The Guess Who: Hand Me Down World

Everyone knows the song “American Woman” and I have always liked some of the other hits by The Guess Who, such as “No Sugar Tonight” and “No Time,” but I hadn’t ever listened to a complete album until recently. There isn’t anything groundbreaking in any of the group’s albums. In fact, they sound like a band who is riding the coat-tails of those before them. Their 1969 albums are mostly late ’60s psych-rock, about 1 to 2 years after that music’s heyday. Their early ’70s albums aren’t much different. However, they were good songwriters, and 55 years later, does it really matter what kind of music a band played in 1970? While the 1970 album American Woman is their most famous and successful, I prefer their next 1970 album, Share The Land, as a complete collection. The psych-rock trappings were gone by this point, and the mix of soft rock, blue-eyed soul, and blues rock sound much less dated than most of their early material does now. The title track is the big hit, but first single “Hand Me Down World” is a nice pop hit, peaking at #17 in August 1970.

To learn more about The Guess Who, check out their website.

To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.

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