November #8 - Guess Who's A. Flasher?

8. The Guess Who - Albert Flasher

The charity shop well has been drying up a little lately: I don't know what people are doing with their old CDs at the moment, but they're not giving them to me via charity. Still, I did have a few good hauls earlier in the year, which I'm still picking my way through, and one of these included The Best of The Guess Who, a Canadian band I previously knew very little about other than their big hit, American Woman.

There's an amusing story behind the band's monicker. Originally formed in the late 50s, they went through a couple of names before settling on Chad Allan & The Reflections. When a US band had a hit with The Reflections name, Chad & co. changed theirs to The Expressions... but then tried an interesting tactic with their next single, a cover of Johnny & The Pirates' Shaking All Over. Apparently the record company wanted to fool DJs (and the public) into thinking the song had been recorded by a much more famous band (perhaps even The Beatles), under a pseudonym. The gambit worked: Shaking All Over was a hit (#1 in Canada; #22 in the USA... but back then, #22 was a hit)... except The Guess Who? stuck with DJs who refused to start crediting it to Chad Allan & The Expressions, even after their true identity was revealed.

Chad quit the following year, but The Guess Who have been around (on and off, in one form or another) ever since. Although their last album was released in 1995, they're still touring today. Albert Flasher was a single released around the height of their success in 1971. The lyrics are largely 60s stoner nonsense, but I was slightly disappointed to discover that the opening line is...

I was a workshop owner

...because I've been singing...

I was a workshy boner

...for the last few months, and that seemed far more appropriate.