Originally posted by Kerrowdown I must admit these are all names I'm certainly not familiar with.
I'm not very good at taking subtle hints, so I will fill in the blanks for you, whether you want me to or not.
Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman formed the
Guess Who in 1965 and had a huge international hit in 1970 with American Woman (both the song and the album). Cummings and Bachman were born and raised in Winnipeg (very close to the longitudinal centre of Canada). Neil Young was born in Toronto but spent a good chunk of his childhood in Winnipeg as well. Mr. Lesmore49 is also from the 'Peg. Randy Bachman left the band in 1971? and formed
Bachman Turner Overdrive with his brother and a couple of other people. On this side of the Atlantic, BTO was even bigger than the Guess Who in the mid seventies. The Guess Who were more of a folk/blues/pop band, BTO was a pulsating heavy metal band with the edges polished to fit Top 40 radio. My very first LP was Best of B.T.O. (So Far), released in 1976.
Jeff Healey's musical career was much shorter, his popularity in Canada and the U.S. peaked '89-90, with a high energy jazz/blues/rock and roll sound featuring his virtuouso guitar playing, along with horns, bass and drums provided by his house band, The Jeff Healey Blues Band. His music moved away from blues to more of a jazz sound later in his career, but if you check out his debut album See The Light (1988), you will find Angel Eyes.
I lived in Winnipeg for 5 1/2 years, once you get over how flat it is, it has a great deal of character. About 3/4 million people live there, where the Assinniboine and Red Rivers meet. Moose Jaw also has a lot of character, but only about 40,000 people live there and the Moose Jaw River is more like a mosquito infested trickle. Apparently Al Capone hid out in Moose Jaw from time to time to avoid U.S. Revenue agents during Prohibition. Moose Jaw is 200 kms south of where I now live. The only connection to Scotland in all of this is Thomas Douglas, the 5th Earl of Selkirk who established the Red River Colony just north of Winnipeg in 1812, which was the first Canadian settlement west of the Great Lakes that wasn't related to the fur trade.