Back in 1974, the Canadian rock group Bachman-Turner Overdrive were compiling their third album. Charlie Fach, a producer for Mercury Records, reviewed their proposed collection of eight songs. Fach was not convinced. He thought it lacked a potential hit song and, in particular, he ‘couldn’t hear the magic’. The band had another song recorded. An instrumental piece with lyrics written on the fly, it was sung in stammered vocals to poke fun at the band’s former manager who stammered. Out of other ideas, they played it to Fach. Fach liked it. “That’s the track! It’s got a brightness to it. It kind of floats a foot higher than the other songs when you listen to it.”
Bachman-Turner Overdrive re-recorded the song to include it in the album, but sung with fluent vocals. It did not work. With the stammering removed, the magic was lost. They decided to keep the stammering and the rest is history. What was once a joke became a chart-topper in six different countries and can still be heard on the airwaves today.
Stammering is often seen as a joke and it is taken for granted in our society that fluency is better than stammering. But, as the story of ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ reminds us, this is not necessarily true. Stammering can benefit both people who stammer and society if we let it.
This book is a collection of voices that live and breathe this idea. It has been a long time coming.