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were an instant sensation in the clubs on Sunset Strip. The Springfield was one of my favourite bands. Although they were together only two years and released only three albums, their legacy remains impressive.
    Neil Young came back to Winnipeg in December 1966 to visit his mother, and while there he invited our band down to CKRC to play us the first Buffalo Springfield album. I remember Burton and I were kind of jealous. Neil had left Winnipeg and made it, and he was singing his own songs on the album. The Springfield was the coolest group around. We absolutely loved them.
    â€œYou won’t believe this,” I remember Neil telling us at CKRC. “It’s recorded on eight tracks. You can record guitar after guitar.” We were in awe. We had only ever recorded on three or four tracks. As we were listening, we got to one track in particular.
    â€œWho is that singing?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s me,” he replied. “It’s like Bob Dylan. People really don’t care what it sounds like. If you’ve got a really weird voice, somebody out there will like it as long as you deliver it with honesty.”
    I’ve never forgotten that. Neil took a lot of negative comments about his voice, even back in Winnipeg, but he was never deterred.
    Neil and I don’t have great singing voices like Burton Cummings or the Springfield’s Richie Furay, but our voices are distinctive.
    The Guess Who learned that first Buffalo Springfield album inside out. We played “For What It’s Worth” in our shows as well as “Flying on the Ground Is Wrong,” which we thought was a real gem from Neil. We later recorded it. When their second album, Buffalo Spring field Again, was released in 1967, on the back cover each of the guys in the band listed their influences. It was a big dedication, and when I got the album, boy, was I surprised to see my name among that list. It was an unbelievable thrill for me to be included with the Beatles, the Kingston Trio, Hank Marvin, Otis Redding, Ricky Nelson, the Ventures, Eric Clapton, Phil Spector, and so on. Neil had spelled my name “Backman” but that didn’t matter. It was still me.
    Neil returned to Winnipeg again in January 1971 to play two solo acoustic shows at the Centennial Concert Hall on his “Journey Through the Past” tour. I was there for one of the shows and backstage afterwards. I had just formed Brave Belt with Chad Allan, and we’d recorded our first album but didn’t yet have a record contract. Backstage, I told Neil the name of the band and he thought it was cool. I played him some cuts from the album the next day, and he liked it. When I told him we didn’t have a record label, he told me to go see Mo Ostin at Reprise Records in L.A., which was Neil’s label.
    I did go to L.A. and play Mo Ostin the test pressing of the Brave Belt album, and he offered me a deal. I think they called Neil to verify who I was and if I was legit. That night I went with one of the Reprise Records people to see Neil give a fabulous show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine that this kid who’d been at Kelvin High School just a few short years earlier was now onstage in Los Angeles, alone without a band. To my amazement, the audience sang every word to every song. Neil was their darling. I just sat there stunned and enchanted by this kid I used to know in Winnipeg, the kidwho’d left town in an old hearse and who’d made a big splash in Los Angeles.
    After that I didn’t see Neil for a long time. In June 1987 we shared a stage together for the first time ever at the Winnipeg Convention Centre for the “Shakin’ All Over: Bands and Fans Reunion,” playing “American Woman,” “Takin’ Care of Business,” Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” and “Down by the River.” That was a special night for me. But we