by Richard Skelly » Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:38 am
This Time Long Ago is a musical example of that old adage: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Spurred by the minor UK chart success of His Girl, The Guess Who flew to England in 1967...believing promises by King Records that gigs and British fame awaited. Once ensconced in London, the boys found the label proferring a very one-sided contract. When they refused to sign, gigs and promotion evaporated. Worse, they were expected to repay monies spent by the label hyping His Girl.
Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson immediately consolidated into a single hotel room, enjoyed the sights of Swinging London and worked a handful of contacts. Fortuitously, they crossed paths with Tony Hiller. A musical jack of all trades (he’d later co-write United We Stand for Brotherhood Of Man), Hiller offered to record The Guess Who if he could license the results everywhere but Canada. The resulting sessions—arguably the best-produced for the group to that time—resulted in two obvious singles. This Time Long Ago was written by journeymen tunesmiths Jerry Langley and James Stewart. It’s followup, Flying On The Ground Is Wrong, was written by ex-Winnipeger Neil Young for his new band Buffalo Springfield.
Outside Canada, This Time Long Ago got released on Fontana Records. The Guess Who’s longtime Canadian label, Quality Records, issued it here. A mint copy of the Fontana single recently carried a US$93 asking price on eBay. As for that $27,000 debt to King Records the band was saddled with...Randy Bachman recounts how The Guess Who laboured to pay it off after their chastened return to Manitoba. Check it out in his book Tales From Beyond The Tap.