Sometime in 1975 I purchased my very first "real" stereo. I bought it from George Martin (not the George Martin of Beatle fame!). George was a lovely, kind man who had been our neighbour up on the Prairie Crescent for many years. The stereo was a Lloyd's brand and had an AM / FM radio, a phono input and a 8-track player.
The tape was an endless loop inside the cartridge and went round and round unless you hit a button and it changed the position of the playback head resulting in an annoying snap. I loved this stereo and proudly set it up in my room and one of the very first 8-track tapes that I acquired was the BTO (Bachman Turner Overdrive) album, FOUR WHEEL DRIVE. This was my first exposure to the songs of Randy Bachman although I am sure by then I had heard the music from his major claim to fame up that point and that was the band, The Guess Who. I wore the tape out!
Fast forward many years later to when I owned and operated a small recording studio and 14 AKG 460b microphones came up for sale. These microphones had hung in the legislative assembly in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and as such were basically in new condition. I didn't need 14 identical microphones (well, maybe I did but I couldn't afford them) so I ended up selling 2 to my friend Harold Wiens, 2 to my friend Roy Salmond and 2 to none other than Randy Bachman himself for his studio on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. I ended up hanging on to 4 of them and sent 2 of them to Jim Williams of Audio Upgrades for his stellar modifications.
A couple of weeks passed after I shipped them out to Randy and in the mail one day came a beautiful, handwritten letter from Randy Bachman himself thanking me for the microphones. The letter was on his 1970's looking, airbrushed font letterhead. Now I sold these to him they were not a gift so he didn't really need to thank me but the impression that made on me was significant. Here was a man who had sold over 40 million records and counting and was famous around the globe and he took the time to personally write and thank little 'ole me who he didn't know from Adam. Another great lesson for me on being thankful and it also left me with the distinct impression that this was a class man.
Last evening, myself and 3 friends were able to take in a stellar night where Randy at the age of 80 shared stories about his songs, his guitars and his life and also played quite a number of his big hits with a band made up of his son Tal on bass and keys and Tal's wife, KoKo on the drums. Randy currently owns over 1000 guitars and is an avid collector. He is also a consummate story teller and if you haven't heard his Vinyl Tap podcasts you owe it to yourself to check them out!
