Talk:The Guess Who

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The band's name is The Guess Who, not Guess Who. Where the word The is part of a name, whether of a book, newspaper, band or whatever, it stays in the title. Where it is used when talking about something, but isn't actually part of the name it is dropped, eg The Irish Times, the Irish Independent. FearÉIREANN 02:55 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think perhaps we should set up a disambiguation page so as to distinguish between The Guess Who and the Hasbro game Guess Who?. -Branddobbe

I started work on the article's language, but I may have incedentally distorted some facts in my rephrasing. Tyharvey313

Contents

[edit] .

the BAND the Guess Who have been around since the early 1960s, the game has only been around since the 80s

I don't know about the connection to The Who either. I think the "Guess Who?" label on "Shakin' All Over" was strictly a gimmick to denote a mystery group.

The Guess Who were referred to as "Guess Who?" for a bit, until it was changed (minus the question mark) to The Guess Who.

I removed the redirect of "Guess Who" page to "The Guess Who", it's now a navigation page to redirect uses to either "The Guess Who" or "Guess Who?

This biography on the Guess Who is awful. It makes it seem as it Burton Cummings was the talent of the band, entirely bias.

[edit] US bias

In the first line shouldn't read that they were the first Canadian rock group to have a number 1 hit in the US.

I think the biography is very accurate. I have nearly all of the band's LPs. One of them has a band history on one side of the album. As for the band's name, that album states, as in the biography, that the "Shakin' All Over" recording was labeled "Guess Who", but DJs introduced the recording as by "The Guess Who Band", or "The Guess Who Group". Over a relatively short time, they became known as "The Guess Who" or just "Guess Who".

    Burton Cummings WAS the main talent of the band. His powerful, emotionally intense vocals made the band. That is not to say that the other band members lacked talent, they were all talented, but Cummings style is what made The Guess Who The Guess Who. We all know about BTO, but that is a different band with a different sound, and the Guess Who band that performs today is a poor imatation of the band that gained fame with Burton Cummings. It's not bias to state that the band had most of it's success with Burton Cummings as lead singer.


User:TimothyHorrigan: Would being Canadian have been such a huge disadvantage in the mid-1960s? South of the border, it shouldn't have mattered much one way or the other. In Canada itself, it should have been a huge advantage, not just because of cultural chauvinism but also because of Canadian content rules on Canadian radio (which included a few stations such as CKLW with significant US listenership.) Timothy Horrigan 20:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


The "first Canadian rock group" bit is misleading. The Crew-Cuts "Sh'Boom" hit number 1 in the US and are at least arguably rock'n'roll. As to TimothyHorrigan's comments, CanCon rules weren't around in the mid-60s. They didn't come into being until 1971, and that led to a backlash by US stations against Canadian artists. But being Canadian (at least outside of Toronto) was a disadvantage before that as the infrastructure wasn't there, and you wouldn't have a 'home' city to showcase your songs in the US.Skyhawk0 (talk) 13:47, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Guess Who and CanCon

Canadian content regulations were not enacted until 1972, long after The Guess Who were an established band with many hits. Prior to that, it was difficult (though obviously not impossible) for Canadian bands to break through on Canadian radio, as the Canadian music distribution system was largely controlled by American record companies promoting American or British acts. Canadian bands also had to obtain work visas to tour in the US or the UK, which made things a little more complicated in terms of getting one's international career off the ground. (Partly because work visas would only be granted to musicians of a certain professional stature -- and because it was difficult to get a career started in Canada, it was hard to achieve that stature...)

So yes, being a in Canadian rock band in the 60s put one at somewhat of a disadvantage career-wise. That the Guess Who succeeded and thrived in this environment is a testament to both their work ethic, and to the quality of their music.

[edit] the SARS mega-concert in Toronto

Didn't Bachman and Cummings play a memorable set at this huge show? If so, I don't see it mentioned. Shawn in Montreal 16:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC) Actually, it was just Randy Bachman who played. It was supposed to be a Bachman Cummings show, but for whatever reason, Burton didn't show up. So Randy went on alone.


What's the name of the live guess who album released around 2000 that featured all of the originals for one show? The album is called 'Running Back Thru Canada'. It's actually not all the originals. After the first show, Jim Kale was asked to leave the band, and he was replaced by Bill Wallace (who had also replaced Kale in the 70's). The group was then augmented by another latter day member, Donnie McDougal. These two, along with originals Cummings, Bachman and Peterson, then did a cross-country tour. The album documents the tour.

[edit] The picture is misleading

Burton had long hair and no moustache at the height of their career ('69-'70). Something like this would be more appropriate: [1] ۝ ۞ ░ 06:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discography

I created articles for the main studio albums and I'll work on the rest. But the only info I have is track listings, years, and artwork and I'd appreciate if others chipped in on more info for the albums.Sillywebby 18:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Website name [non-]conflict

I was going to point out that the Infobox lists the band's website as "http://www.theguesswhocafe.com/" while the External links lists it as "http://www.theguesswho.com/", but as they both apparently point to "http://www.theguesswho.com/", it doesn't really matter. Typofixer76 (talk) 00:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citations & References

See Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the <ref(erences/)> tags Nhl4hamilton (talk) 05:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)