Bachman-turner+overdrive

Following his 1970 departure from the Guess Who, guitarist Randy Bachman recorded a solo album (Axe) and planned a project with ex-Nice keyboardist Keith Emerson (later canceled due to illness) before forming Bachman-Turner Overdrive in 1972. Originally called "Brave Belt," the metal group was comprised of singer/guitarist Bachman, fellow Guess Who alum Chad Allan, bassist C.F. "Fred" Turner, and Randy's brother, drummer Robbie; after a pair of LPs (Brave Belt I and Brave Belt II), Allan was replaced by another Bachman brother, guitarist Tim, and in homage to the trucker's magazine Overdrive, the unit became BTO…

The durable Bachman-Turner Overdrive is one of those bands with more greatest-hits collections than actual studio albums. Greatest Hits digs a bit deeper than the definitive Best of B.T.O. (So Far), which was released at the height of the band's fame but passes over stompers such as "Give Me Your Money Please" and "Blue Collar" for faceless late-era (sans Randy Bachman) tunes like "Can We All Come Together."…

Freeways was the final Randy Bachman album of the first BTO era, released in 1977 after their first of many "greatest-hits" collections put much of their chart activity in a tidy package on 1976's Best of B.T.O. (So Far)…

Ben Davies called Bachman-Turner Overdrive's first album a "fusion of Lynyrd Skynyrd-style Southern/trucker rock and ZZ Top's anthemic arena rock," and with their logo imprinted in a big metallic gear which looks like it inspired James Cameron's Terminator trademark, Randy Bachman, his brothers Tim and Robbie, and C.F. Turner dish out a methodical mix of plodding hard dirges…

Released when Mercury Records was still located in Chicago, IL, back in 1973, the second album from Bachman-Turner Overdrive was the first to break through in a big way. First the hit single "Let It Ride" went Top 25 circa March of 1974, then the anthem "Taking Care of Business" went Top 15 the summer of that year. By October they would top the charts with "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" from the follow-up LP, 1974's Not Fragile, but their seven chart songs were all made possible by this album and these two songs, "Let It Ride" and "Takin' Care of Business," in particular. "Let It Ride" features one of C.F. Turner's best vocals; keeping that gargle-with-Draino diesel sound down to a minimum, the song has two major guitar riffs, one a strum, the other from Led Zeppelin's 1970 "Immigrant Song," an inverted mutation of Randy Bachman's own "American Woman" riff which also hit in 1970. That "Takin' Care of Business," which was written solely by Randy Bachman and contains his vocals, as well as the Turner/Bachman co-write "Let It Ride" are light years ahead of the other six songs on this album is an understatement…

After gaining some recognition from the success of the band's previous album, Bachman-Turner Overdrive got around to recording Not Fragile. Not only had one of the three Bachman brothers (Tim, the rhythm guitarist) left the band to BTO's advantage, but Randy Bachman and C.F. Turner had clearly grown musically…

This is near the end of the Bachman-Turner Overdrive story, one of the group's last albums to feature Randy Bachman. Bachman's dominance of the group is apparent – his face alone fills the front cover, he produced the record, and he wrote or co-wrote five of the nine songs…

Bachman-Turner Overdrive's Four Wheel Drive album is most often overlooked, mainly because all of the attention was focused on the singable "na na na naa"'s of one of B.T.O.'s biggest hits in "Hey You." But the rest of the album is made up of the band's lunch-pail rock & roll sound, combining ample amounts of factory-made blues to street-dirty guitar rock…

Randy Bachman, co-founder and lead guitarist of Canada’s legendary Bachman-Turner Overdrive, offers a unique approach to songs written solely by the late George Harrison. Bachman, an ardent admirer of Harrison from the Beatles’ early days, pays tribute by reinterpreting and taking a few liberties with these landmark songs.The only original, “Between Two Mountains,” symbolizes (to Bachman) George’s dilemma and how every so often he did manage to squeeze in a song or two—between those of Lennon and McCartney. His songs were special and great. Over time, he became a mountain as well.