Michael James Kale (born August 11, 1943) is a Canadian rock musician, best known as the original bassist for the rock band The Guess Who.[1] He was also a member of the band Scrubbaloe Caine. In 1987, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame as a member of The Guess Who.[2]
Career
Kale (first from right) with The Guess Who in 1970
Michael James "Jim" Kale was born in Winnipeg. He described his father, who died in 1967 while the Guess Who were on tour in the UK, as abusive and an alcoholic.[3] Kale joined the local Winnipeg band Chad Allan and the Reflections in 1962; that band later spun off into The Guess Who.[4] Kale was the band's bassist during its most successful period up to 1972, appearing on several hit singles and albums and co-writing the band's best-known song, "American Woman", which reached no. 1 in Canada and the United States.[5][6][7]
Meanwhile, The Guess Who had broken up in 1975, and in 1977 the CBC invited former members to participate in a reunion concert. Group leaders Bachman and Burton Cummings were not interested, but Kale asked group leaders Bachman and Burton Cummings for permission to use the Guess Who name for the concert.[12][13][14] Taking this initial permission beyond what Bachman and Cummings had granted, he instead formed the first of many new line-ups of The Guess Who to record and tour the nostalgia circuit under the name, nostalgia lineups that Bachman and Cummings have frequently criticized.[12][15]
Kale led shifting nostalgia-oriented line-ups of The Guess Who regularly until 2016, and released several new albums under that name which received little notice. He was sometimes joined by original Guess Who drummer Garry Peterson. Kale also participated in a reunion tour of the classic Guess Who line-up with Peterson, Cummings, and Bachman in 1983,[16] and performed with them again at the closing ceremonies of the Pan-American Games in 1999.[17] After a break from 2000 to 2004, when a Cummings/Bachman reunion line-up toured extensively,[18] Kale revived his nostalgia tour version of The Guess Who and continued touring with shifting line-ups until his retirement in 2016. He was replaced by Rudy Sarzo, and the band has continued under the leadership of Garry Peterson.[citation needed]
In October 2023, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman filed a lawsuit against Kale and Garry Peterson for "false advertising" of the current Garry Peterson-led band.[19] The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records show that since 2006, Kale and Garry Peterson co-own the rights to the "Guess Who" name only during live performances and not for studio releases.[20]
