It seems so. I wonder if it were a case of accountants winning the battle? Could have been a matter of needs over wants.
I guess if I ever get an audience with Mr. Bachman again, I may have to correct him. He told me American Woman should be on 2" 16-track. But I've recently come across a copy of the multitrack and it's only got 8-tracks like I suspected. Very strange. I've also come across the hit version of "No Time" and it's only 8, and "Hand me down World" which is 16. Hopefully, more multitracks will surface.
My feeling is it's at least partially a matter of hindsight being 20-20. For all of the multitrack pioneers, plenty of people were asking "what do we need more tracks for?" George Martin famously passed over 4-track for The Beatles until I Want To Hold Your Hand, and initially rejected 8-track in 1968 because it didn't have some of the features the 4-track machines had. Most of Who's Next was recorded to 8-track, despite 16-track being available, possibly so Pete Townshend could take the tapes home. I'm sure there are countless other examples.
I wish I knew more history behind RCA's Chicago studios, but I do know it was pretty new when The Guess Who started recording there. It's possible that the rooms there didn't all have 16-track initially; maybe one did, but not the one The Guess Who recorded in.
This is how the American Woman album breaks down:
8/12/69
When Friends Fall Out
Proper Stranger
I don't see any track sheets for these, but between the date and the mono drums, it seems safe to say they were done on 8-track.
8/13/69
American Woman
No Time
Mono drums, and the track sheets for both show 8-track.
10/11/69
Talisman
Not seeing a track sheet. Impossible to guess too, since it was probably only recorded across 3 or 4 tracks regardless of the tape format.
11/12/69
No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature
969 (The Oldest Man)
8:15
Humpty's Blues
The track sheet for No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature is for 16-track (with only 11 tracks utilized). Not seeing any other track sheets, but since these all have stereo drums and were recorded on the same day, it seems pretty reasonable to assume all were 16-track.
There's a track sheet for Take The Long Way Home, recorded on 3/10/70 for the aborted follow-up to American Woman. As expected it's 16-track, but it's worth noting that 16-track sheets apparently still weren't being printed yet; it's two 8-track sheets taped together, with the headings for 9-16 written in by hand.
By the time of the7/8/70 session for Bus Rider, Comin' Down Off The Money Bag, and Share The Land, the track sheets were printed as 16-track. Actually (looking on the next page) as early as the 6/17/70 session for Hand Me Down World.
Unfortunately, beyond what I previously posted, anything else for Wheatfield Soul and Canned Wheat is either not reproduced at all or is partially covered up by other photos.
I did interview Brian Christian, and looking back at the transcript, I see he did touch on 16-track a bit, regarding mixing Canned Wheat:
"So [Jack Richardson] shows up [at RCA in Chicago], thinking I’m going to be there, I’m not, and he says to my boss, “I don’t see sixteen-track anywhere”. Oh he says “We don’t have one yet ‘cause the studio is brand new”.
Ours was on order. He says “Okay so when are you gonna get it?” and he said “Can I meet Christian?” and he said “He’s not here”, “Okay” he said. Jack left and then he came back two or three weeks later and we sat down in one of the mix rooms and I started playing with this tape."
That would seem to indicate that at least some tracks on Canned Wheat were 16-track, but as previously noted, clearly not all of them. And we didn't get into further details, such as why the initial American Woman sessions were 8-track. My guess is those details are probably lost to the sands of time, but maybe I'll see if he can remember anything.
