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Written by Jason Green Tuesday, 31 January 2006 04:58

While not the most comprehensive look at the band’s history (that would be 1999’s Greatest Hits, which covers up to 1975 when Cummings quit), The Best of the Guess Who offers a healthy supply of classic tracks.

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The Guess Who are a hard band to peg down. Formed from the ashes of Chad Allan and the Expressions, the monsters of Canadian rock are best known for a short burst of chart-topping singles from the early ’70s. Though they are remembered mostly for the riff-rockin’ “American Woman,” many listeners might be shocked by not only the near wall-to-wall excellence of The Best of the Guess Who, but also just how many of the songs from this vastly underrated band still hold court on classic rock radio and oldies stations the world over.

Originally released in 1971 at the height of their popularity, The Best of the Guess Who wisely ignores the band’s long-lost early albums and late releases with different lineups to concentrate on its late-’60s/early-’70s heyday. The first three songs are stellar examples of late-’60s blue-eyed soul, singer Burton Cummings’ voice straining to its upper register—a far cry from his fearsome growl on “American Woman”—as it floats over sweeping string arrangements. Opener “These Eyes” (from 1968’s Wheatfield Soul) and “Undun” (from the following year’s Canned Wheat) would have easily sounded at home on Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis, right down to the latter’s delightful flute solo, and the slow, tender “Laughing” aches like a Smokey Robinson–penned Motown smash.

As guitarist Randy Bachman began to take a more prominent role, the band transformed its style into the AOR rock sound that became its signature. The metamorphosis began with “No Time,” a balance between the Byrds-ian harmonized vocals and ringing guitars of the chorus and the picked lead guitar and deep bass groove on the verses that plays like Creedence Clearwater Revival—if they came from the Great White North instead of the bayou. As “No Time” reaches its epic conclusion, Cummings sings the song’s title with ever-increasing ferocity, his voice finally taking on the gritty tone and raw power that places him easily among the upper echelon of rock vocalists.

As a bridge between the band’s two distinct sounds, it’s no wonder, then, that “No Time” appeared in slightly different versions on both Canned Wheat and its smash hit follow-up American Woman. That album’s title track still holds up as one for the time capsule, its angular riff and Cummings’ fearsome singing so flat-out perfect that it makes one wonder what Lenny Kravitz was thinking when he recorded his flaccid remake. American Woman’s other hit single, “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature,” boasts an inventive arrangement where the same basic song structure is used in both halves of the song, but by changing the meter of the lyrics and adding keyboards they become wholly different, their relationship to each other only becoming clear when the two vocal melodies are overlaid in the song’s back half.

Bachman departed after American Woman to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive, leaving Cummings and new guitarists Kurt Winter and Greg Leskiw to attempt a follow-up. Share the Land, released the same year as American Woman, serves up spottier material but offers The Best of a few gems. “Bus Driver” and “Do You Miss Me Darlin’” serve up generic riffs and even more generic lyrics, but the fine title track—a piano-based folk-er that plays like Billy Joel channeling Woody Guthrie—“Hand Me Down World,” and “Hang on to Your Life” more than make up the difference.

Like many of its contempories—Aerosmith, for example—the Guess Who has literally dozens of best-of albums in its discography, almost all of which cover the same territory as this collection while varying the supplemental, non-required tracks. This particular reissue adds three songs from 1971’s So Long, Bannatyne (the fun “Albert Flasher” and “Broken,” and the obnoxious “Rain Dance”). While not the most comprehensive look at the band’s history (that would be 1999’s Greatest Hits, which covers up to 1975 when Cummings quit), The Best of the Guess Who offers a healthy supply of classic tracks. Every fan of ’70s classic rock needs to own at least one Guess Who CD, and The Best of the Guess Who certainly ranks as one of the best. | Jason Green