“I never quite had the power”: when Burton Cummings tried and failed to imitate Robert Plant
Throughout the history of rock and roll, so many vocalists have wanted to have the raw talent that Robert Plant possesses. The Led Zeppelin frontman was blessed with an innate ability to howl, yet he also knew how to fill his voice with a soulfulness that few others have been able to replicate to the same degree. When paired with the rest of his bandmates, the group were an unstoppable force throughout the late 1960s and ‘70s, only ceasing their reign as the greatest rock band in the world following the untimely death of drummer John Bonham.
Whether it’s on hard rock cuts like ‘Black Dog’ or on a much bluesier track like ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’, Plant was able to project in a way that was magnetic, and often other singers would claim that they looked up to him as a source of inspiration. He arguably paved the way for so many other rock vocalists in the years after his emergence, but to say that anyone ever reached the same heights as he did would be inaccurate.
Plant had a sense of humility about him, though, and acknowledged that there were plenty of other vocalists who existed contemporaneously and who he believed were on par with him. The British singer spoke of his admiration for the Guess Who frontman and pianist Burton Cummings, who possessed just as much of a talent for producing soulful yet powerful vocal performances.
Oddly enough, Cummings often said the same of Plant and that the Canadian group who were famous for songs such as ‘American Woman’ and ‘These Eyes’ were hugely inspired by the work of Led Zeppelin, often taking more than a few cues from their counterparts in a musical and stylistic sense. They weren’t a rip-off of Led Zeppelin, but the similarities were certainly noticeable, and Cummings, while he certainly wanted to sound like Robert Plant, didn’t feel he was able to match him.
In a 2008 interview with CBC, Cummings spoke of how his inspiration from Plant worked both in his favour and against him during the career of the Guess Who and in his solo output. “In my solo career, I always thought ‘I’m Scared’ was a pretty good vocal,” he admitted, adding that he had a fondness for ‘Break It to Them Gently’.
“As far as Guess Who stuff goes,” he continued, “I still cringe when I hear ‘American Woman’ because I never quite nailed the notes. I was trying to be Robert Plant, and I never quite had the power. Even in ‘These Eyes’, there’s a couple of notes that make me cringe, where I’m a little bit flat.”
However, he acknowledged that his self-criticism is exclusively for him and that other listeners probably don’t take note of it quite so much. “I think maybe I’m a bit more aware of that than the average fan,” Cummings stated. “I really liked ‘No Time’. I thought that was a pretty good vocal and there’s a doubled vocal on there, and that was a bit harder than the first few singles we had. From that point on, we started getting taken a bit more seriously as a rock band.”
While there were undoubtedly elements of influence from Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant in particular, Cummings still didn’t stop trying to perfect his own interpretation, and if that’s enough to impress Plant, then surely he was doing something right.
