Cummings & goings
Canuck icon has a new solo album, the first, he says, for which he wrote every song
By JASON MACNEIL, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 4th November 2008, 4:36am
http://www.torontosun.com/entertainm...96281-sun.html
Having just come off the road following a tour with Randy Bachman last year, Burton Cummings considered getting back to work on a new solo record, one he thought about releasing five years ago.
But while mulling it over, those who knew him best were actually setting things in motion.
"My road manager Sam Boyd and my manager Lorne Saifer, they phoned me up one day around November 2007 and said, 'Alright, the studio is booked in California, the flights are booked, so is the band and you start on January 11th,' " Cummings says. "I was like (gulps), 'What? I guess I'm doing a new album.
"So once I reached that point, I felt a little bit relieved. It was like a weight was taken off my shoulders. It was like okay, it's going to be real now, we're going in on the eleventh and everything was concrete. It was laid out in front of me."
The new album Above the Ground, in stores today, features 19 songs.
But perhaps most surprising about this record is Cummings wrote all the material himself, something he couldn't say about an album before.
"The fact that it's so many and they're all mine, that's the first time I've ever seen that in print on any of my album covers -- all songs by Burton Cummings. That's kind of a neat little personal milestone for me," he says.
After spending most of the past decade touring as The Guess Who and then as Bachman Cummings, Cummings says Father Time influenced the album's direction, hence the album title.
"I think all of my years of living have crept into the lyrics, so this is more of an album of reflecting and growing up and being a little older," Cummings, 60, says.
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"I don't think there's a lot of fluff on here, the lyrics are far more ... I wouldn't say serious but I am more concerned now at this stage in my life. I don't want to put something out that will haunt me or embarrass me in a few years."
Although American Woman was a huge hit, Cummings remains a Canadian citizen living in Los Angeles part of the year. However, in late October Cummings revealed to Sun Media he planned on getting dual citizenship.
Maybe the idea came from We Just Came From the USA, a single Cummings describes as "Caveman stuff" that's getting lots of airplay Stateside despite not being the most praiseworthy song about Uncle Sam's land.
"It's a reflection on a Canadian's idea on how insane the United States is and yet wonderful at the same time," Cummings says. "I love the whole concept of the United States, but they're obsessed with celebrity, power and money, it's a crazy country.
"I'm not putting America down. God knows it's been good to me. In the bridge I'm saying I'll cut you open for a nickel, sew you back up for a dime, for a quarter I can testify that someone else did, for a dollar I'd do it all one more time. So it's the obsession with money and power down there."
The person Cummings might have to thank most for Above the Ground being released is his longtime cohort Randy Bachman.
After touring this summer (sometimes in severe agony), Bachman underwent shoulder surgery, the result of having a Gibson guitar slung over his left shoulder for four decades.
"Thank God he's okay again, but my next few months certainly will be centred on Above the Ground. I'm at a stage in life where that's a real privilege. A lot of people don't get that chance when they turn 60. And it's not an old lame guy just putting out an album for the sake of putting out an album."
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Caption for photo: "All of my years of living have crept into the lyrics, so this is more of an album of reflecting and growing up," Burton Cummings says of his new album, Above the Ground. (Mark O'Neill, Sun Media)