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The erstwhile frontman for The Guess Who has just had his entire '70s solo oeuvre released on CD for the first time by Sony, and he hadn't even seen the album covers. Spotting them in my bag, he made a grab. "Wow, look at these!"
His eponymous solo album following the breakup of The Guess Who featured Burton on the cover wearing a lounge-lizard-era patterned suit made of velour and a shirt whose lapels had the wingspan of a pteranodon.
Does he still have the shirt? "No, and I don't have that suit either," Cummings says, staring at the image of his '70s self. "This is ridiculous. I would never show up anywhere like this. This was 23 years ago, and I was a little bit of a victim of management...," he says, continuing to stare and then breaking into a grin, "... and a victim of fashion too, lemme tell ya!"
'70s look is back
I don't have the heart to tell him this would be a retro-hip outfit today. Life is confusing enough for those of us over 40.
The eras are close enough to almost overlap, but Cummings' second career -- marked by schmaltzy but likeable, feverishly rendered radio hits such as I'm Scared, Break It To Them Gently, and My Own Way To Rock -- happened before the era of CDs. And although all but the last few Guess Who albums are available on disc, Cummings' albums haven't been.
"The first time I ever saw a CD, I was co-hosting the Junos with Alan Thicke. We were doing our intros and he held one up and he said, 'Folks, this is the new wave of recorded music.' I remember, it was the Toto disc, the red one with Rosanna. And I said, 'Hey! Lemme see that.' "
These are heady times for a guy whose heyday coincided with Pierre Trudeau's. The money still trickles in every time someone covers or samples one of Cummings' hits (Lenny Kravitz doing American Woman, Maestro riffing on These Eyes). Cummings has been touring heavily with his one-man, one-piano show, he's in the early stages of recording an album with Alanis Morissette producer Glen Ballard, and there were rave reviews for The Guess Who's reunion set to close the Pan-Am Games in Cummings' home town of Winnipeg this past August.
"Yeah, that went pretty well," he says. "Twenty minutes before we went on, it finally dawned on us that there were about 300 million people watching, and I was pretty nervous. But once we plugged in and got going with No Time, it was so great. And the reaction from the crowd was amazing.
Rehearsal filmed for special
"We rehearsed three days and everything was filmed (for a future TV special) -- the original confrontation, all the backstage stuff, the initial meeting. The four of us (Cummings, Randy Bachman, Garry Peterson and Jim Kale) had not been in a room together for years."
Um, did he say confrontation? "Oh, I didn't mean anything by that," he says, understanding the reference to longstanding rumours of bad blood between the band members. "We had no more or less friction among the four of us than any other rock 'n' roll band. The publishing battles, the split-up, the personnel changes -- it sells papers, and that's it."
In fact, he has fielded offers for the band to tour North America and Japan next year. "We'd have to put together a two-hour show. It's all a matter of logistics, a lot of money involved."
Credits made them rich
Not that that's his concern, or Bachman's, since they share songwriting credits on the classic Guess Who hits.
"Randy's very wealthy and I've done okay. Jim and Garry are in a different position. There's a different income stream for the guys that wrote the song. That's just a fact of life."
As he tells it, his main motivation is a chance to do justice to the hits.
"I've seen people do their hits like into a gumbo of a medley at almost twice the speed of the recorded tracks, and it's almost like they wanna get them out of the way.
"But that's not the reason people come to those shows. I was raised on 2 1/2-minute singles by Sam Cooke and Fats Domino. Those 2 1/2-minute songs are signposts in people's lives."
The Guess Who
Originally: Allan & The Silvertones, Chad Allan & The Expressions. Cummings replaced Allan as lead singer, 1966.
Hits: Shakin' All Over (with Chad Allan), These Eyes, American Woman, Laughing, Undun, No Time, No Sugar Tonight, Share The Land, Hand Me Down World, Albert Flasher, Clap For The Wolfman, Dancin' Fool.
Burton Cummings albums (available on Sony Music): Burton Cummings, Dream Of A Child, Woman Love, My Own Way To Rock.