Randy Bachman

Randolph Charles Bachman (/ˈbækmən/ BAK-mən; born September 27, 1943) is a Canadian guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a founding member of the bands the Guess Who and Bachman–Turner Overdrive. He was the writer and singer of several hit rock songs, including, "Takin' Care of Business", and "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet". Bachman also recorded as a solo artist and was part of a number of short-lived bands such as Brave Belt, Union and Ironhorse. He was a national radio personality on CBC Radio, hosting the weekly music show, Vinyl Tap. Bachman was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Karl (Charlie) Bachman and Anne (Nancy) Dobrinsky, Bachman is of half-German Canadian and half-Ukrainian Canadian descent. At age three, he won a singing contest on CKY's King of the Saddle programme and at age five he had started studying the violin in the Royal Toronto Conservatory system. He studied violin until the age of 12 when he grew dissatisfied with the structured lessons. While he could not read music, he found that he could play anything if he heard it once; he referred to this skill as "phonographic memory".

At age 15, Bachman saw Elvis Presley play on Tommy Dorsey's television show and the sight of the guitar around Presley's neck inspired him. He learned three chords from his cousin, then started practising on a modified Hawaiian Dobro. At age 16, Bachman met Lenny Breau and during the next two years Breau taught Bachman finger picking. Breau also introduced him to Chet Atkins' music.

In 1959, Bachman bought a ticket to see Les Paul in concert at a Winnipeg supper club but could not get in as he was too young. He instead helped Paul set up before the show and also helped him reload everything into the car after the show. Still a budding guitarist at this point, Bachman asked Paul if he could teach him a guitar lick; Paul ended up teaching his version of "How High the Moon".

He was initially a good student at school until he took up the guitar, when he focused on that instrument to the exclusion of his education. He passed Grade 9 at Edmund Partridge Junior High School, but repeated both the 10th and 11th grades, initially at West Kildonan Collegiate. In his second year of Grade 11, he was placed in a class of students who mostly either "flunked or dropped out and came back", and was asked to be class president by the teacher, who thought he had "discipline and determination" because he had been playing violin since the age of five. He was expelled from West Kildonan in the middle of that year because of his "lack of studiousness", and finished his schooling at Garden City Collegiate. He went on to study business administration at what is now Red River College, but did not graduate.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.