Canadian music legend Burton Cummings was in Toronto to accept the 2018 SOCAN Lifetime Achievement Award this week, just a month after suffering a horrific car accident. In an exclusive sit-down with ET Canada’s Carlos Bustamante backstage at the awards, Cummings says it’s the mental recovery that’s proving to be the most challenging.
“I’ll tell you what’s the worst part of that accident is that I’m still terrified,” he says. “I’m reliving the horror of that moment, that crash and as much as I don’t like shrinks and psychiatrists and therapists and stuff, I’m going for my first session next week in Saskatchewan to try and unwind that awful memory.”
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On Mother’s Day, the former Guess Who rocker suffered a concussion and minor injuries after being hit by a driver running a red light in Woodland Hills, California. After the accident, Cummings, 70, took to Facebook to announce he was safe and recovering, though his car was totalled. Luckily, he was wearing a seat belt.
“I was so shook up that day, and I went right to the hospital to get x-rays, and I had a concussion and they did a cat scan,” he explains. “And I didn’t want them to find something bad.”
“I had a really bad, a horrible thing with my elbow, was very sore and swollen… I guess you can see a little bit of scars here and there, but it’s nothing – it’s really nothing serious,” he tells Carlos. “What the doctors told me at the hospital was – and I’ve tried to hang on to this – is that, they say, ‘Don’t go to what could have happened. Think of how lucky you are.'”
Now, Cummings is celebrating his new lease on life with the SOCAN honour which he says has an extra special meaning because it’s from theSociety of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, which, for a songwriter, is a pretty big deal.
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“I, from a very early age, I always admired and idolized the guys that wrote their own stuff. The songwriting teams – Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards – when Randy Bachman and I started writing together, those were our heroes!” he explains. “The writers, you know? Anybody can sing. Anybody can get up and sing, and if you really put your mind to it, you can learn to play an instrument. writing songs? That’s a whole other deal.”
“If you write your own material, you have somewhat of, of a piece of control of your future, over your destiny,” he concludes.
