Randy Bachman

Born in Winnipeg, Randy Bachman established himself as a Canadian rock guitarist and singer through his early work with Chad Allen & the Expressions, the group that developed into the Guess Who, Canada’s leading rock act of the 1960s. He departed the Guess Who in July 1970, issued the solo album Axe, and subsequently assembled Brave Belt, which transformed into Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO) by 1972. After exiting BTO in April 1977 he delivered a second solo effort, Survivor (1978), before starting the band Ironhorse in 1979; he rejoined the Guess Who on tour in 1983 and returned to BTO by 1984. Guitar Recordings released his next solo album, Any Road, in 1993. True North issued the live recording Every Song Tells a Story in 2002, and Maximum Jazz followed with JazzThing in 2004. The Bachman Cummings Songbook appeared in 2006, the same year Bachman made available The Thunderbird Trax, a set of previously unreleased tracks from a 1987 Bachman Cummings project. Two further 2007 releases arrived: the jazz-oriented JazzThing II and the Bachman Cummings covers collection Jukebox. A DVD capturing his July 7, 2007 performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival came out the following July. For the 2008 holiday season Bachman issued Takin’ Care of Christmas, an album of seasonal standards whose title song reworked the BTO hit “Takin’ Care of Business.” Bachman & Turner, a studio album recorded with Fred Turner, surfaced in 2010, and the star-studded solo project Heavy Blues followed in 2015, featuring contributions from Neil Young, Jeff Healey, Joe Bonamassa, and Peter Frampton. In the years after Heavy Blues, Bachman maintained an active touring schedule while continuing to host the CBC radio program Vinyl Tap.