Cummings, Bachman reach settlement over the Guess Who name with former bandmates

Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, and Jim Kale (left to right) of the Guess Who belt out some tunes during the closing ceremonies of the Pan American Games in Winnipeg Sunday Aug 8, 1999.(CP PHOTO/Joe Bryksa)

A long-running battle over the Guess Who name has come to an end.

The Winnipeg rock band's founding members Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman say they've settled their lawsuit with original members Jim Kale and Garry Peterson.

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As part of the agreement, Cummings and Bachman have acquired the trademark for the band's name, which was at the centre of the dispute.

Last year, Bachman and Cummings sued their former bandmates and alleged they had assembled a "cover band" to perform and release albums under the Guess Who name while misleading fans into thinking Bachman and Cummings were still involved in the act.

Lawyers for Kale and Peterson responded by saying the pair had used the Guess Who name for decades after Bachman and Cummings departed the band in the 1970s and that the statute of limitations had expired on a trademark dispute.

A representative for the band did not provide details about the settlement.

The Guess Who is one of Canada's most recognized classic rock acts with a run of hits during the late 1960s and early 1970s that included "American Woman," "These Eyes" and "No Sugar Tonight."

But the relationship between Bachman and Cummings frayed, and Bachman split with the band. By 1975, Kale and Cummings had left too.

In their original suit, Bachman and Cummings say that Kale rejoined the band and then registered the Guess Who as a trademark in the United States in 1986, without their knowledge or consent.

The pair argued that Kale's iteration of the Guess Who was not the band people knew, and that Kale had not performed publicly with the band since 2016, while Peterson appeared "infrequently."

As the case dragged on, Cummings increased pressure for a resolution by terminating performance rights for all the Guess Who songs he wrote. That meant the current Guess Who risked legal action if they played those songs live.

Early this year, changes began appearing on the Guess Who's Spotify page as images of the most recent rendition of the band were replaced with archival photos of the original makeup.

The band's Facebook page was also taken down while the Guess Who's official account was wiped of all its tweets except for a news article about the settlement and a 2023 post about the band's most recent album, 2023's "Plein D'Amour."

   This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2024.