Burton Cummings wows and has fun on 1978's Dream of a Child

First, I want to talk about Burton Cummings the singer.

Then, I want to talk about Dream of a Child the album.

Finally, I’d better share something about my listening experience.

An off-handed remark by one of my brothers when I was starting to collect CDs about Cummings being an all-time great singer left its mark, and by the time I was into The Guess Who’s Greatest Hits disc I'd accepted it as an understood truth. He is, of course, a great singer, but I guess I kind of took that for granted and I think I’ve only come to truly appreciate his voice in the last couple of years.

I also always presumed that The Guess Who fell apart due to declining interest in the band, which certainly has to be part of the story, and that Cummings' solo career was more or less an effort to ride out the band's success. I've now read several times that, amongst many personnel changes (including Randy Bachman leaving to form BTO, featured twice in this project already), Cummings left the band due to displeasure with the musical direction.

Listening to Dream of a Child, it seems that his musical direction of choice is "all over the place."

The album is really a showcase of his range, giving his all to When a Man Loves a Woman, jazzing it up with Shiny Stockings, and, oddly enough considering the reason for leaving The Guess Who, only offering one new song that sounded to me like it could have come from the band's catalogue (Break It To Them Gently).

Unless I'm mistaken, only Guns, Guns, Guns was previously released as an actual Guess Who track. Along with that cover/new version, my favourites were Wait by the Water (which feels indebted to Wearin' That Loved On Look by Elvis), Meanin' So Much (indebted to Bob Seger), and It All Comes Together.

Now, as to my listening experience: if I can't find a physical copy of whatever I'm listening to, I'll try to listen on a vinyl recording from YouTube. For this album, I found someone who had posted both sides.

Side one sounded great. Never mind that I found out that the track order was all wonky - maybe it was an alternate printing for another country or a re-release: https://youtu.be/I7Yr7Z3GmmY

The real kicker came at the start of side two, for about two and a half minutes: https://youtu.be/MqP_Wu99LD0 

I won't tell you what it is; you've got to hear it and see if you can crack the code of what's going on. Is this somebody's home-recorded, mixed-vinyl? Was that ever a thing? Are they spinning the record just for the video but playing the tracks off something else? But if so, why does the opening part of the track have a skip in it?

Such a bizarre thing. There's no question though that, for me, this is how Break It To Them Gently begins.