. You know, they wentthrough a few guitar players, but you

(17:33):
know, I would never discount thecontributions of guys like Donno McDougall and especially
Kurt Winner. From a songwriting perspective. The thing that Bill Wallace does,
which I kind of wish was morethan Cale Peterson approach. He does these
shows with Carl Dixon from Cony Hatch. Yeah. Right, so Carl's got
this. You know, he's gotlike four or five different careers going on
now because he's revaped Corey Hatch,and he does these solo things and he's

(17:56):
an inspirational speaker, and you know, somehow he's got more hours in the
day than I do, that's forsure. But one of the shows that
he does, and I've seen it, and it's a lot of fun,
and it's just called like Carl Dixonsings the Guess Who, and Bill Wallace
is in the band, and thenhe's got some other Canadian guys and I
think the guitar player Laurie Hughes inthe later version of the Guest Who for

(18:17):
a little while. But Carl andBill, they don't come out and say
that they're the Guess Who at all, but they do come out as people
who are both in the Guests Whoat different times, and they tell some
stories between and Bill gets up thereand he gets to sing lead vocals and
a couple of songs, and it'sactually a lot of fun that has a
certain amount of value to me.I really enjoyed seeing those guys. I

(18:37):
hope I get to see them again. And it's valid because they're going out
and saying it's Carl Dixon singing theGuess Who. It's not Carl Dixon,
it's not I'm Burton Cummings, it'snot I'm the Guess Who. It's totally
valid. And in the same wayas you know most tribute acts bill themselves

(18:59):
as a trip that said, doyou have a sense of where this whole
legal issue is going to go?Well, I've said for a long time
that I think Jim Kle has aprice. You know, he's I don't
know, he's like seventy nine orlike eighty now like, but I think
he has a price, and Ithink that that price probably could have been
met twenty years ago. And youknow, that's an issue why it wasn't

(19:22):
pursued. You know, there's somequotes by him in the Rolling Stone interview
which are from an early article.They didn't talk to him. He's a
tough guy to get out of hiscave to talk to. I'll tell you
that I tried three different ways tointerview him for my book, and man,
I could just could not make hedgwaywith that guy. He doesn't want
to talk to anybody. But thequotes that are in the Rolling Stone article
from a few years ago, heactually kind of says that he'll keep a

(19:47):
band out there no matter who's init, just to piss off Burton Cummings.
And he says, you know,I'm his karma. I don't think
Jim Kale actually knows maybe what karmameans and what that entails, because he's
gonna have a bill that he's gonnahave to pay, so it's tough.
But at least if they went outand you know, called themselves the guests

(20:10):
who show featuring original drummer Gary Peterson, assuming that Gary is gonna be at
the shows. Nobody would have aproblem with it. And again, it's
more or it's less about the namesand about them using the music during commercials
to advertise the shows. That's actuallymisleading the fans, and that's kind of
the bigger issue. So where it'sgonna go. I think they're going to

(20:32):
offer Jim. I don't know ifJim has has the pockets for a lengthy
legal fight. I think, youknow, there's a good chance that he's
gonna have to give it up.He'll probably fight as long as he can.
I mean, he is a pretty, you know, mean kind of
guy, and he's a tough guy. He doesn't like being bullied at all.

(20:53):
And like I said, a lotof what he's doing is just had
a spite anyway, which is apretty angry way to live when you're you
know, seventy nine or eighty yearsold. You know, I have this
whole theory, you know, ifyou're seventy nine years old and you're still
that angry at the world, youjust haven't figured out what this is.
But you know that's his journey,no kidding. So I guess we'll have

(21:15):
to see how this whole thing shakesout. But let's remind the people you've
written more than one book. Wetalked on this show about Wheatfield Empire,
which is literally the book on theguests who there it is Wheatfield Empire.
And where can people get that?It's still available. It's on Amazon.

(21:36):
You can get signed copies directly fromme, your local Indigo or Barnes and
Nobles in the States. They'll orderit in for you, and it's around.
It's not too hard to get orlike I say, you contact me
privately and I mail out signed copiesall the time. And you've written books
about Cheap Trick and Nazareth, andI understand there is a new one in

(21:56):
the works with Stephen Steven. Okay, yeah, my new book is about
kind of my personal hero, littleStephen van zandt. It's pretty much done,
actually, I've got I've got ateam of kind of proof readers going
through it all and trying to makeit somewhat presentable. And then I'm supposed

(22:18):
to be talking to Steven himself atsome point. I don't know if it's
going to be next month or hopefullysoon, and then I just have to
kind of drop in his little quoteseverywhere. But other than that, there's
like nineteen chapters. It's all done. I've interviewed twenty two or twenty three
something ex and current band members who'veworked with him, So it's the most

(22:41):
involved with the actual artists of anyof my books, even though Burton was
a great contributor to my Guess Whobook. So I'm really happy with it,
but we're not rushing to get itout because we want to make sure
that it's the best possible version ofit it can be. But I would
say early to maybe spring twenty twentyfour, it'll be out. That sounds
awesome. Why don't you just remindpeople where they can find you on YouTube?

(23:04):
There is a channel we haven't reallyupdated in quite a long long time.
I think you just search my nameon there. I'm also on Facebook
under my name. I'm on Instagramunder Robert dot James dot Lawson, so
I'm easily found and like I said, happy to send out a signed copies

(23:26):
of the books or talk with anybodyabout music. I talk about music all
day at my day job, soyeah, you know, talk about it
all night when I'm not at work. I was going to say, like
most people involved in the entertainment industrywho can actually pay the bills. We
have other jobs, and I knowyou have to get to one in the
morning, so I won't keep youfor much longer. But Robert Lawson,
thanks so much for once again takingthe time to do this with me.

(23:48):
And done until next time. Cheers, Thanks Tommy. Well, I guess
we'll just have to wait and seewhat happens with the lawsuit that Burton Cummings
and Randy Bockman have brought against thepeople who are currently calling themselves the Guests
Who. And I will put thelink to Robert Lawson's Facebook profile in the
show notes for this If you wantto talk to him or get a copy

(24:11):
of his book about the Guests WhoWheat Filled Empire, that's the easiest way
to reach him. Okay, thanksagain for listening to Tommy Solo's Famous Friends.
Tommy Solo's Famous Friends is a oneman production, meaning that I've done
all the work, including recording,editing, guest acquisition, et cetera.
And hey, here's some news.We've just recently joined forces with five to

(24:34):
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(24:56):
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