The Guess Who - Albert Flasher - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1971)

In early 1970, the Guess Who were at the peak of their success. They'd just released their hit album "American Woman," and were in the middle of recording a bunch of excellent new songs for their next album. Then guitarist Randy Bachman quit. This was devastating, because not only was Bachman's guitar playing key to the band's sound, but he co-wrote most of the band's song with lead singer Burton Cummings. (Bachman would go on to huge success with Bachman-Turner Overdrive a few years later.)

The Guess Who scrapped the songs they were working on, recruited a couple of new members to replace Bachman, then put out an album of entirely different songs, called "Share the Land." It too was a success. But what happened to those other songs, all but one of which were co-written by Bachman and Cummings? Seven of them were finally released as the album "The Way We Were" in 1976, one year after the Guess Who broke up.

This album mostly consists of the songs on "The Way We Were." But that album has long been out of print, with the songs on it split as bonus tracks to both the "American Woman" and "Share the Land" albums.

Furthermore, I've added some key songs to the end. "Got to Find Another Way" also dates from around the same time, but was inexplicably left off "The Way We Were" and finally found its way as a bonus track to yet another version of the "American Woman" album.

The songs from this "lost album" are all solid, but I'm not sure if any of them could have been a big hit (though maybe "Palmyra" fits the bill). However, in 1971, the Guess Who released a hit, "Albert Flasher," that didn't go on any of their albums. So I've included that here too (as well as its B-side, "Broken"), and titled the album after it.

The instrumental song "La Jolla" comes from a Randy Bachman solo album called "Axe." That song, and the other songs from that album, were recorded at the exact same time, and in the same studio, as "The Way We Were" songs. Bachman also used the Guess Who drummer, and played his own bass parts. I would include more songs from "Axe," except they're all instrumentals and not that interesting, in my opinion.

I've also added two bonus tracks. They're by a different band, Brother, a trio from Canada, but this band had very close ties with the Guess Who. When Bachman left the Guess Who, guitarist Kurt Winter from Brother was picked as his replacement. One year later, bassist Jim Kale left the Guess Who and was replaced by Bill Wallace from Brother. So Brother was effectively taken over by the Guess Who, with Brother's best songs becoming Guess Who songs, such as "Bus Rider" and "Hand Me Down World."

Brother was in existence for less than a year before they broke up, and they never had a chance to record and release any of their songs. But after Winter left, he briefly reformed the band long enough to record a single. The A- and B-sides of that single are included as the bonus tracks. The vocals are sung by Winter and/or Wallace, both of whom were in the Guess Who or soon would be, so they're kind of Guess Who songs, in my opinion.

Personally, I think "American Woman" and "Share the Land" are the two strongest Guess Who albums, and this "lost" album from in between them is just as good as either of them.

01 Silver Bird (Guess Who)
02 Species Hawk (Guess Who)
03 Runnin' Down the Street (Guess Who)
04 Miss Frizzy (Guess Who)
05 La Jolla [Instrumental] (Randy Bachman)
06 Palmyra (Guess Who)
07 The Answer (Guess Who)
08 Take the Long Way Home (Guess Who)
09 Got to Find Another Way (Guess Who)
10 Albert Flasher (Guess Who)
11 Broken (Guess Who)

Second Time around the Woodpile (Brother)
Sending Money (Brother)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15181843/TGuessW_1970-1971_AlbertFlashr_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used the cover to the "Albert Flasher" single. That had the B-side title "Broken" on it, so I removed that and resized or repositioned other parts of the image.