Deep Album Cuts Vol. 328: Bachman-Turner Overdrive

 




The other night while watching this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, I was reminded during the In Memoriam segment that Robbie Bachman and Tim Bachman both died three months apart earlier this year. Bachman-Turner Overdrive is one of those bands that has a couple gigantic hits that will never go away, and a few others in light classic rock rotation, but I've never really given them much thought or wondered about their other material, which of course made them an ideal candidate for this series. 

Bachman-Turner Overdrive album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Hold Back The Water
2. Don't Get Yourself In Water
3. Thank You For The Feelin'
4. Welcome Home
5. Blown
6. Stonegates
7. I Don't Have To Hide
8. Free Wheelin
9. Rock Is My Life, And This Is My Song
10. Sledgehammer
11. Blue Moanin'
12. Four Wheel Drive
13. Flat Broke Love
14. It's Over
15. Wild Spirit
16. Just For You
17. Freeways
18. Slow Down Boogie (live)

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Bachman-Turner Overdrive (1973)
Tracks 4, 5, 6 and 7 from Bachman-Turner Overdrive II (1973)
Tracks 8, 9, 10 and 11 from Not Fragile (1974)
Tracks 12 and 13 from Four Wheel Drive (1975)
Tracks 14 and 15 from Head On (1975)
Tracks 16 and 17 from Freeways (1977)
Track 18 from B.T.O. Japan Tour (1977)

Randy Bachman left The Guess Who at the height of the band's success shortly after American Woman, having written or co-written most of the band's biggest hits at that point, and started a new band with his two brothers and bassist C.F. Turner. And I have to say he's the winner of that split, because I hear Bachman-Turner Overdrive's hits a lot more than The Guess Who's post-Bachman singles. Randy and Tim Bachman and Turner all wrote and sang songs, although Randy Bachman was responsible for most of the hits besides Turner's "Let It Ride." 

I sometimes try to include later albums from after a band's hitmaking peak in these playlists, but in Bachman-Turner Overdrive's case, only the first 6 of their 9 studio albums are on streaming services. That's fine, though, because those are all the albums by the original lineup that contain their biggest hits, as well as all the albums that went gold in America and/or their native Canada. I can't say they're a particularly brilliant band, they're in that goofy everyman category of rock star like Eddie Money that was only really common for a time in the '70s and '80s. But some of these songs have pretty killer guitar workouts, particularly "Hold Back the Water" and "Stonegates."

After Freeways, Randy Bachman left the band for a couple albums trying to launch a solo career (weirdly, he retained the right to use the name 'Bachman' so the band shortened their name to BTO, even though there were still two Bachman brothers in the band). I also included the one new song on their first live album, recorded at Nippon Budokan about a year before Cheap Trick's live album made the venue famous in America. A new lineup of BTO started touring this past summer after the deaths of Randy Bachman's two brothers, with his son Tal Bachman of "She's So High" fame now in the band. 
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