BLOGGED: (in honour of Martin Luther King...who called Canada Heaven when he came calling-and we so loved him 1967) CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Canada and Martin Luther King Jr. - “Heaven,” said King, “was the word for Canada.” -SPEECH- Dr. Martin Luther King in Canada - 1a - Massey Lecture 1967 - Conscience for Change /- Diefenbaker- “I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” /JOHN F KENNEDY AND HIS VIETNAM WAR- CANADA /How The Civil War Saved Canada /- Vietnam-Draft Dodgers and Vietnam Vets Canada - Canadian Bill of Rights- from 1960/ BRILLIANT - SELMA- John Legend Glory
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2014/09/canada-military-news-sept-1-now-54.html
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1. The
Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (TV Series 1968 ...
www.imdb.com/title/tt0192937
o DOCUMENTARY/ADVENTURE
With Rod Serling, Jacques-Yves
Cousteau, Joseph Campanella, Frédéric Dumas. The aquatic
explorations of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the crew of the
Calypso.
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This is exactly how we were taught to bhave in the 50s and
60s and some 70s..... seriously.....
Miranda Lambert - Mama's Broken Heart
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BLOG:
DECEMBER 12, 2013
CANADA-
NOVA SCOTIA- HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS- A BIT OF HISTORY OF NOVA SCOTIA- First Peoples, Mi'kmaq/Acadian/Gaelic/Brits... - 1500s
onwards /NELSON MANDELA Canadian Citizen loved our Canada and the 1960s Bill of
Rights right up to PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau... our youngblood life of red roses and changing the world
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On April 1, 1999, Nunavut
became Canada's third territory. It was the first time that Canada's boundaries
changed since Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949. When Expo 67 was
featured in Montreal, the Northwest Territories were much larger occupying all of
Nunavut.
Major Events In
Canada's First 100 Years
By the Canadian
Press, June 27, 1967
Note: There are a few
minor spelling mistakes in this document as it has been reproduced complete and
unabridged as taken directly from the article. Photo descriptions are listed at
the bottom of this page.
1867 - British Parliament passes British North
American Act: Sir John A. Macdonald forms cabinet and wins first election; first
Parliament meets.1868 - Queen Victoria rejects appeal of Nova Scotia anti-confederates for dropping province from Confederation; D'Arcy McGee, Montreal MP and foe of Irish extremists, shot to death by Fenian sympathizer at Ottawa.
1869 - Dominion government gives N.S. better financial terms (first use of "equalization payments"); Louis Riel seizes Fort Garry and proclaims Red River "provincial government."
1870 - Manitoba constituted a province. Riel flees before military force; Fenians raid Quebec's Eastern Townships.
1871 - British Columbia joins Confederation; national currency uniformity legalized.
1873 - Northwest Mounted Police organized; 562 lost when liner Atlantic wrecked near Halifax; Canadian Pacific Railway organized; Macdonald government resigns over allegation that CPR paid into Conservative funds.
1874 - Liberals under Alexander Mackenzie win general election; Election Act introduces vote by ballot.
1875 - Presbyterian churches of various synods amalgamate as Generol Assembly; Dominion debt reaches $116,008,378.
1876 - Intercolonial Railway links Maritimes with central provinces; Alexander Graham Bell patents telephone.
1877 - Wilfrid Laurier, 36, becomes cabinet minister.
1878 - Canada Temperance Act, providing prohibition on local option basis, passed; Macdonald returns to power.
1879 - Lieutenant-Governor Luc Letellier de St. Just of Quebec fired for dismissing Conservative government in 1877 Liberal coup d'etat.
1880 - George Brown, a Father of Confederation, killed by discharged employee; Britain decrees all British North America except Newfoundland belongs to Canada.
1881 - Population reaches 4,328,000; sternwheeler Victoria sinks with loss of 181 lives in Thames River near London, Ont.
1882 - Federal electoral ridings redistributed.
1884 - Riel opens rebellion at Duck Lake, Sask.
1885 - Riel surrenders after forces routed, and is hanged.
1886 - Vancouver destroyed by fire.
1887 - CPR transcontinental line opened; Britain empowers Ottawa to negotiate foreign commercial treaties.
1889 - Rock slide kills 45 at Cape Diamond, Quebec City.
1890 - Manitoba Schools Act, suppressing separate schools, passed; oil discovered along Athabaska River.
1891 - Macdonald dies in office, succeeded by Sir John Abbott.
1892 - Newfoundland erects tariff against Canada.
1893 - Wheat crop reaches 50,000,000 bushels.
1895 - Women's suffrage bill defeated in Parliament.
1896 - Klondike gold rush touched off by find at Bonanza Creek; Liberals under Laurier elected.
1897 - One wing of Parliament Buildings burned; Canada enacts Imperial preference, raising tariffs against U.S.; Manitoba school compromise negotiated.
1898 - National plebiscite testing opinion, favors prohibition.
1899 - Canada sends troops to Boer War; 2,300 Doukhobors from Russia land at Halifax.
1900 - Canadians spearhead victory at Paardberg and help raise siege of Mafe-king.
1901 - Prohibition launched in P.E.I.
1902 - Trans-Pacific cable from Vancouver to Brisbane completed.
1903 - Alaska boundary dispute decided in favor of U.S.; landslide buries Frank, Alta., with loss of 66 lives; 125 die in Coal Creek, B.C. mine explosion.
1904 - Toronto hit by $11,000,000 fire.
1905 - Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan created.
1906 - Britain hands over fortresses of Esquimalt and Halifax to Canada.
1907 - Marconi establishes transatlantic wireless service with base at Glace Bay, N.S.; 60 workmen killed collapse of Quebec bridge.
1908 - Forest fires destroy three Kootnay B.C. towns with 70 dead.
1909 - J.A.D. McCurdy makes Empire's first heavier-than-air flight at Baddeck, N.S.
1910 - Royal Canadian Navy established by legislation.
1911 - Trade reciprocity treaty with U.S. proclaimed; Conservatives win election and discard reciprocity; forest fire levels Northern Ontario mining town of South Porcupine, killing 73.
1913 - Worst Great Lakes storm in history takes 148 lives as 13 vessels wrecked.
1914 - Canada enters First World War; liner Empress of Ireland sinks in St. Lawrence River with loss of 1,024.
1915 - Canadians hold line at Ypres under gas attack; Canadian Corps formed; Sir Charles Tupper, last survivor of Fathers of Confederation dies.
1916 - Parliament Buildings destroyed by fire; controversial Militia Minister Sir Sam Hughes dropped from cabinet; 223 die in forest fire in Matheson area of Northern Ontario.
1917 - Personal income tax introduced as temporary war
measure; Canadians capture Vimy Ridge; conscription enacted; 1,630 persons
killed in munitions ship explosion at Halifax; in Alberta Louise McKinney and
Roberta MacAdams become first woman members of an Empire legislature; The
Canadian Press formed.1918 - Federal franchise for women adopted; Canadians hold against German offensive; Canadian ship Princess Sophia sinks off Alaska with 398 dead; 88 killed in Allan Shaft explosion at Stellarton, N.S.
1919 - Sir Wilfred Laurier dies; Winnipeg general strike turns into rioting with two dead.
1920 - Sir Robert Borden turns over prime ministry to Arthur Meighen.
1921 - Liberals under W.L. Mackenzie King win general election; Agnes Macphail first woman elected to Parliament.
1922 - Discovery of insulin by Frederick Banting announced.
1923 - Royal Canadian Air Force established.
1925 - United Church of Canada formed.
1926 - Mackenzie King resigns over customs scandal; Meighen takes over but defeated on first Commons vote; King wins general election.
1927 - Old age pension on need basis begun. Privy Council fixes disputed Labrador boundary; 77 children die in Laurier Palace theatre fire in Montreal.
1928 - First transatlantic telephone calls made from Canada. Percy Williams wins with two gold medals in Olympic Games sprints.
1929 - Stock market collapses; international incident created as U.S. gunfire sinks Canadian rum-runner I'm Alone on high seas.
1930 - Cairine Wilson named first woman senator; R.B. Bennett and Conservatives win power; emergency session of Parliament votes $20,000,000 depression relief; radium found at Great Bear Lake.
1931 - Beautharnois inquiry reveals Liberals took money from power promoters; U.K. Parliament passes Statute of Westminster establishing Canadian autonomy in law-making.
1932 - Imperial economic conference at Ottowa reorganizes preferences; CCF formed.
1933 - Acreage-reducing wheat agreement reached among Canada, Argentina, Australia, U.S. and Russia to stabilize world market.
1934 - Dionne quintuplets born at Callander, Ont., brewer John S. Labatt kidnapped near London, Ont., later released.
1935 - Bank of Canada established; Parliament passes emergency depression legislation; unemployed riot at Regina; Alberta elects first Social Credit government.
1936 - CIO moves into Canada with sitdown at General Motors, Oshawa, Ont.; CBC set up; two of three men trapped in Moose River, N.S., gold min rescued after 10-day entombment.
1937 - Privy Council disallows Bennett, social legislation; Transport Minister C.D. Howe files Montreal to Vancouver in 17 hours, 11 minutes.
1938 - Canada - U.S. - U.K. sign trade agreement; Canada contracts to build RAF bombers.
1939 - King George and Queen Elizabeth tour Canada; daily Trans-Canadian mail and passenger flights begin; war against Germany declared; Commonwealth Air-Training Plan starts in Canada.
1941 - Sir Frederick Banting killed in Newfoundland plane crash; Canadian troops reinforce Hong Kong but overrun as Japanese take colony.
1942 - Canadians spearhead Dheppe attack; 1st Canadian Army formed; ferry Caribou sunk by enemy sub off Cape Breton with 137 lost.
1943 - Canadians in invasions of Sicily and Italy; invade Kiska, but find Japanese gone; pay-as-you-go income tax begun; Gen. A.G.L. McNaughton relinquishes command of overseas army; St. Lawrence Gulf toll 20 ships.
1944 - Canadians land in Normandy; CCP wins Saskatchewan from Liberals; Defence Minister J.L. Raiston quits cabinet in conscription crisis, succeeded by McNaughton; family allowances start.
1945 - 1st and 2nd Canadian Corps accept surrender of opposing Germans in Germany and Holland as war ends; victory brings rioting by Canadian servicemen at Aldershot, England, and Halifax.
1946 - Red spy networks in Canada disclosed by Russian Igor Gouzenko, Communist MP Fred Rose among arrested; Rand formula devised to settle auto strike at Windsor, Ont.; Nazi Gen. Kurt Meyer gets life sentence in shooting of Canadian prisoners.
1947 - Supreme Court of Canada replaces Privy Council as final appeal tribunal; Confederation talks with Newfoundland; quotas placed on imports to bolster dollar; oil discovered near Leduc, Alta.
1948 - Supreme Court rules ban on margarine unconstitutional; Louis St. Laurent succeeds retiring King as Liberal leader and prime minister; Parliament gets power to amend British North America Act.
1949 - Newfoundland joins Confederation; 119 die in fire on excursion ship Noronic at Toronto; time bomb wrecks CPA plane over Quebec, killing 23.
1950 - Mackenzie King dies; Winnipeg floods cause $25,000,000 damage; Canadian troops with UN forces in Korea; general strike ties up railways nine days.
1951 - Universal old age pensions at 70 adopted; Charlotte Whitton becomes mayor of Ottawa.
1952 - Vincent Massey becomes first Canadian governor-general; CBC begins Canadian TV.
1953 - Strike ties up deep-sea fleet for month; Stratford Festival started.
1954 - Hurricane Hazel smashes Toronto area with 81 dead and $24,000,000 damage; St. Lawrence Seaway launched; Toronto opens first Canadian subway.
1955 - Dew radar lines across north established; revised Criminal Code goes into effect.
1956 - Canadian Labor Congress formed; Parliament approves coast-west pipeline after historic uproar; John Diefenbaker becomes Conservative leader; 39 dead, 88 rescued in Springhill mine collapse; Canada Council created.
1957 - Diefenbaker wins general election,
ending 22-year Liberal rule; Ellen Fairclough becomes first woman minister;
Lester B. Pearson wins Nobel Peace Prize.1958 - Pearson chosen Liberal leader; Conservatives win record majority; seven miners rescued at Springhill after 8½ days underground, 75 die in blast.
1959 - Queen Elizabeth and President Eisenhower open seaway; policeman killed as striking Newfoundland loggers riot.
1960 - Canadian in UN peacekeeping force in Congo; Parliament adopts Bill of Rights; Roger Woodward, 7, lives after Niagara Falls plunge.
1961 - Senate blocks unprecedented government attempt to dismiss James E. Coyne, governor of Bank of Canada, who then quits.
1962 - Conservatives lose Commons majority but stay in office; doctors' strike greets medical insurance plan in Saskatchewan; Trans-Canada Highway declared open.
1963 - Conservative government falls, Liberals win with minority; TCA airliner crashes at STe. Therese, Que., killing 118; government places trusteeship over Great Lakes unions after royal commission on violence.
1964 - Texas Guld makes $2,000,000,000 bases metals find near Timmins, Ont; Canadians in Cyprus peace-keeping force.
1965 - Influence-peddling charges surrounding dope smugglers Lucien Rivard lead to resignation of Guy Favreau as justice minister after royal commission criticism; vast power blackout in Ontario and northeastern U.S.
1966 - Paul Joseph Chartier kills self in Parliament Building with bomb meant for Commons; royal commission raps Diefenbaker for not firing Associate Defence Minister Pierre Sevigny over affair with playgirl Gerda Munsinger.
List of photo credits in order of appearance:
Sir John A. Macdonald
© Public Domain
Credit: National Archives of Canada/C-006513 (copy negative number)
Vimy Ridge, April 1917
© Canada. Dept. of National Defence/National Archives of Canada/PA-004388 (copy negative number)
Restrictions on use/reproduction: Nil.
Mr. and Mrs. L.B. Pearson receiving Nobel Peace Award, 1957
© National Archives of Canada/C-094168 (copy negative number)
Photography by: Duncan Cameron
Restrictions on use/reproduction: Nil.
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CANADA- THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND- THIS LAND IS MY LAND
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ELVIS PRESLEY...and Frank Sinatra.... gorgeous beautiful Elvis... and the voice... the voice
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BLOGGED:
NOVA SCOTIA HISTORY.... little known...GETCHA Nova Scotia and Canada on... come visit - INCREDIBLE HISTORICAL FIND... u can browse and check the photos on the site/ and yes NOVA SCOTIA HAD SLAVES/and all the 1ST newspapers and historical facts are amazing March 19 -2015 /Honouring Nova Scotia's - The Oxford Journal
----------------
ABSTRACT -Commemoration, Identity, and Cultural
Capital in Nova Scotia during Canada's
1967 Centennial Celebrations -Meaghan Elizabeth
Beaton
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LULU- TO SIR WITH LOVE- we saw it 7 times on Barrington Street - Halifax in 1967
LULU- To Sir With Love
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From Myspace Mar 9, 2007..... my 60s and 70s.... Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe
https://youtu.be/CZt5Q-u4crc via@YouTube
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Sir John A. Macdonald's Dream
Rise of Radical Nationalism
The earliest post-Confederation years saw the flowering of two significant movements of intense nationalism. In English Canada the very majesty of the great land, the ambitions and idealism of the educated young and an understanding that absorption by the United States threatened a too-timid Canada, all spurred the growth of the Canada First movement in literature and politics — promoting an Anglo-Protestant race and culture in Canada, and fierce independence from the U.S.. The Canada Firsters' nationalist-imperialist vision of grandeur for their country did not admit the distinctiveness of the French, Roman Catholic culture that was a part of the nation's makeup.
The group's counterparts in Québec, the ultramontanes, believed in papal supremacy, in the Roman Catholic Church and in the clerical domination of society. Their movement had its roots in the European counter-revolution of the mid-19th century. It found fertile soil in a French Canada resentful at re-conquest by the British after the abortive Rebellions of 1837, and distrustful of North American secular democracy. The coming of responsible government in Nova Scotia and in the Province of Canada by 1850, and of federalism in the new Confederation, encouraged these clericalist zealots to try to "purify" Québec politics and society on conservative Catholic lines. The bulwark of Catholicism and of Canadien distinctiveness was to be the French language. Confederation was a necessary evil, the least objectionable non-Catholic association for their cultural nation. Separatism was dismissed as unthinkable and impractical, in the face of the threats posed by American secularism and materialism. But a pan-Canadian national vision was no part of their view of the future.
These two extreme, antithetical views of Canada could co-exist so long as the English-speaking and French-speaking populations remained separate, and little social or economic interchange was required. But as the peopling of border and frontier areas in Ontario and the West continued, and as the industrialization of Québec accelerated, conflicts multiplied. The harsh ultramontane attacks on liberal Catholicism and freedom of thought in Québec alarmed Protestant opinion in English Canada, while the lack of toleration of Catholic minority school rights and of the French language outside Québec infuriated the Québecois (see Manitoba Schools Question). Increasing, social and economic domination of Québec by the Anglophone Canadian business class exacerbated the feeling.
Prosperity and Growth
Economic growth was slow at first and varied widely from region to region. Industrial development steadily benefited southern Ontario, the upper St Lawrence River Valley and parts of the Maritimes. But rural Ontario west of Toronto and most of backcountry Québec steadily lost population as modern farming techniques, soil depletion and steep increases in American agricultural tariffs permitted fewer farmers to make their living on the land. Emigration from the Maritimes was prompted by a decline of the traditional forestry and shipbuilding industries. The Maritime economy was also hurt by the withering of bilateral trading links with the New England states, due in part to Ottawa's protectionist National Policy. Nationwide, from the 1870s through the 1890s, 1.5 million Canadians left the country, mostly for the U.S. (see Population).
Fortunately, prosperous times came at last, with the rising tide of immigration—just over 50,000 immigrants arrived in 1901, jumping to eight times that figure 12 years later. A country of 4.8 million in 1891 swelled to 7.2 million in 1911. The prairie "wheat boom" was a major component of the national success. Wheat production shot up from 8 million bushels in 1896 to 231 million bushels in 1911. Prairie population rose as dramatically, necessitating the creation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 and the completion of two new cross-Canada railways — the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern. Western cities, especially Winnipeg and Vancouver, experienced breakaway expansion as trading and shipping centres. Nearly 30 per cent of the new immigration went to Ontario, with Toronto taking the lion's share for its factories, stockyards, stores and construction gangs. Both Toronto and Montréal more than doubled their population in the 20 years before 1914.
Social Change, Government Expansion
As Canada increasingly became an urban and industrial society, the self-help and family-related social-assistance practices of earlier times were outmoded. The vigorous Social Gospel movement among Protestants and the multiplication of social-assistance activities by Roman Catholic orders and agencies constituted impressive responses, however inadequate. Governments, especially at the provincial level, expanded their roles in education, labour and welfare. An increasingly significant presence in social reform work was that of women, who also began to exert pressure for the vote.
Through immigration, Canada was becoming a multicultural society, at least in the West and in the major, growing industrial cities. Roughly one-third of the immigrants came from non-English-speaking Europe. Ukrainians, Russian Jews, Poles, Germans, Italians, Dutch and Scandinavians were the principal groups. In BC there were small but increasing populations of Chinese, Japanese and East Indians. There were growing signs of unease among both English and French Canadians about the presence of so many "strangers," but the old social makeup of Canada had been altered forever.
Rebellion in the West
Meanwhile, there was a reduction in the extent of territories controlled by First Nations, and in their degree of self-determination. In the Arctic, the Inuit remained largely undisturbed, but most western First Nations and Métis people lost their way of life as white settlement, farming and railroads encroached on much of their hunting lands. In 1869-70 in the Red River region, and in 1885 at Batoche in Saskatchewan, there were unsuccessful armed Métis rebellions led by Louis Riel (see Red River Rebellion; North-West Rebellion). During the second uprising some Aboriginal groups were directly involved. Otherwise the settlement of the West was generally peaceful — land was obtained in exchange for treaty and reservation rights for First Nations, and through land grants to the Métis. Order was kept by the new, North-West Mounted Police.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier
In 1896 the prime ministership of Canada passed to the Québecois Liberal Roman Catholic Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He presided over the greatest prosperity Canadians had yet seen, but his 15 years of power were bedeviled and then ended by difficult problems in Canada's relationships with Britain and the U.S.. During Laurier's tenure, Britain's interest in a united and powerful empire intensified. Many English Canadians were swept up in Imperial emotion and Canadian nationalist ambition, and called for an enlarged imperial role for Canada. They forced the Laurier government to send troops to aid Britain in the South African War, 1899-1902, and to begin a Canadian navy in 1910. In the same spirit came a massive Canadian contribution of men and money to the British cause in the cataclysm of the First World War.
By then the Laurier administration had been defeated, in part because too many English Canadian imperialists thought it was "not British enough," and because the growing nationaliste movement in Québec, led by Henri Bourassa, was sure that it was "too British," and would involve young Québec boys in foreign wars of no particular concern to Canada. But the chief cause of Laurier's defeat in the general election of 1911 was his proposed reciprocity or free trade agreement with the U.S., which would have led to the reciprocal removal or lowering of duties on the so-called "natural" products of farms, forests and fisheries.
The captains of Canadian finance, manufacturing and transport excited the strong Canadian suspicions of American economic intentions and, with their support, the Conservative Opposition under Robert Borden convinced the electorate that Canada's separate national economy and imperial trading possibilities were about to be thrown away for economic, and possibly political, absorption by the U.S..
Canada Emerges on World Stage
Yet the war also had a positive impact on Canada. Industrial productivity and efficiency had been stimulated. Canada won a new international status, as a separate signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, and as a charter member of the new League of Nations. And the place of women in Canadian life had been upgraded dramatically. They had received the vote federally, primarily for partisan political reasons. But their stellar war service, often in difficult and dirty jobs hitherto thought unfeminine, had won them a measure of respect; they had also gained a taste for fuller participation in the work world. Canadian men and women, on a much broadened social scale, had been drawn into the mainstream of a western consumer civilization.
The war itself ushered in slaughter on an industrial scale, and Canada paid a high price. Among the roughly 630,000 who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 425,000 were sent overseas — witnessing the horrors of battlefields at Ypres, Vimy, Passchendaele and elsewhere. By the end, more than 234,000 Canadians had been killed or wounded in the war.
By 1919, the attempted shift to a peacetime economy was soon clouded by high inflation and unemployment, as well as disastrously low world grain prices. Labour unrest increased radically, farmer protests toppled governments in the West and Ontario, and the economy of the Maritimes collapsed. Resentment over conscription remained intense in Québec. The early national period of Canadian innocence was over.
Labour Troubles
Employers had a different perspective. Munitions contracts were abruptly cancelled and factories had to retool for domestic production. The returning veterans added to the disruption by flooding the labour market. Some entrepreneurs and political leaders were also disturbed by the implications of the 1917 Russian Revolution and were quick to interpret labour demands, especially when couched in militant terms, as a threat to the established order. The result was the bitterest industrial strife in Canadian history. In 1919, with a labour force of some 3 million, almost 4 million working days were lost because of strikes and lockouts. The best-known of that year, the Winnipeg General Strike, has a symbolic significance: it began as a strike by construction unions for union recognition and higher wages, but quickly broadened to a sympathy strike by organized and unorganized workers in the city. Businessmen and politicians at all levels of government feared a revolution. Ten strike leaders were arrested and a demonstration was broken up by mounted policemen. After five weeks the strikers accepted a token settlement, and the strike was effectively broken.
Industrial strife continued, with average annual losses of a million working days until the mid-1920s. By then the postwar recession had been reversed and wages and employment levels were at record highs for the rest of the decade. Some labour militants turned from the economic to the political sphere, becoming successful early in the decade in provincial elections in Nova Scotia, Ontario and the four western provinces, and J.S. Woodsworth, the pioneering preacher-turned socialist politician, was elected in north Winnipeg in the 1921 federal election.
Mackenzie King and the New Politics
The war also left a heritage of grievances in rural society. Rural depopulation had accelerated during the war, but the farmers' frustration was directed against the Union government of Sir Robert Borden, which had first promised exemptions and then conscripted farm workers. A sudden drop in prices for farm produce increased their bitterness. In postwar provincial elections, farmers' parties formed governments in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta, and in the federal election of 1921, won by William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberals, the new Progressive Party captured an astonishing 65 seats on a platform of lower tariffs, lower freight rates and government marketing of farm products.
These social protests declined by the end of the decade. Industrial expansion, financed largely by American investment, provided work in the automotive industry, in pulp and paper and in mining. Farm incomes rose after the postwar recession, reaching a high of over $1 billion in 1927. The political system also offered some accommodation. Most provincial governments introduced minimum wages shortly after the war, and the federal government reduced tariffs and freight rates and introduced old-age pensions. By the end of the decade the impetus for social change had dissipated. Even wartime prohibition experiments had given way to the lucrative selling of liquor by provincial boards.
Great Depression
But the good times of the late 1920s didn't last. In fact, they masked brewing trouble in financial markets, and the coming trauma of the Great Depression. For wheat farmers it began in 1930 when the price of wheat dropped below $1 a bushel. Three years later it was down to about 40 cents and the price of other farm products had dropped as precipitously. Prairie farmers were the hardest hit because they relied on cash crops, and because the depressed prices happened to coincide with a cyclical period of drought, which brought crop failures and a lack of feed for livestock. Cash income for prairie farmers dropped from a high of $620 million in 1928 to a low of $177 million in 1931 and did not reach $300 million until 1939.
Disaster also struck many industrial workers who lost their jobs. Unemployment statistics are not reliable partly because there was no unemployment insurance and so no bookkeeping records, but it is estimated that unemployment rose from three per cent of the labour force in 1929 to 20 per cent in 1933. It was still 11 per cent by the end of the decade. Even these figures are misleading: the labour force included only those who were employed or looking for work, excluding most women. Those identified as unemployed were often the only breadwinners in the family.
Role of Government Evolves
Voters turned to governments for an economic security that the system could not provide. Most governments were slow or unable to respond and were replaced by others at the first opportunity. King's Liberals, elected in 1926 after a brief period of Conservative rule, were again rejected in 1930, this time in favour of a Conservative government under R.B. Bennett. New political parties arose across the ideological spectrum, contesting the 1935 federal election — the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Social Credit and the short-lived Reconstruction Party — with promises to regulate credit and business.
Even Bennett's Conservatives promised improvements (see Bennett's New Deal), and Mackenzie King and the Liberals, who won the election, spoke vaguely of reform. At the provincial level, the Union Nationale was elected in Québec under Maurice Duplessis and Social Credit in Alberta under William Aberhart. Older parties in other provinces often turned to new and more dynamic leaders who promised active intervention on behalf of the less privileged.
Governments tried to provide emergency relief, but they too soon needed help. Prairie farmers needed relief in the form of food, fuel and clothing, but they also needed money for seed grain, livestock forage and machinery repairs. Neither municipal nor provincial governments could meet these demands for assistance; in the drought year of 1937 almost two-thirds of Saskatchewan's population required some relief. Other provinces had declining revenues but were not as close to bankruptcy, with the possible exception of Alberta. Inevitably, as the Depression continued, the federal government had to contribute to relief costs.
The role of governments changed, but not dramatically. Most governments would have preferred to provide jobs by undertaking major public-works projects, but with declining revenues and limited credit the cost of materials and equipment was prohibitive. Direct relief was cheaper in the short run. Governments did become more involved in the regulation of business: mortgages and interest payments were scaled down by legislation, and new regulatory institutions such as the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board were established. The major expansion of the bureaucracy, however, would come only after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
Trade-union activity revived with the beginning of industrial recovery: by 1937 trade-union membership was back to the 1919 level. Canadian auto workers and miners followed the American lead and formed industrial unions. Their effectiveness was limited by the opposition of Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn and Duplessis in Québec, and the significant gains, once again, would come only during the war.
A New Culture: Cars and Radio
During the 1920s and 1930s, two machines may have done more than the highs and lows of the business cycle to alter the Canadian way of life: the automobile and the radio. The 1920s were the decade of the car — in 1919 there was one car in Canada for every 40 people; 10 years later it was one car for every 10. The car created Canadian suburbs and altered the social patterns of the young.
In the 1930s it was the radio: there were half-a-million receiving sets in 1930 and over a million by 1939, bringing news and entertainment into most Canadian homes. The changes brought about by mass production and popular entertainment posed problems for Canadian identity. The tariff (see Protectionism) provided Canadian jobs by ensuring that cars and radios would be assembled in Canada. There was little concern at the time for one economic side effect: the expansion of U.S. manufacturing branch-plants. But there was concern for the broadcasting of American programs by Canadian radio stations. The result was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with French and English networks broadcasting a combination of Canadian and popular American programs. By 1939 Canadians looked to governments to provide cautious assistance in maintaining Canadian identity.
Sacrifice and Social Change
As the previous war had, the Second World War reinvigorated Canada's industrial base and elevated the role of women in the economy; women earned good incomes at jobs created by the huge demand for military materiel, and also vacated by men going to war. More than a million Canadians served full-time in the armed forces between 1939-1945, allowing Canada to play a critical role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allied bombing campaigns over Europe, the invasions of Italy and Normandy, and the subsequent liberation campaign in western Europe. More than 45,000 Canadians died fighting in Hong Kong, Dieppe, on the Atlantic and across Europe.
Canada's political landscape had been fundamentally changed by the First World War. During the Second, many predicted another transformation. In 1943 the socialist Commonwealth-Co-operative Federation (CCF) party, a product of 1930s political discontent, stood highest in new public opinion polls. It became the official Opposition in Ontario in 1943 and in 1944 won decisively in Saskatchewan. In Québec, Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale recaptured power. Federally, Québec's Bloc populaire retaliated against conscription in 1944. Once again it seemed that the traditional Canadian party system would become a casualty of a European war.
Liberal Era Dawns in Ottawa
In the federal election of 11 June 1945 — held while thousands of veterans were just beginning to come home — Canadians returned the Liberal Party to office. Mackenzie King's majority was very small, but his survival is nevertheless remarkable: among Allied wartime leaders, only King and Stalin led their countries through both the war and the peacemaking.
In 1945, the Liberals added a new commitment to social welfare and Keynesian management of the economy (see Keynesian Economics). Liberal welfare policies — including family allowance begun in 1944, and unemployment insurance (see Employment Insurance), begun in 1940 — attracted many workers and farmers, and rebuffed the challenges from the CCF on the left and the Conservatives on the right. Although the national Liberals continued to enjoy support in all regions and from all economic groups, the CCF and Social Credit held power, respectively, in Saskatchewan and Alberta throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, and Social Credit governed BC from 1952 to 1972.
Louis St. Laurent and Korea
The Korean War once again embroiled Canadian troops in overseas combat, this time as part of a UN-led coalition of 16 countries fighting the Communist forces of China and North Korea. Nearly 27,000 Canadian military personnel served in Korea between 1950-1953. Five hundred sixteen Canadians lost their lives, and about 1,200 more were wounded.
In 1954, Canada's prosperity, and the national consensus on Cold War issues and other foreign policy matters began to disappear. There was a sharp economic slump in 1954, followed by worries that Canada's postwar boom was too dependent upon (mainly American) foreign investment. The cabinet's competency obviously weakened in 1954 when three prominent ministers, Douglas Abbott, Lionel Chevrier and Brooke Claxton, resigned from the government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. In 1956 the Pipeline Debate revealed apparent Liberal arrogance and political clumsiness. Western allies also became divided during the Suez Crisis when France, Britain and Israel attacked Egypt, and the U.S. and Canada did not support them. The Crisis put Canadian diplomat Lester Pearson on the world stage, as a pioneer of UN peacekeeping, as a means of defusing the conflict.
John Diefenbaker
On 10 June 1957 the Conservative Party ended the Liberals' long reign in Ottawa. Most significant in explaining the victory was the Conservatives' choice of John Diefenbaker as leader. He brought a flamboyance and a populist appeal that his predecessor, George Drew, completely lacked. He was also a western Canadian who understood and shared the area's grievances against Ottawa. Diefenbaker's brief first term saw taxes cut and pensions raised. The new government also took Canada into the North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) agreement with the U.S., and two years later scrapped the Avro Arrow interceptor and purchased Bomarc missiles, effective only with nuclear warheads.
Seeking escape from the confines of a minority government, Diefenbaker called an election for 31 March 1958. Although the Liberals now had Lester Pearson as leader, Diefenbaker won 208 of 265 seats on the strength of his charisma, his "vision" of a new Canada and his policy of northern development. His support was well distributed, except in Newfoundland (which had become the 10th province in 1949).
No one had predicted the extent of the Conservative triumph, but that did not prevent many commentators at the time from forecasting a Conservative dynasty and a return to the two-party system. Today, historians and political scientists tend to consider the 1958 election as an aberration that neither reflected nor affected the fundamental character of Canadian politics. Yet closer scrutiny reveals a lasting imprint. Since 1958 Conservatives have commanded western Canadian federal politics, and Liberals have found western seats increasingly difficult to obtain. On the other hand, Conservatives, who won 50 seats in Québec in 1958, did not recover from Diefenbaker's failure to build upon his victory there for more than 25 years.
Provincial Political Change
The CCF and the Liberals began rebuilding almost immediately—the Liberals by appealing to urban Canadians and Francophones, and the CCF by strengthening its links with organized labour. Provincial bases were important in this reconstruction. Social Credit governments in Alberta and, to a much lesser extent, BC assisted the Liberals. Within five days in June 1960, the Liberals were elected in Québec and New Brunswick. In Québec, Jean Lesage modernized Québec liberal traditions and introduced the Quiet Revolution.
In Saskatchewan, the CCF made sacrifices for its federal counterpart. Long-time Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas went to Ottawa to lead the CCF's heir, the New Democratic Party, whose formation was an attempt to create a closer link with the labour movement. Without Douglas, the NDP in Saskatchewan bravely introduced medicare in 1962 and, under the lash of a scare campaign, lost the next election to the Liberals. Medicare, however, proved successful and soon became a popular national program.
By 1962 Diefenbaker's 1958 "vision" of Canada had become a nightmare to some and a joke to others. There had been postwar peaks in unemployment, record budget deficits and, in May 1962, a devaluation of the dollar. But neither Pearson nor Douglas made much impact as national leaders before the election of 18 June 1962; the Conservatives stayed in power as a minority government. By early 1963 the cabinet began to bicker, members resigned ostensibly on the issue of Canadian defence policy, and finally the government collapsed. In a bitter 1963 election campaign Diefenbaker charged that the U.S., which had openly criticized his refusal to accept nuclear weapons on Canadian soil, was colluding with the Liberals to defeat him. The Liberals brushed off the attack and excoriated Diefenbaker for alleged incompetence. On 8 April 1963, the Liberals won a minority government.
Lester Pearson
The Pearson government sought to be innovative, and in many ways it was — the armed forces were unified, social welfare was extended, and a distinctive new national flag was unveiled in 1964. The party also became ever more identified with the "politics of national unity," dedicated to containing Québec's sovereigntist aspirations. In reality all parties shared the need to deal with Québec's demands for changes in Canada's federal system.
These years were marked by personality quarrels and numerous Cold War-related political scandals, especially the Munsinger Affair. They were also notable for the establishment of the Canada Pension Planand the signing of the Canada-U.S. Automotive Products Agreement, a treaty intended to give Canada a larger share of the continental auto market. Desperate to escape from the minority straitjacket, Pearson called an election for 8 November 1965. He won only two more seats, remaining two short of a majority.
Centennial and Expo
In 1967, Canada marked its Centennial birthday, and the world came to celebrate in Montréal at Expo 67 — a world's fair notable for the striking architecture of many of its pavilions, including the U.S. contribution: a giant geodesic dome. Montréal, then Canada's largest city, had come into its own as a confident, stylish and multilingual metropolis.
That same year the Conservatives replaced Diefenbaker with Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield. Pearson resigned at the end of 1967, to be succeeded by Pierre Trudeau, who largely restored party unity. The choice of Trudeau emphasized the Liberals' commitment to finding a solution to the "Québec problem." Trudeau's vigorous opposition to Québec nationalism (see French Canadian Nationalism) and "special status" won support in English Canada, while his promise to make the French fact important in Ottawa — through official bilingualism, for example — appealed to his fellow Francophones. Conservatives and the NDP found difficulty in developing a similarly appealing platform, not least because both lacked support in Québec. In 1968, Québec's place in Confederation and Trudeau's personality dominated federal political debate. This dominance endured almost uninterrupted into the 1980s.
Pierre Trudeau
In 1968 Trudeau took the country by storm — winning a majority by appealing across class lines and even across regional barriers with his personal charisma and his 60s-era insouciance. Canadians hadn't seen a politician like him. The Liberals won more seats west of Ontario than since 1953. Over the next few years, Trudeau's harsh response to terrorism in Québec during the 1970 October Crisis, the growth of leftist sentiment in the NDP, and Conservative leadership bickering strengthened Trudeau's position. However, when he called an election for 30 Oct 1972, the Liberals' position was considerably weaker. Their emphasis on biculturalism angered many English Canadians who feared fundamental changes in their lives and their nation; many were also unhappy with the cuts in defence and particularly in the forces dedicated to NATO. The Liberals were returned to power but with only a minority government, supported by the NDP under leader David Lewis.
A month before the 1972 election, Canadians were glued to their television sets, watching an unfolding international drama that was a mixture of politics and hockey. Amid Cold War tensions, the best hockey players from Canada and the Soviet Union squared off in the 1972 Summit Series. Paul Henderson scored the most famous goal in hockey history, winning the series for Canada on September 28 in Moscow. But it was a narrow victory, and the Soviets had shaken Canadians' confidence in themselves as the finest hockey players on the planet.
Parti Québecois
Two years later, Canadians were back at the voting booth in the 1974 federal election. Trudeau's reformist legislation and his opposition to the Conservative policy of anti-inflation wage and price controls brought many working-class voters to his side, especially in BC and Ontario. The Liberals won another majority, dependent for their support upon Québec and urban Ontario. After 1974 Trudeau gave indecisive leadership. Personal problems, weakness in his cabinet and intractable economic difficulties — including oil-price shocks and other inflationary pressures — plagued his government between 1974 and 1979. He surged in popularity in 1976-77 when René Lévesque's Parti Québécois gained power in Québec, prompting fears in English-speaking Canada about national unity, which many considered Trudeau well-equipped to handle.
In 1976, Montréal once again became the focus of world attention as host of the 21st Summer Olympic games. Innovative, though ultimately costly, new facilities were built including a distinctive concrete stadium (nicknamed "the Big O). For the first time in Olympic history, the host nation did not win a gold medal.
Joe Clark
Three years later, in May 1979 Opposition leader Joe Clark defeated Trudeau — losing Quebec but sweeping English Canada — for a minority Conservative government. In December the Clark government presented a tough budget and lost a subsequent non-confidence motion, and an election was called for February 1980. Cleverly manipulating the Conservatives' internal differences, the Liberals under Trudeau (who had resigned and then returned) regained their majority in an election in which Ontario swung strongly behind the Liberals, whose policies on energy resource pricing they favoured and the West abhorred. The Liberals won no seat west of Manitoba and only two there. Deep regional divisions in Canadian politics resulted from economic strategies marking a fragmented party system, which mirrored a fragmented nation.
Terry Fox
In the summer of 1980 a young man with only one leg ignited the interest of Canadians the way no politician could. Terry Fox's cross-country Marathon of Hope began in Newfoundland and ended on the Trans-Canada Highway at Thunder Bay, Ont.—only halfway to Fox's Pacific goal. Fox died the following summer, but by then he was a national icon, and the annual Terry Fox Runs he inspired would go on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research, in countries around the world.
Trudeau then set out to "patriate" the Canadian Constitution from Britain, and to create the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and entrench it in the new Constitution. After a long series of negotiations with provincial leaders, the patriated Constitution was signed in Ottawa in 1982 by Queen Elizabeth — but it left a festering political problem because Québec's René Lévesque, alone among the premiers, had refused to endorse the document.
Brian Mulroney
Trudeau became ever more unpopular as inflation, interest rates and unemployment rose, and in 1984 the Liberals paid the price. The Conservatives had replaced Clark with a bilingual Quebec business executive, Brian Mulroney, in 1983. The Liberals chose John Turner as Trudeau's successor a year later. Turner quickly called an election. The result was an overwhelming Conservative victory.
In Ottawa meanwhile, Mulroney had tried and failed to win the Quebec government's endorsement of the Constitution via the Meech Lake constitutional accord, which became the central political drama of his first term in office. His government also negotiated a contentious free trade agreement with the U.S., which became a major election issue in 1988. Mulroney won another, though smaller, majority government and in 1989 Canada and the U.S. began a new trading regime that was later expanded to include Mexico. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) contributed to a greater integration of the North American economy and, its critics would argue, a harmonization a weakening of Canadian cultural protections.
Outside the political arena, two very different dramas captured Canadians' attention during this time. On 23 June 1985, an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Toronto and Montreal to London, was blown up over the Atlantic, killing all 331 people on board, including 268 Canadians, mostly of Indian ancestry. The worst terrorist attack in Canadian history revealed deep flaws in Canada's domestic police and security services. It also led to a 20-year investigation and prosecution that yielded the conviction of only one conspirator, Sikh-Canadian Inderjit Singh Reyat.
In 1988 Calgary welcomed the world to the Winter Olympics. The city put on a party the likes of which the winter games had never seen. But once again, as in Montreal, the host nation failed to win a gold medal.
Two Failed Accords
In 1990, the Meech Lake Accord officially died, after several years of failed efforts to win approval among all the provincial governments. Québec reacted angrily, as did a handful of Mulroney's Quebec MPs, who quit the Conservative caucus to form the separatist Bloc Quebecois in Parliament, under the leadership of former cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard. Wounded, but still pressing for a constitutional solution, the Mulroney government and the provinces worked out a new deal called the Charlottetown Accord (see Charlottetown Accord: Document). Despite support from all of the major parties and provincial governments, the Accord was also rejected — this time in a national referendum in October 1992. The rejection was probably as much the result of the angry public mood created by the worst postwar recession as the contents of the Accord itself. Canadians were also weary after more than a decade of constitutional wrangling, which had dominated the national agenda.
Despite these national unity troubles, a buoyant economy and a fragmented opposition led to the re-election of the Liberals with a second majority in 1997. The Progressive Conservatives remained in the doldrums. However, the Reform Party — a western-based, right-wing, populist movement led by its founder Preston Manning — had its big breakthrough in 1997, becoming the Official Opposition. Yet in spite of its success, Reform had divided the conservative vote across Canada. Dislodging the Liberal hold on power appeared unlikely without some entente with the PCs. As Chretien governed, his opponents squabbled among themselves, with conservative voices increasingly calling for a serious effort to "unite-the-right."
Balancing the Budget
The federal government's budget deficits had reached alarming levels by the 1990s, and Chrétien and his finance minister Paul Martin embarked on an aggressive program to cut spending and balance the budget, which they did in 1998. The Liberals were aided in this effort by revenues from the Goods and Services Tax (GST), introduced by Mulroney, and by downloading some federal costs to provincial governments. Nevertheless, they produced Canada's first balanced budget in 30 years.
The following year the largely self-governing Inuit homeland of Nunavut was officially created across two million square kilometres of the eastern Arctic, becoming Canada's third territory.
War in Afghanistan
Canadians welcomed the new millennium in 2000, and re-elected the Chrétien Liberals with a third majority government. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, soon transformed government agendas across the western world, especially Canada, which now faced rampant American security concerns over their long, undefended northern border. Canadians played a unique role on "9/11," particularly on the East Coast, offering refuge and hospitality to airline passengers from the hundreds of trans-Atlantic aircraft diverted to Canadian airports.
In 2002, Chrétien dispatched a small number of troops to join the U.S. counter-terrorism effort in Afghanistan — a military commitment that ramped up considerably in 2006, when Canada sent a battle group to fight Taliban insurgents around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Over the next eight years, 158 Canadian soldiers would die in Afghanistan, and hundreds more would be wounded.
Paul Martin Takes Helm
In 2003, after a period of Liberal infighting, Chrétien was replaced as party leader and prime minister by Paul Martin. Martin took over a party that had grown complacent in power, and was beset by a growing scandal over the abuse of government funds, by Liberal-friendly firms in Quebec. Martin tried to deal with the "Sponsorship Scandal," as it was called, by appointing a public inquiry, which found evidence of illegal kickbacks of cash to the Liberals by Quebec businessmen who had received government contracts.
Although Martin was personally exonerated by the inquiry, the Liberal brand took a beating. Under Martin they were reduced to a minority government in the 2004 election, and two years later they were defeated by the newly-united political right, under a new Conservative banner.
The Commodity Juggernaut
An Albertan, Harper's political rise coincided with an economic power-shift under way in Canada. Since Confederation the country's manufacturing heartland of southern Ontario and Quebec had provided the bulk of the country's wealth, and determined much of its politics. But in the 21st Century, the growing importance of Pacific Coast trade with Asia, and the vast oil (see Oil Sands) and mineral resources of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan made the West the economic engine of the country. On the East Coast, a smaller renaissance was taking place in Newfoundland and Labrador, where oil and other natural resources were turning once-poor provinces such as it (and Saskatchewan) into providers of jobs and exporters of wealth.
As if to reinforce Canada's new westward orientation, Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics in 2010, and Canadian athletes captured the largest number of medals, to that date, in the country's Olympic history.
Economic Uncertainty
Despite its booming resource sector, Canada's economy was hit by the 2008 global financial credit crisis and subsequent recession, although the country's banks weathered the storm better than many other western nations. But the job losses, and the further erosion of the manufacturing base, took their toll on government finances, and Canada was once again running budget deficits. Even so, Harper was judged by many Canadians the leader best able to manage the economy.
One of Harper's main political goals since coming to office was to re-make the country along social and economic conservative lines, and to strike a blow against the Liberal Party, which had governed Canada for most of its history. In 2011 he'd succeeded in putting the Liberals into third place in Parliament. But the Conservatives had failed to make lasting inroads in the important political battleground of Quebec. And by 2013, the Liberals had a young, new leader from that province — Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister — threatening Harper's vision and the Conservative hold on power.
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Vietnam Vet- Jimi Hendrix - Foxy Lady
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1967 Centennial
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It’s almost like the 1950s bottled everyone up so much that the late 1960s exploded like an old pressure cooker. Women were showing more skin than ever before.
For the first time in the 19th Century, London, not Paris, was the center of the fashion world. The British Invasion didn’t stop with The Beatles. It swept into all parts of life, especially clothing.
But actually, lost in the two extremes is the mid-60s, which I think actually had the coolest style, albeit more subtle. I love the long, slender shapes, the bright colors and the young, London look. I have always wished the Mod style stuck around a little longer.
In 1967, fashion fell in love with the leg. Short skirts worn higher above the knee gave legs exposure they hadn’t seen in years. Women took advantage of the extra leg room by pulling on some colored and patterned hose.
Women also wore peekaboo fishnets, spidery weaves and lace. Not only did they provide smoothness from hip-to-toe, but they also eliminated the possibility of garter show.
Women
also fancied high boots as a fashionable way to cover up their legs.
High-rise stretch vinyl and patent leather provided a glove-like fit.
They also wore shiny black and brown boots that stretched to the knees.
Youth continued to set the pace for fashion. The belt did not define the waist anymore, instead it created a new “fit and flare” attitude.
In addition to leg, the fashion world fell in love with Twiggy, the skinny 17-year-old British model who burst upon the scene, adorned every magazine cover and brought the age of the mini-mod to the forefront.
Her success was controversial at the time. To some, she was an insult to the female figure, while other lavished her fresh, new look. Her slightly androgynous look blurred the lines between genders.
Another interesting development in 1968: hardware. Accessories consisting of metal squares, nailheads, rattling chains, zippers, brass buttons, clamps were something new. The chain belt was another important accessory.
In men’s fashion, the mood departed somewhat from the mod of Carnaby Street, but the British look was still evident. Turtleneck sweaters were an important trend, eliminating the need for a tie. The more daring sported a turtleneck under dinner jackets for a casual elegance.
To read more detail about a certain year, click on the plus sign next to the year below.
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This was us in the 60s and 70s..... and we were beautiful
Mod is a subculture that began in 1960s Britain and spread, in varying
degrees, to other countries and continues today on a smaller scale.
Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small
group of London-based stylish young men in the late 1950s who were
termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz, although the
subculture expanded to include women. These found photos from Please Kill Me capture candid portraits of mod girls during the 1960s...
http://www.vintag.es/2016/02/that-60s-look-found-photos-of-mod-girls.html
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CANADA'S MUSIC OF 60s..
However, while Dion, Morissette and Twain represented the kind of global success by which the Canadian media chronically have measured its self-esteem, the mid-1990s also marked a time when many other performing and recording acts enjoyed unprecedented popularity in their own country without necessarily having the same impact outside its borders. Still more acts established themselves regionally through independently produced and marketed records that helped to change the shape of popular recording practices while reinforcing regional cultural differences and a national musical identity.
These 3 tiers of development confirmed the existence of a domestic star system and the arrival of a self-sustaining enterprise that appeared at last to have transcended decades of growing pains in the aftermath of the arrival first of rock and roll and, in 1971, of CanCon (Canadian content regulations).
Émile Berliner, German immigrant and student of electricity and acoustics, designed a mouthpiece transmitter for the telephone in Washington in 1877 that anticipated the basic concept for the microphone. In 1887 he patented the gramophone and in 1893 set up the United States Gramophone Company, which became the Berliner Gramophone Co of Philadelphia in 1896. In 1898, with his brother Joseph, he founded Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover. In 1900, Émile and his son Herbert established a branch of the Berliner Gramophone Co in Montrél to manufacture and distribute their gramophone discs and those of Victor Records throughout Canada.
In 1900, the Berliners purchased the rights to the "His Master's Voice" logo, later the universally recognized "Nipper" trademark of RCA Records, and set up the Compo Company in Lachine, Qué, the first independent pressing plant in Canada. Herbert Berliner also initiated the first system for distributing records independently, and in 1925 introduced the first electronically recorded discs in Canada. The same year Compo issued the first electronically recorded "live" recording, a church service.
As far back as 24 December 1901, Canadian Reginald FESSENDEN transmitted a radio signal from Brant Rock, Mass, to ships at sea. His broadcast of Handel's Largo heralded the beginning of AM radio. Fessenden's other inventions include the wireless telephone, radio compass, the tracer bullet and in 1919 a precursor of the first television. Operating out of Montrél, inventor Guglielmo Marconi laid claim to establishing the first radio station, XWA, in 1919 (or the second, since KDKA in Pittsburgh has made a similar claim).
The first Canadian pop superstar was Ottawa's Paul ANKA, who penned the golden perennial "Diana," a song inspired by a crush on his babysitter that was written in 1957 when he was still 16 years old. Without the conventional good looks of a teen idol, he instead had versatility and the ability to write and produce his own songs, talents that saw him compose the pop standard "My Way" in 1968 and the enduring theme music for TV's The Tonight Show.
By the late 1950s, nearly every town in Canada could boast its own Elvis Presley hopeful: Dickie Damron of Bentley, Alta; Gary Cooper of Portage La Prairie, Man; Red Shea of Prince Albert, Sask; Cliff and Jerry of Minto, NB; The Versatiles of Kinnard, BC; Al Oster of the Yukon Territory; The Ducats of Port Aux Basques, Nfld; and Les Trois Clefs of Montréal.
The essential lineup of The Band was Richard Manuel, Robbie ROBERTSON, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and the lone American, Levon Helm. In 1966 they left Hawkins to tour with Bob Dylan during his controversial turn from acoustic folk to electric rock, and, under Dylan's wings, The Band discovered their own gift for songwriting. In 1968 and 1969 they released Music From Big Pink and The Band, albums that were remarkable for melding rock, folk, gospel, soul and country roots into a panoramic yet observant and detailed narrative account of North American folklore and character. The Band enjoyed great success and acclaim but were becoming a frayed and tired unit by the time they disbanded in style in 1976 with the concert The Last Waltz, which also formed the pivotal moment in the movie of the same name, one of the best filmed documentaries of rock and roll.
A reunited version of The Band featuring Helm, Hudson and Danko was still active in the 1990s (Manuel died in 1986). After a decade working behind the scenes in film mainly as a composer, Robertson ventured into a solo career that has yielded 4 ambitious albums reflecting his native heritage and roots to American music.
In fact, it often was noted that some of the wisest commentaries on American life came from the songs of Robertson, a Canadian. Yet strong regional ties and a receptiveness to the influence of climate and geography were qualities in Robertson's writing that he shared with Canadian folk singers such as IAN AND SYLVIA, Gordon LIGHTFOOT and Joni MITCHELL.
While Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" has become a global folk anthem and Lightfoot could eloquently switch from simple romantic imagery in "For Lovin' Me" to epic narrative style for "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" - songs that both, in their way, communicate Canadian experience - it is ironic and telling that both writers were typical of their time in that they had to find success abroad to be appreciated at home.
Lightfoot has continued to live in Canada; however, others fled to the United States, where they felt their music would be appreciated and would have a chance to be recorded and developed properly. These included John Kay of the hard rock band STEPPENWOLF, Zal Yanovsky of the "good-time" rock band the Lovin' Spoonful, Denny Doherty, a folk singer who became a Papa in the enormously successful folk-rock quartet the Mamas And Papas, pop songwriter Andy Kim, poet, novelist, songwriter Leonard COHEN, "blue-eyed soul" singer David CLAYTON-THOMAS and rock and roll maverick Neil YOUNG.
Young and Mitchell have proven to be the most enduring and influential of them all. Both infiltrated the Los Angeles folk and rock scenes in the mid-1960s, the Winnipeg-bred Young first finding fame with the pioneering rock band Buffalo Springfield. He later teamed up with 1960s-70s supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash before embarking on an erratic but always intriguing solo career. His numerous albums, such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After The Goldrush, Rust Never Sleeps, Freedom, Harvest Moon and Sleeps With Angels, reveal a wilfully independent and fearless artist. He is at home with gentle folk and country music but also ready to venture into lesser known modern idioms or to create fierce, uncompromising rock and roll. This spirit and the timeliness (or timelessness) of his smartest work have made him a leader among his contemporaries and a hero to a generation of younger songwriters and rock and roll bands.
Joni Mitchell, meanwhile, remained a solo act but also became part of the Crosby, Stills and Nash circle. From the brave confessional writing of her early albums, she ventured into bolder, more poetic long-form songs and different progressive idioms including jazz, becoming a highly stylized and distinctive artist in the process. In the 1990s her highly regarded albums such as Blue and Court and Spark were cited by numerous women artists including Canadians Sarah MCLACHLAN and Alannah MYLES as inspiration for their own work.
The music industry also had very few behind-the-scenes talents such as experienced managers or publicists, and, in the pursuit of amassing larger audiences, Canadian media preferred to program proven hits by established English or American acts over Canadians, often presuming their work to be inferior.
This was an attitude that took root and held on into the 1990s but was exposed as early as 1965, when a recording of the song "Shakin' All Over," by Winnipeg group Chad Allen and the Expressions was presented to radio stations under the name The Guess Who? Not knowing the identity of the band, many assumed it to be one of the latest groups in the 1960s British Invasion (of The Beatles, Rolling Stones etc) and played it. "Shakin' All Over" went on to become a worldwide hit, but when the band's identity was revealed it had to struggle to get another one.
Now reconciled to being The GUESS WHO, Chad Allen and the Expressions became the archetype of Canadian rock and roll, touring the country endlessly and notching more than a dozen modest hits for the Quality label before meeting talented Canadian producer Jack Richardson. Signing to his Nimbus 9 production company, The Guess Who had a huge international single in 1968 with "These Eyes," which became the launching pad for a high-rolling career that produced many more hits, including "American Woman,""Share The Land,""Clap For The Wolfman, "and later solo careers by Randy Bachman and Burton CUMMINGS.
Anne MURRAY was the first star of the CRTC era, although her 1970 multimillion-selling single, "Snowbird," already had established her warm, clear vocal style and taste in light pop, country and folk and laid the foundation for a career that has seen her record over 30 albums, garner numerous JUNO and Grammy Awards and become one of pop music's most recognizable and respected singers.
On a worldwide scale, the decade was a boom time for the music industry, and Canada's industry also experienced a period of unprecedented record sales for homegrown recording acts as a true star system awkwardly began to take shape. Following the tour-record-tour-record-tour dictum of the Guess Who, many new artists emerged, most notably in rock and roll, and had varying degrees of success at home or abroad: The Stampeders, Fludd, Five Man Electrical Band, CHILLIWACK, Crowbar, LIGHTHOUSE, PRISM, APRIL WINE, Trooper and TRIUMPH.
It became apparent, though, that Canada's small population and the continued resistance of radio and other media still created obstacles to the survival of the independents while the enforced investment by the major labels in Canadian talent was no guarantee of better recordings or easy access to the international market.
Significantly, 2 of the most successful acts to arrive in the 1970s, Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO) and RUSH, had 2 of the best and most powerful managers, Bruce Allen and Ray Danniels.
Initially, the Vancouver-based Allen used his high-powered tactics to guide Randy Bachman's BTO to become one of the most successful hard rock acts in the worId, ultimately eclipsing the impact of The Guess Who in the short term. By the time BTO began falling apart in the later 1970s, Allen and co-manager Lou Blair had another immensely popular act in LOVERBOY. In the 1980s, Allen would meet his biggest star, Bryan ADAMS, and by the 1990s would also be managing American country star Martina McBride, goldfingered record producers Bob Rock and Bruce Fairbairn, and pop singer Anne Murray.
Although Danniels has managed other acts and also been behind the creation of the independent Anthem Records label, his earliest, greatest and most consistent success has been with Rush, which in turn has proven itself to be a model of artistic growth and integrity during a career that has endured for 25 years. In that time, Rush has traversed heavy metal, progressive-rock, new wave rock, reggae and other idioms on the way to selling more than 20 million albums worldwide, establishing it as one of the world's most reliable concert attractions.
As the 1970s rounded the corner to the 1980s, a Canadian music establishment had begun to take hold that looked after its own corporate concerns but didn't necessarily reflect the musical climate. While it now had the annual JUNO AWARDS, produced by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Science (CARAS) since 1971 and which was ritually telecast by the CBC to acknowledge the accomplishments of those in the musical entertainment business, the industry showed itself to be conservative and resistant to change. Thus, while it was easy to reward the popular appeal of disco diva Patsy Gallant ("From New York to L.A.") or the sentimental balladry of Dan HILL ("Sometimes When We Touch"), the sociological impact of punk or new wave rock in the late 1970s was resisted with fear and distrust. Thus groups as diverse (and often politically outspoken) as Vancouver's DOA and Pointed Sticks or Toronto's Diodes and ROUGH TRADE became the new, revolutionary spirit of pop musical culture.
Although in the 1970s and 1980s there were several examples of a French-English crossover by acts such as Gallant, rock and roller Michel PAGLIARO, teen TV celebrity René Simard, MOR instrumentalist André GAGNON, Manitoban Daniel Lavoie, sister folk duo Kate and Anna MCGARRIGLE or progressive folk/jazz group Harmonium, surprisingly few English pop acts ventured into Québec to reciprocate. Meanwhile, English-speaking Québec acts often remained Montréal-based phenomena (despite the residence of the "indie" Aquarius label and its successful hard rock act, April Wine). Most francophone recording artists - the hugely popular BEAU DOMMAGE, Ginette RENO, Offenbach, Robert CHARLEBOIS - enjoyed their Québécois success largely unknown in anglophone Canada.
While the folk tradition in Québec is lasting (seeFOLK MUSIC, FRANCO-CANADIAN), the transition to pop and more contemporary songwriting began in the 1950s with the CHANSONNIERS led by Félix LECLERC, whose plaintive emotional style blended pithy statements of Québécois sentiment with pointed reflections of cultural and political alienation. When the Québec recording industry created its equivalent of the Junos, it paid homage to Leclerc by calling it the Félix Awards.
Artists who followed his example were Raymond LÉVESQUE, Gilles VIGNEAULT (cited as the most influential and dramatic songwriter of the 1960s), Claude LÉVEILLÉE (who enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1990s), Claude Gauthier, Luc PLAMONDON and Jean-Pierre FERLAND (whose Jaune became the first double-length LP to be released by a Canadian). Québec talent responded to the impact of The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960s with their own versions of anglo-American hits, but inevitably Québec developed its own style through the work of such artists as Pierre Lalonde, Donald Lautrec, Michel Louvain, Johnny Farrago, Renée CLAUDE and René and Nathalie Simard.
Singers such as Ginette Reno and Michel Pagliaro and especially the "enfant terrible" Robert Charlebois took Québécois pop to higher levels of record sales, of rock and roll credibility or of artistic and intellectual merit. Their success helped the industry not only to find its feet but (as was not the case with the English side of the business) to feel secure in the strength and uniqueness of its culture. They soon were joined by a wave of artists covering the range of folk, pop, rock, blues, jazz and disco/dance music, from Richard Seguin to Villes Emard Blues Band to Boule Noire.
If the 1980s saw the development of a global awareness (symbolized in popular music terms by the coining of the term WORLD MUSIC to describe the rhythms mostly of Third World countries, and by the 1985 marathon concert fundraiser for famine-ravaged Ethiopia, Live Aid), it also witnessed the fragmentation of popular music into myriad forms and approaches.
The Vancouver-based Adams first achieved million-selling international record sales with songwriting partner Jim Vallance through such hits as "Cuts Like A Knife,""Heaven" and "Summer Of '69." In the 1990s, a collaboration with writer/producer Robert "Mutt" Lange netted ever bigger hits: "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,""Please Forgive Me" and "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman."
Foster, originally from Victoria, made his name in Los Angeles as a session musician but also was the leader of 1970s studio band Skylark and writer of Skylark's evergreen hit, "Wildflower." As a producer, writer and arranger he won Juno and Grammy awards for his work with Chicago, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston and others. In 1995 he collaborated with Adams, Vallance and another writer, Paul Hyde (of the then popular Payolas), on the song "Tears Are Not Enough." This was their contribution to African famine relief and, as recorded by Northern Lights, it was a massive group effort that brought together the cream of Canadian talent, including Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Young, Burton Cummings, members of Rush, Loverboy and many others, raising almost $3 million. At Live Aid, "Tears Are Not Enough" was sung by Bryan Adams.
As the 1980s rolled on, the new artists kept on coming: The Payolas, Headpins, Skinny Puppy, Doug And The Slugs, Barney BENTALL and Colin JAMES from the west coast; k.d. LANG, Northern Pikes, and The Pursuit Of Happiness from the Prairies; Red Rider, Jane SIBERRY, Kim MITCHELL, Honeymoon Suite, Glass Tiger, Platinum Blonde, The JEFF HEALEY BAND, The NYLONS (and many more) from Ontario; Gino VANNELLI, Luba and Corey HART from Québec; Haywire and Minglewood from the Maritimes.
With them came a stronger industry infrastructure of managers, publicists, studios, a variety of government or corporate funding opportunities (primarily FACTOR, the Fund to Assist Canadian Talent On Record), trade media (such as RPM and The Record), publishers and indie labels (notably the first and biggest CanCon success, Attic, and the first post-punk/new wave alternative label, Nettwerk) that reinforced and capitalized on an awakening pride in Canada's increasingly sophisticated and original music.
Spearheading the acceptance of rapidly changing 1980s technology and multi-media was the MuchMusic music TV channel (and, later, MuchMoreMusic) and its francophone equivalent, MusiquePlus. Initially relying on pop-rock video clips, MuchMusic's arrival in 1985 not only connected regional activities to the rest of the country but united its many diverse artists and, by focusing on new, emerging artists, created many new stars. These include Grapes Of Wrath, 54-40 and Sons Of Freedom on the West Coast and Sloan on the East.
Canadian pop entered the 1990s on a wave of national pride, much stronger than ever before yet also more diverse, divided and facing the challenges presented by the rapidly expanding vocabulary and opening vistas being created by technology. These took the form of copyright ownership in the face of digitized music relays, communication via World Wide Web sites (seeINTERNET) and the ongoing question of whether Canada still required content regulations. The impact of rap, hip-hop, acid jazz, techno and ever-evolving mutations on dance music was felt most in the large urban centres, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver with their rapidly growing population of black and Asian minorities. Still, despite hit records for Bass Is Base, Maestro Fresh Wes and Kish, few artists working in these idioms were able to sustain much domestic success or use it as a springboard internationally as the new millennium approached.
The francophone music industry had been a mirror of Canadian politics in that it remained distinct, yet during this period it yielded one of the country's biggest stars in Céline Dion.
Dion was a child star in Québec and could have remained astonishingly popular there if she had continued to record in French. She signed to Sony Records in Canada at the beginning of the 1990s and scored the first of many English hits, "Where Does My Heart Beat Now," while risking the alienation of her francophone audience (despite also continuing to record in French). By the time of 1996's Falling Into You album, Dion's warm buoyant personality, bravura singing and choice of slick, commercial romantic ballads and danceable pop had sold millions of albums and earned her Juno, Grammy and Oscar awards. She subsequently married her manager, Pierre Angelli, became a mother and signed a lucrative contract to perform nightly for a year at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. At the end of her Las Vegas engagement, she released a new album, Taking Chances, and resumed touring.
The 1990s also marked the coming of age of the Maritimes music industry. As in Québec, it had developed in isolation, its biggest star of the previous 30 years being Springhill, NS, native Anne Murray. Its towering influence was folk songwriter Stan Rogers.
A star system was now in place with its own hierarchy of artists and with a definite legacy with which to cite, the Canadian pop music industry celebrated 25 years of its Juno Awards (and, incidentally, CanCon law) in 1996 with a 4-CD box set, a TV documentary and a book. All were called Oh What A Feeling, the title being a nod to the early 1970s hit record by Hamilton's fiercely Canadian band, Crowbar. The CD box sold the equivalent of a million copies in weeks, qualifying it for a Diamond Award and allowing the industry to pat itself on the back and take stock.
As the third millenium began, these performers had begun to force a changing appraisal of exported Canadian music on the international stage while at the same time the impact of Dion and Shania Twain served to enhance the commercial viability of other CanCon acts.
It was the domestic popularity of the Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Jann Arden or the Barenaked Ladies that suggested Canadian popular music could finally be appreciated for its own character and quality at home. These acts spoke directly to Canadians with passion and also with humour about experiences that touched them and yet had universal resonance. Collectively they had sold millions of records and hundreds of thousands of concert tickets. If popular music is measured by sales of records and seats, these were the bands who had done the most to redefine Canadian pop music on the homefront. They were the pivot points between Dion or Twain and the new acts that in growing numbers were now criss-crossing the country in mosquito-crusted vans loaded with their instruments and brand-new self-released compact discs.
Matthew Good and Bryan Adams were Canadians whose latest albums went straight to number one on the Nielsen Soundscan chart. That would be good news but Good's Hospital Songs debuted with 11 000 sales while Adams' 11 notched 10 000. When it's considered that a year before a Celine Dion album could premiere with 10 times those sales, that is not so good.
Adams, who only years before sold in the millions and was one of America's most popular recording acts, didn't have an American label for his 11. A deal was struck with Starbucks Coffee to distribute the record through its Hear Music operation. This wasn't new. Years before, Alannis Morissette agreed to distribute her latest record, an acoustic re-recording of her Jagged Little Pill, exclusively through Starbucks. Record retailers protested and the record was made available conventionally, but the message was clear that established artists had reached an impasse and were now trying to break through it with alternatives. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell have also released records through Hear Music.
Radiohead, one of the UK's most popular bands, made its In Rainbows available online with fans or the curious told to pay what they wanted. Although Radiohead has never announced how successful this strategy was, and later made the record available on CD in stores, the band wasn't signed to a label at the time and was exploring its options. If nothing else, the ploy got a lot of publicity and sent another clear message to the recording industry. Following Radiohead's example, American band, Nine Inch Nails, marketed an instrumental record this way.
However, neither Radiohead nor Nine Inch Nails were the first. This honour goes to Canada's Jane Siberry. She long ago reclaimed her music and trusted her fans to pay only what they wanted or could.
Why CD sales are down is the source of much discussion but a lot of it has to do with how technology has filled a void - or created one. A large segment of the public now downloads its music via iTunes, Puretracks or other MP3 servers. It doesn't buy records. Facing that reality, several labels, such as Vancouver's Mint or Winnipeg's G7 Welcoming Committee are making their newest releases available digitally first. As well, many new acts don't consider themselves to be part of any recording industry and are staunchly independent. If they know how to use a computer, most indies can arrange their own tours and sell records on their own webpage, myspace, CD Baby, iTunes etc. They can be heard on a variety of internet radio programs internationally rather than hope for airplay on the local commercial radio station.
Not that the old way of advancing a career has been abandoned completely. Commercial radio play and having CDs in stores are still valuable. For every local TV Heart Attack that claims it's content to be an indie in the face of industry turmoil there is a Crash Parallel. Crash Parallel, a Toronto quartet, signed to Sony/BGM with the result, so far, that its World We Know album has benefited from the clout a major label still wields.
Or there is a Michael Buble. His three Warner Bros. albums have sold in the millions. His crooning style is unlikely to get much radio play - although Buble is now writing hits such as "Home" - but it is effective on TV or on tour, where his charm and performance make their strongest impression. He also commands an older audience that grew up buying records.
Buble's exceptional popularity points out an irony in contemporary Canadian music. He is selling both domestically and internationally at a time when Canadian music is getting praise, though the acts receiving this praise aren't well known to the average Canadian. In the vanguard are Montreal's Arcade Fire, Toronto's Broken Social Scene or Vancouver's New Pornographers with many indie bands in the slipstream. All three make good records that international media love. At home, their cultural impact is minor but the international media don't care about record sales or Canadian Content regulations, they just think Canada is a stream of originality and creativity.
It's a hard won independence. For years the Canadian industry was dominant and dictated the rules and was often derivative. Then, along came other means to expose the music and to develop.
Calgary's Feist knows. Known universally by her last name, the highly original Leslie Feist has spent time in Paris and Toronto developing a style that owes a little to punk, pop and performance art but nothing to the Canadian recording industry. In April of 2008, her new album, The Reminder, won her five awards at the Juno Awards. Feist knows and now Canada does, too.
Besides MacKenzie, Goulet and Peterson, other celebrities who owe their popularity to Canada's domestic media were Wally Koster, JULIETTE, Tommy AMBROSE, Alan Blythe and Tommy HUNTER. Whereas Lucille Starr's international hit "The French Song" or the Maritimes-produced weekly TV series Don Messer's Jubilee (seeDON MESSER AND THE ISLANDERS) had roots in Canada's diverse culture, most of those stars were facsimiles of American entertainers, creating a template for Canadian acceptance that endured at least into the 1980s.
Similarly, after Elvis Presley's pelvically generated shockwaves of 1954 reached Canada a year later, the first Canadian responses to have any national or international impact were pale copies of black rhythm and blues or doo-wop groups: the already mentioned Four Lads, Crew Cuts and Diamonds.
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... and of course....
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"Henderson
Has Scored For Canada!"
 "Here's a shot. Henderson makes a wild stab for it and falls," Foster Hewitt breathlessly described. "Here's another shot. Right in front. They Score!! Henderson has scored for Canada!" As Foster Hewitt's ghostly words described "the goal heard around the world" millions of Canadians danced and hugged in a scene that was reminiscent of the celebrations at the end of World War II. Never has a single sporting moment meant so much to so many Canadians a sense of unparalleled nationalism. Paul Henderson's goal sealed a remarkable comeback victory over a Soviet squad that had pushed Canada to the brink of defeat. Of course, none of this was supposed to happen. Team Canada was composed of the NHL's greatest stars, and were expected to easily defeat their communist counterparts. The success of the Soviets stunned Canadians, who had always unquestioningly believed in their country's hockey supremacy. Team Canada restored the faith of fans by fighting back to win the final 3 games of the series, all on game winning goals by Paul Henderson. Henderson was a talented but unspectacular left winger who was the unlikeliest of heroes. Unlikely heroes have come to define Canadian hockey. "I found myself with the puck in front of the net," remembers Henderson. "Tretiak made one stop and the puck came right back to me. There was room under him, so I poked the puck through." "When I saw it go in, I just went bonkers." Millions of thrilled and extremely relieved Canadians went bonkers as well. Thirty years later, Canadians are still going bonkers about the series. Russians too have equally fond although often different memories about the clash at the top of the hockey world three decades ago. MANY MORE ORIGINAL ARTICLES |
1972 Summit Series:
The Players And Key Figures
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1972 Summit Series:
The Facts and Statistics
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From Myspace Mar 9, 2007..... my 60s and 70s.... Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe
https://youtu.be/CZt5Q-u4crc via
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History Since Confederation
The story of Canada since 1867 is, in many ways, a successful
one.
The story of Canada since 1867 is, in many ways, a successful one: For
two-and-a-half centuries, people of different languages, cultures and
backgrounds, thrown together in the vast, northern reaches of a continent,
built a free society where regional communities could grow and prosper, linked
by the common thread of an emerging national identity. There were false steps
along the way, including the struggles of Aboriginal people for survival, and
the ever-present tensions over federal unity. But for the most part, Canada
became an example to the world of a modern, workable nation state. Its
development can be broken into the following periods: (1867-1913) Immigration and Industrialization
In 1867, the new state—beginning with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec and Ontario—expanded extraordinarily in less than a decade, stretching from sea to sea. Rupert's Land, from northwestern Québec to the Rockies and north to the Arctic, was purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869-70. From it were carved Manitoba and the Northwest Territories in 1870. A year later, British Columbia entered Confederation on the promise of a transcontinental railway. Prince Edward Island was added in 1873. Alberta and Saskatchewan won provincial status in 1905, after mass immigration at the turn of the century began to fill the vast Prairie West (see Territorial Evolution).Sir John A. Macdonald's Dream
Sir John A. Macdonald
Under the leadership of the first federal prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and his chief Québec colleague, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, the Conservative Party — almost permanently in office until 1896 — committed itself to the expansionist National Policy. It showered the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) with cash and land grants, achieving its completion in 1885. The government erected a high, protective customs-tariff wall to shield developing Canadian industrialism from foreign, especially American, competition. The other objective, mass settlement of the west, largely eluded them, but success came to their Liberal successors after 1896. Throughout this period there were detractors who resented the CPR's monopoly or felt — as did many in the West and on the East Coast — that the high tariff principally benefited central Canada. Yet the tariff had support in some parts of the Maritimes.Rise of Radical Nationalism
The earliest post-Confederation years saw the flowering of two significant movements of intense nationalism. In English Canada the very majesty of the great land, the ambitions and idealism of the educated young and an understanding that absorption by the United States threatened a too-timid Canada, all spurred the growth of the Canada First movement in literature and politics — promoting an Anglo-Protestant race and culture in Canada, and fierce independence from the U.S.. The Canada Firsters' nationalist-imperialist vision of grandeur for their country did not admit the distinctiveness of the French, Roman Catholic culture that was a part of the nation's makeup.
The group's counterparts in Québec, the ultramontanes, believed in papal supremacy, in the Roman Catholic Church and in the clerical domination of society. Their movement had its roots in the European counter-revolution of the mid-19th century. It found fertile soil in a French Canada resentful at re-conquest by the British after the abortive Rebellions of 1837, and distrustful of North American secular democracy. The coming of responsible government in Nova Scotia and in the Province of Canada by 1850, and of federalism in the new Confederation, encouraged these clericalist zealots to try to "purify" Québec politics and society on conservative Catholic lines. The bulwark of Catholicism and of Canadien distinctiveness was to be the French language. Confederation was a necessary evil, the least objectionable non-Catholic association for their cultural nation. Separatism was dismissed as unthinkable and impractical, in the face of the threats posed by American secularism and materialism. But a pan-Canadian national vision was no part of their view of the future.
These two extreme, antithetical views of Canada could co-exist so long as the English-speaking and French-speaking populations remained separate, and little social or economic interchange was required. But as the peopling of border and frontier areas in Ontario and the West continued, and as the industrialization of Québec accelerated, conflicts multiplied. The harsh ultramontane attacks on liberal Catholicism and freedom of thought in Québec alarmed Protestant opinion in English Canada, while the lack of toleration of Catholic minority school rights and of the French language outside Québec infuriated the Québecois (see Manitoba Schools Question). Increasing, social and economic domination of Québec by the Anglophone Canadian business class exacerbated the feeling.
Prosperity and Growth
Economic growth was slow at first and varied widely from region to region. Industrial development steadily benefited southern Ontario, the upper St Lawrence River Valley and parts of the Maritimes. But rural Ontario west of Toronto and most of backcountry Québec steadily lost population as modern farming techniques, soil depletion and steep increases in American agricultural tariffs permitted fewer farmers to make their living on the land. Emigration from the Maritimes was prompted by a decline of the traditional forestry and shipbuilding industries. The Maritime economy was also hurt by the withering of bilateral trading links with the New England states, due in part to Ottawa's protectionist National Policy. Nationwide, from the 1870s through the 1890s, 1.5 million Canadians left the country, mostly for the U.S. (see Population).
Grand Trunk Railway
Construction gang in the 1870s reducing an embankment (courtesy PAO).Fortunately, prosperous times came at last, with the rising tide of immigration—just over 50,000 immigrants arrived in 1901, jumping to eight times that figure 12 years later. A country of 4.8 million in 1891 swelled to 7.2 million in 1911. The prairie "wheat boom" was a major component of the national success. Wheat production shot up from 8 million bushels in 1896 to 231 million bushels in 1911. Prairie population rose as dramatically, necessitating the creation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 and the completion of two new cross-Canada railways — the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern. Western cities, especially Winnipeg and Vancouver, experienced breakaway expansion as trading and shipping centres. Nearly 30 per cent of the new immigration went to Ontario, with Toronto taking the lion's share for its factories, stockyards, stores and construction gangs. Both Toronto and Montréal more than doubled their population in the 20 years before 1914.
Social Change, Government Expansion
As Canada increasingly became an urban and industrial society, the self-help and family-related social-assistance practices of earlier times were outmoded. The vigorous Social Gospel movement among Protestants and the multiplication of social-assistance activities by Roman Catholic orders and agencies constituted impressive responses, however inadequate. Governments, especially at the provincial level, expanded their roles in education, labour and welfare. An increasingly significant presence in social reform work was that of women, who also began to exert pressure for the vote.
Through immigration, Canada was becoming a multicultural society, at least in the West and in the major, growing industrial cities. Roughly one-third of the immigrants came from non-English-speaking Europe. Ukrainians, Russian Jews, Poles, Germans, Italians, Dutch and Scandinavians were the principal groups. In BC there were small but increasing populations of Chinese, Japanese and East Indians. There were growing signs of unease among both English and French Canadians about the presence of so many "strangers," but the old social makeup of Canada had been altered forever.
Rebellion in the West
Meanwhile, there was a reduction in the extent of territories controlled by First Nations, and in their degree of self-determination. In the Arctic, the Inuit remained largely undisturbed, but most western First Nations and Métis people lost their way of life as white settlement, farming and railroads encroached on much of their hunting lands. In 1869-70 in the Red River region, and in 1885 at Batoche in Saskatchewan, there were unsuccessful armed Métis rebellions led by Louis Riel (see Red River Rebellion; North-West Rebellion). During the second uprising some Aboriginal groups were directly involved. Otherwise the settlement of the West was generally peaceful — land was obtained in exchange for treaty and reservation rights for First Nations, and through land grants to the Métis. Order was kept by the new, North-West Mounted Police.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier
In 1896 the prime ministership of Canada passed to the Québecois Liberal Roman Catholic Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He presided over the greatest prosperity Canadians had yet seen, but his 15 years of power were bedeviled and then ended by difficult problems in Canada's relationships with Britain and the U.S.. During Laurier's tenure, Britain's interest in a united and powerful empire intensified. Many English Canadians were swept up in Imperial emotion and Canadian nationalist ambition, and called for an enlarged imperial role for Canada. They forced the Laurier government to send troops to aid Britain in the South African War, 1899-1902, and to begin a Canadian navy in 1910. In the same spirit came a massive Canadian contribution of men and money to the British cause in the cataclysm of the First World War.
By then the Laurier administration had been defeated, in part because too many English Canadian imperialists thought it was "not British enough," and because the growing nationaliste movement in Québec, led by Henri Bourassa, was sure that it was "too British," and would involve young Québec boys in foreign wars of no particular concern to Canada. But the chief cause of Laurier's defeat in the general election of 1911 was his proposed reciprocity or free trade agreement with the U.S., which would have led to the reciprocal removal or lowering of duties on the so-called "natural" products of farms, forests and fisheries.
The captains of Canadian finance, manufacturing and transport excited the strong Canadian suspicions of American economic intentions and, with their support, the Conservative Opposition under Robert Borden convinced the electorate that Canada's separate national economy and imperial trading possibilities were about to be thrown away for economic, and possibly political, absorption by the U.S..
(1914-1918) War, Victory and Autonomy
Although economic fears helped propel Borden into power, his government was soon preoccupied not with trade or the economy, but overseas war. Europe's great powers had embarked on a conflict like the world had never seen, and as Britain was drawn into the First World War, so automatically was Canada. There was extraordinary voluntary participation on land, at sea and in the air by Canadians (see Wartime Home Front). But in 1917 the country was split severely over the question of conscription, or compulsory military service. The question arose as a result of a severe shortage of Allied manpower on the Western Front in Europe. The subsequent election of a pro-conscription Union government of English Canadian Liberals and Conservatives under Borden, over Laurier's Liberal anti-conscriptionist rump — its support drawn largely from French Canadians, non-British immigrants and radical labour elements — dramatized the national split.Canada Emerges on World Stage
Yet the war also had a positive impact on Canada. Industrial productivity and efficiency had been stimulated. Canada won a new international status, as a separate signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, and as a charter member of the new League of Nations. And the place of women in Canadian life had been upgraded dramatically. They had received the vote federally, primarily for partisan political reasons. But their stellar war service, often in difficult and dirty jobs hitherto thought unfeminine, had won them a measure of respect; they had also gained a taste for fuller participation in the work world. Canadian men and women, on a much broadened social scale, had been drawn into the mainstream of a western consumer civilization.
The war itself ushered in slaughter on an industrial scale, and Canada paid a high price. Among the roughly 630,000 who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 425,000 were sent overseas — witnessing the horrors of battlefields at Ypres, Vimy, Passchendaele and elsewhere. By the end, more than 234,000 Canadians had been killed or wounded in the war.
By 1919, the attempted shift to a peacetime economy was soon clouded by high inflation and unemployment, as well as disastrously low world grain prices. Labour unrest increased radically, farmer protests toppled governments in the West and Ontario, and the economy of the Maritimes collapsed. Resentment over conscription remained intense in Québec. The early national period of Canadian innocence was over.
(1919-1938) Labour Unrest and the Great Depression
Canada's population between the world wars rose from 8 to 11 million; the urban population increased at a more rapid rate from 4 to 6 million. The First World War created expectations for a brave new Canada, but peace brought disillusionment and social unrest. Enlistment in the armed forces and the expansion of the munitions industry had created a manpower shortage during the war, which in turn had facilitated collective bargaining by industrial workers. There had been no dearth of grievances about wages or working conditions, but the demands of patriotism had usually restrained the militant. Trade-union membership grew from a low of 143,000 in 1915 to a high of 379,000 in 1919, and with the end of the war the demands for social justice were no longer held in check. Even unorganized workers expected peace to bring them substantial economic benefits.Labour Troubles
Employers had a different perspective. Munitions contracts were abruptly cancelled and factories had to retool for domestic production. The returning veterans added to the disruption by flooding the labour market. Some entrepreneurs and political leaders were also disturbed by the implications of the 1917 Russian Revolution and were quick to interpret labour demands, especially when couched in militant terms, as a threat to the established order. The result was the bitterest industrial strife in Canadian history. In 1919, with a labour force of some 3 million, almost 4 million working days were lost because of strikes and lockouts. The best-known of that year, the Winnipeg General Strike, has a symbolic significance: it began as a strike by construction unions for union recognition and higher wages, but quickly broadened to a sympathy strike by organized and unorganized workers in the city. Businessmen and politicians at all levels of government feared a revolution. Ten strike leaders were arrested and a demonstration was broken up by mounted policemen. After five weeks the strikers accepted a token settlement, and the strike was effectively broken.
Industrial strife continued, with average annual losses of a million working days until the mid-1920s. By then the postwar recession had been reversed and wages and employment levels were at record highs for the rest of the decade. Some labour militants turned from the economic to the political sphere, becoming successful early in the decade in provincial elections in Nova Scotia, Ontario and the four western provinces, and J.S. Woodsworth, the pioneering preacher-turned socialist politician, was elected in north Winnipeg in the 1921 federal election.
Mackenzie King and the New Politics
The war also left a heritage of grievances in rural society. Rural depopulation had accelerated during the war, but the farmers' frustration was directed against the Union government of Sir Robert Borden, which had first promised exemptions and then conscripted farm workers. A sudden drop in prices for farm produce increased their bitterness. In postwar provincial elections, farmers' parties formed governments in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta, and in the federal election of 1921, won by William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberals, the new Progressive Party captured an astonishing 65 seats on a platform of lower tariffs, lower freight rates and government marketing of farm products.
These social protests declined by the end of the decade. Industrial expansion, financed largely by American investment, provided work in the automotive industry, in pulp and paper and in mining. Farm incomes rose after the postwar recession, reaching a high of over $1 billion in 1927. The political system also offered some accommodation. Most provincial governments introduced minimum wages shortly after the war, and the federal government reduced tariffs and freight rates and introduced old-age pensions. By the end of the decade the impetus for social change had dissipated. Even wartime prohibition experiments had given way to the lucrative selling of liquor by provincial boards.
Great Depression
Depression Soup Kitchen
Unemployment victims during the Depression resorted to the soup kitchens like this one in Montreal in 1931, operated by voluntary and church organizations. After a meal, most people returned to the alleyways, parks, or flop-houses for the night (National Archives of Canada/PA-168131).But the good times of the late 1920s didn't last. In fact, they masked brewing trouble in financial markets, and the coming trauma of the Great Depression. For wheat farmers it began in 1930 when the price of wheat dropped below $1 a bushel. Three years later it was down to about 40 cents and the price of other farm products had dropped as precipitously. Prairie farmers were the hardest hit because they relied on cash crops, and because the depressed prices happened to coincide with a cyclical period of drought, which brought crop failures and a lack of feed for livestock. Cash income for prairie farmers dropped from a high of $620 million in 1928 to a low of $177 million in 1931 and did not reach $300 million until 1939.
Disaster also struck many industrial workers who lost their jobs. Unemployment statistics are not reliable partly because there was no unemployment insurance and so no bookkeeping records, but it is estimated that unemployment rose from three per cent of the labour force in 1929 to 20 per cent in 1933. It was still 11 per cent by the end of the decade. Even these figures are misleading: the labour force included only those who were employed or looking for work, excluding most women. Those identified as unemployed were often the only breadwinners in the family.
Role of Government Evolves
Voters turned to governments for an economic security that the system could not provide. Most governments were slow or unable to respond and were replaced by others at the first opportunity. King's Liberals, elected in 1926 after a brief period of Conservative rule, were again rejected in 1930, this time in favour of a Conservative government under R.B. Bennett. New political parties arose across the ideological spectrum, contesting the 1935 federal election — the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Social Credit and the short-lived Reconstruction Party — with promises to regulate credit and business.
Even Bennett's Conservatives promised improvements (see Bennett's New Deal), and Mackenzie King and the Liberals, who won the election, spoke vaguely of reform. At the provincial level, the Union Nationale was elected in Québec under Maurice Duplessis and Social Credit in Alberta under William Aberhart. Older parties in other provinces often turned to new and more dynamic leaders who promised active intervention on behalf of the less privileged.
Governments tried to provide emergency relief, but they too soon needed help. Prairie farmers needed relief in the form of food, fuel and clothing, but they also needed money for seed grain, livestock forage and machinery repairs. Neither municipal nor provincial governments could meet these demands for assistance; in the drought year of 1937 almost two-thirds of Saskatchewan's population required some relief. Other provinces had declining revenues but were not as close to bankruptcy, with the possible exception of Alberta. Inevitably, as the Depression continued, the federal government had to contribute to relief costs.
The role of governments changed, but not dramatically. Most governments would have preferred to provide jobs by undertaking major public-works projects, but with declining revenues and limited credit the cost of materials and equipment was prohibitive. Direct relief was cheaper in the short run. Governments did become more involved in the regulation of business: mortgages and interest payments were scaled down by legislation, and new regulatory institutions such as the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board were established. The major expansion of the bureaucracy, however, would come only after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
Trade-union activity revived with the beginning of industrial recovery: by 1937 trade-union membership was back to the 1919 level. Canadian auto workers and miners followed the American lead and formed industrial unions. Their effectiveness was limited by the opposition of Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn and Duplessis in Québec, and the significant gains, once again, would come only during the war.
A New Culture: Cars and Radio
During the 1920s and 1930s, two machines may have done more than the highs and lows of the business cycle to alter the Canadian way of life: the automobile and the radio. The 1920s were the decade of the car — in 1919 there was one car in Canada for every 40 people; 10 years later it was one car for every 10. The car created Canadian suburbs and altered the social patterns of the young.
In the 1930s it was the radio: there were half-a-million receiving sets in 1930 and over a million by 1939, bringing news and entertainment into most Canadian homes. The changes brought about by mass production and popular entertainment posed problems for Canadian identity. The tariff (see Protectionism) provided Canadian jobs by ensuring that cars and radios would be assembled in Canada. There was little concern at the time for one economic side effect: the expansion of U.S. manufacturing branch-plants. But there was concern for the broadcasting of American programs by Canadian radio stations. The result was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with French and English networks broadcasting a combination of Canadian and popular American programs. By 1939 Canadians looked to governments to provide cautious assistance in maintaining Canadian identity.
(1939-1945) Second World War
Before the outbreak of another world war, Canada played host to the first overseas visit by a reigning British (and Canadian) monarch. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later called the Queen Mother) spent one month crossing the country by train. In an age before television, it was a dazzling event, one of the greatest public spectacles in Canadian history. The royal couple was greeted by enormous crowds wherever they went in both French and English Canada, and the tour witnessed the first-ever royal walkabout — when the couple plunged into a crowd to shake hands at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. The underlying purpose of the visit was to rally support in North America for the coming Allied war against Nazi Germany, and it wasn't long before Canada was once again transforming itself into a warrior nation.War Memorial Archway
In Confederation Square, Ottawa, across the street from the Chateau Laurier. The dates for the Korean War and the Second World War were added. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier is in the right foreground (photo by James Marsh).Sacrifice and Social Change
As the previous war had, the Second World War reinvigorated Canada's industrial base and elevated the role of women in the economy; women earned good incomes at jobs created by the huge demand for military materiel, and also vacated by men going to war. More than a million Canadians served full-time in the armed forces between 1939-1945, allowing Canada to play a critical role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allied bombing campaigns over Europe, the invasions of Italy and Normandy, and the subsequent liberation campaign in western Europe. More than 45,000 Canadians died fighting in Hong Kong, Dieppe, on the Atlantic and across Europe.
Canada's political landscape had been fundamentally changed by the First World War. During the Second, many predicted another transformation. In 1943 the socialist Commonwealth-Co-operative Federation (CCF) party, a product of 1930s political discontent, stood highest in new public opinion polls. It became the official Opposition in Ontario in 1943 and in 1944 won decisively in Saskatchewan. In Québec, Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale recaptured power. Federally, Québec's Bloc populaire retaliated against conscription in 1944. Once again it seemed that the traditional Canadian party system would become a casualty of a European war.
Liberal Era Dawns in Ottawa
In the federal election of 11 June 1945 — held while thousands of veterans were just beginning to come home — Canadians returned the Liberal Party to office. Mackenzie King's majority was very small, but his survival is nevertheless remarkable: among Allied wartime leaders, only King and Stalin led their countries through both the war and the peacemaking.
In 1945, the Liberals added a new commitment to social welfare and Keynesian management of the economy (see Keynesian Economics). Liberal welfare policies — including family allowance begun in 1944, and unemployment insurance (see Employment Insurance), begun in 1940 — attracted many workers and farmers, and rebuffed the challenges from the CCF on the left and the Conservatives on the right. Although the national Liberals continued to enjoy support in all regions and from all economic groups, the CCF and Social Credit held power, respectively, in Saskatchewan and Alberta throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, and Social Credit governed BC from 1952 to 1972.
(1945-1971) Cold War and the Québec Agenda
Some historians have attributed Liberal political success to the postwar period's unparalleled prosperity, and to consensus on foreign policy arising from Cold War fears — few objected when Canada joined the United Nations (UN) in 1945 or, four years later, signed the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), and then followed this by sending troops to NATO bases in Europe in 1951. Canadians understood that the nation needed political stability, and a highly competent cabinet and bureaucracy, after depression and war.Louis St. Laurent and Korea
The Korean War once again embroiled Canadian troops in overseas combat, this time as part of a UN-led coalition of 16 countries fighting the Communist forces of China and North Korea. Nearly 27,000 Canadian military personnel served in Korea between 1950-1953. Five hundred sixteen Canadians lost their lives, and about 1,200 more were wounded.
In 1954, Canada's prosperity, and the national consensus on Cold War issues and other foreign policy matters began to disappear. There was a sharp economic slump in 1954, followed by worries that Canada's postwar boom was too dependent upon (mainly American) foreign investment. The cabinet's competency obviously weakened in 1954 when three prominent ministers, Douglas Abbott, Lionel Chevrier and Brooke Claxton, resigned from the government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. In 1956 the Pipeline Debate revealed apparent Liberal arrogance and political clumsiness. Western allies also became divided during the Suez Crisis when France, Britain and Israel attacked Egypt, and the U.S. and Canada did not support them. The Crisis put Canadian diplomat Lester Pearson on the world stage, as a pioneer of UN peacekeeping, as a means of defusing the conflict.
John Diefenbaker
On 10 June 1957 the Conservative Party ended the Liberals' long reign in Ottawa. Most significant in explaining the victory was the Conservatives' choice of John Diefenbaker as leader. He brought a flamboyance and a populist appeal that his predecessor, George Drew, completely lacked. He was also a western Canadian who understood and shared the area's grievances against Ottawa. Diefenbaker's brief first term saw taxes cut and pensions raised. The new government also took Canada into the North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) agreement with the U.S., and two years later scrapped the Avro Arrow interceptor and purchased Bomarc missiles, effective only with nuclear warheads.
Avro Arrow
The Arrow was the most advanced military aircraft of its time but it was cancelled, and Canada purchased American equipment instead (courtesy The Arrow Heads/Boston Mills Press).Seeking escape from the confines of a minority government, Diefenbaker called an election for 31 March 1958. Although the Liberals now had Lester Pearson as leader, Diefenbaker won 208 of 265 seats on the strength of his charisma, his "vision" of a new Canada and his policy of northern development. His support was well distributed, except in Newfoundland (which had become the 10th province in 1949).
No one had predicted the extent of the Conservative triumph, but that did not prevent many commentators at the time from forecasting a Conservative dynasty and a return to the two-party system. Today, historians and political scientists tend to consider the 1958 election as an aberration that neither reflected nor affected the fundamental character of Canadian politics. Yet closer scrutiny reveals a lasting imprint. Since 1958 Conservatives have commanded western Canadian federal politics, and Liberals have found western seats increasingly difficult to obtain. On the other hand, Conservatives, who won 50 seats in Québec in 1958, did not recover from Diefenbaker's failure to build upon his victory there for more than 25 years.
Provincial Political Change
The CCF and the Liberals began rebuilding almost immediately—the Liberals by appealing to urban Canadians and Francophones, and the CCF by strengthening its links with organized labour. Provincial bases were important in this reconstruction. Social Credit governments in Alberta and, to a much lesser extent, BC assisted the Liberals. Within five days in June 1960, the Liberals were elected in Québec and New Brunswick. In Québec, Jean Lesage modernized Québec liberal traditions and introduced the Quiet Revolution.
In Saskatchewan, the CCF made sacrifices for its federal counterpart. Long-time Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas went to Ottawa to lead the CCF's heir, the New Democratic Party, whose formation was an attempt to create a closer link with the labour movement. Without Douglas, the NDP in Saskatchewan bravely introduced medicare in 1962 and, under the lash of a scare campaign, lost the next election to the Liberals. Medicare, however, proved successful and soon became a popular national program.
By 1962 Diefenbaker's 1958 "vision" of Canada had become a nightmare to some and a joke to others. There had been postwar peaks in unemployment, record budget deficits and, in May 1962, a devaluation of the dollar. But neither Pearson nor Douglas made much impact as national leaders before the election of 18 June 1962; the Conservatives stayed in power as a minority government. By early 1963 the cabinet began to bicker, members resigned ostensibly on the issue of Canadian defence policy, and finally the government collapsed. In a bitter 1963 election campaign Diefenbaker charged that the U.S., which had openly criticized his refusal to accept nuclear weapons on Canadian soil, was colluding with the Liberals to defeat him. The Liberals brushed off the attack and excoriated Diefenbaker for alleged incompetence. On 8 April 1963, the Liberals won a minority government.
Lester Pearson
The Pearson government sought to be innovative, and in many ways it was — the armed forces were unified, social welfare was extended, and a distinctive new national flag was unveiled in 1964. The party also became ever more identified with the "politics of national unity," dedicated to containing Québec's sovereigntist aspirations. In reality all parties shared the need to deal with Québec's demands for changes in Canada's federal system.
These years were marked by personality quarrels and numerous Cold War-related political scandals, especially the Munsinger Affair. They were also notable for the establishment of the Canada Pension Planand the signing of the Canada-U.S. Automotive Products Agreement, a treaty intended to give Canada a larger share of the continental auto market. Desperate to escape from the minority straitjacket, Pearson called an election for 8 November 1965. He won only two more seats, remaining two short of a majority.
Centennial and Expo
In 1967, Canada marked its Centennial birthday, and the world came to celebrate in Montréal at Expo 67 — a world's fair notable for the striking architecture of many of its pavilions, including the U.S. contribution: a giant geodesic dome. Montréal, then Canada's largest city, had come into its own as a confident, stylish and multilingual metropolis.
That same year the Conservatives replaced Diefenbaker with Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield. Pearson resigned at the end of 1967, to be succeeded by Pierre Trudeau, who largely restored party unity. The choice of Trudeau emphasized the Liberals' commitment to finding a solution to the "Québec problem." Trudeau's vigorous opposition to Québec nationalism (see French Canadian Nationalism) and "special status" won support in English Canada, while his promise to make the French fact important in Ottawa — through official bilingualism, for example — appealed to his fellow Francophones. Conservatives and the NDP found difficulty in developing a similarly appealing platform, not least because both lacked support in Québec. In 1968, Québec's place in Confederation and Trudeau's personality dominated federal political debate. This dominance endured almost uninterrupted into the 1980s.
Pierre Trudeau
In 1968 Trudeau took the country by storm — winning a majority by appealing across class lines and even across regional barriers with his personal charisma and his 60s-era insouciance. Canadians hadn't seen a politician like him. The Liberals won more seats west of Ontario than since 1953. Over the next few years, Trudeau's harsh response to terrorism in Québec during the 1970 October Crisis, the growth of leftist sentiment in the NDP, and Conservative leadership bickering strengthened Trudeau's position. However, when he called an election for 30 Oct 1972, the Liberals' position was considerably weaker. Their emphasis on biculturalism angered many English Canadians who feared fundamental changes in their lives and their nation; many were also unhappy with the cuts in defence and particularly in the forces dedicated to NATO. The Liberals were returned to power but with only a minority government, supported by the NDP under leader David Lewis.
(1972-1980) The Inflation Curse and Regional Divides
Winning Goal, 1972
Paul Henderson scored the dramatic goal in Moscow to give the Canadians the series victory (photo by Frank Lennon/Toronto Star).A month before the 1972 election, Canadians were glued to their television sets, watching an unfolding international drama that was a mixture of politics and hockey. Amid Cold War tensions, the best hockey players from Canada and the Soviet Union squared off in the 1972 Summit Series. Paul Henderson scored the most famous goal in hockey history, winning the series for Canada on September 28 in Moscow. But it was a narrow victory, and the Soviets had shaken Canadians' confidence in themselves as the finest hockey players on the planet.
Parti Québecois
Two years later, Canadians were back at the voting booth in the 1974 federal election. Trudeau's reformist legislation and his opposition to the Conservative policy of anti-inflation wage and price controls brought many working-class voters to his side, especially in BC and Ontario. The Liberals won another majority, dependent for their support upon Québec and urban Ontario. After 1974 Trudeau gave indecisive leadership. Personal problems, weakness in his cabinet and intractable economic difficulties — including oil-price shocks and other inflationary pressures — plagued his government between 1974 and 1979. He surged in popularity in 1976-77 when René Lévesque's Parti Québécois gained power in Québec, prompting fears in English-speaking Canada about national unity, which many considered Trudeau well-equipped to handle.
In 1976, Montréal once again became the focus of world attention as host of the 21st Summer Olympic games. Innovative, though ultimately costly, new facilities were built including a distinctive concrete stadium (nicknamed "the Big O). For the first time in Olympic history, the host nation did not win a gold medal.
Joe Clark
Three years later, in May 1979 Opposition leader Joe Clark defeated Trudeau — losing Quebec but sweeping English Canada — for a minority Conservative government. In December the Clark government presented a tough budget and lost a subsequent non-confidence motion, and an election was called for February 1980. Cleverly manipulating the Conservatives' internal differences, the Liberals under Trudeau (who had resigned and then returned) regained their majority in an election in which Ontario swung strongly behind the Liberals, whose policies on energy resource pricing they favoured and the West abhorred. The Liberals won no seat west of Manitoba and only two there. Deep regional divisions in Canadian politics resulted from economic strategies marking a fragmented party system, which mirrored a fragmented nation.
Terry Fox
In the summer of 1980 a young man with only one leg ignited the interest of Canadians the way no politician could. Terry Fox's cross-country Marathon of Hope began in Newfoundland and ended on the Trans-Canada Highway at Thunder Bay, Ont.—only halfway to Fox's Pacific goal. Fox died the following summer, but by then he was a national icon, and the annual Terry Fox Runs he inspired would go on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research, in countries around the world.
(1981-1992) The Constitution Decade
After 1980, Trudeau's government followed a nationalist course for a time. The National Energy Program offered great incentives to encourage domestic ownership in the petroleum industry, but it was seen in the West, especially Alberta, as meddling with provincial resource rights. Trudeau was also instrumental in keeping the country unified, by campaigning along with other "No" forces in the 1980 Québec referendum on sovereignty association.Trudeau then set out to "patriate" the Canadian Constitution from Britain, and to create the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and entrench it in the new Constitution. After a long series of negotiations with provincial leaders, the patriated Constitution was signed in Ottawa in 1982 by Queen Elizabeth — but it left a festering political problem because Québec's René Lévesque, alone among the premiers, had refused to endorse the document.
Brian Mulroney
Trudeau became ever more unpopular as inflation, interest rates and unemployment rose, and in 1984 the Liberals paid the price. The Conservatives had replaced Clark with a bilingual Quebec business executive, Brian Mulroney, in 1983. The Liberals chose John Turner as Trudeau's successor a year later. Turner quickly called an election. The result was an overwhelming Conservative victory.
In Ottawa meanwhile, Mulroney had tried and failed to win the Quebec government's endorsement of the Constitution via the Meech Lake constitutional accord, which became the central political drama of his first term in office. His government also negotiated a contentious free trade agreement with the U.S., which became a major election issue in 1988. Mulroney won another, though smaller, majority government and in 1989 Canada and the U.S. began a new trading regime that was later expanded to include Mexico. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) contributed to a greater integration of the North American economy and, its critics would argue, a harmonization a weakening of Canadian cultural protections.
Outside the political arena, two very different dramas captured Canadians' attention during this time. On 23 June 1985, an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Toronto and Montreal to London, was blown up over the Atlantic, killing all 331 people on board, including 268 Canadians, mostly of Indian ancestry. The worst terrorist attack in Canadian history revealed deep flaws in Canada's domestic police and security services. It also led to a 20-year investigation and prosecution that yielded the conviction of only one conspirator, Sikh-Canadian Inderjit Singh Reyat.
In 1988 Calgary welcomed the world to the Winter Olympics. The city put on a party the likes of which the winter games had never seen. But once again, as in Montreal, the host nation failed to win a gold medal.
Two Failed Accords
In 1990, the Meech Lake Accord officially died, after several years of failed efforts to win approval among all the provincial governments. Québec reacted angrily, as did a handful of Mulroney's Quebec MPs, who quit the Conservative caucus to form the separatist Bloc Quebecois in Parliament, under the leadership of former cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard. Wounded, but still pressing for a constitutional solution, the Mulroney government and the provinces worked out a new deal called the Charlottetown Accord (see Charlottetown Accord: Document). Despite support from all of the major parties and provincial governments, the Accord was also rejected — this time in a national referendum in October 1992. The rejection was probably as much the result of the angry public mood created by the worst postwar recession as the contents of the Accord itself. Canadians were also weary after more than a decade of constitutional wrangling, which had dominated the national agenda.
(1993-2005) Liberal Hegemony — and Collapse
In October 1993, the Liberals under Jean Chrétien were elected with a majority government. The Conservatives were reduced to only two seats, and the Official Opposition became the Bloc Québécois. Another Québec Referendum, in 1995, resulted in an exceedingly narrow victory for the "no" side.Despite these national unity troubles, a buoyant economy and a fragmented opposition led to the re-election of the Liberals with a second majority in 1997. The Progressive Conservatives remained in the doldrums. However, the Reform Party — a western-based, right-wing, populist movement led by its founder Preston Manning — had its big breakthrough in 1997, becoming the Official Opposition. Yet in spite of its success, Reform had divided the conservative vote across Canada. Dislodging the Liberal hold on power appeared unlikely without some entente with the PCs. As Chretien governed, his opponents squabbled among themselves, with conservative voices increasingly calling for a serious effort to "unite-the-right."
Balancing the Budget
The federal government's budget deficits had reached alarming levels by the 1990s, and Chrétien and his finance minister Paul Martin embarked on an aggressive program to cut spending and balance the budget, which they did in 1998. The Liberals were aided in this effort by revenues from the Goods and Services Tax (GST), introduced by Mulroney, and by downloading some federal costs to provincial governments. Nevertheless, they produced Canada's first balanced budget in 30 years.
The following year the largely self-governing Inuit homeland of Nunavut was officially created across two million square kilometres of the eastern Arctic, becoming Canada's third territory.
War in Afghanistan
Canadians welcomed the new millennium in 2000, and re-elected the Chrétien Liberals with a third majority government. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, soon transformed government agendas across the western world, especially Canada, which now faced rampant American security concerns over their long, undefended northern border. Canadians played a unique role on "9/11," particularly on the East Coast, offering refuge and hospitality to airline passengers from the hundreds of trans-Atlantic aircraft diverted to Canadian airports.
In 2002, Chrétien dispatched a small number of troops to join the U.S. counter-terrorism effort in Afghanistan — a military commitment that ramped up considerably in 2006, when Canada sent a battle group to fight Taliban insurgents around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Over the next eight years, 158 Canadian soldiers would die in Afghanistan, and hundreds more would be wounded.
Paul Martin Takes Helm
In 2003, after a period of Liberal infighting, Chrétien was replaced as party leader and prime minister by Paul Martin. Martin took over a party that had grown complacent in power, and was beset by a growing scandal over the abuse of government funds, by Liberal-friendly firms in Quebec. Martin tried to deal with the "Sponsorship Scandal," as it was called, by appointing a public inquiry, which found evidence of illegal kickbacks of cash to the Liberals by Quebec businessmen who had received government contracts.
Although Martin was personally exonerated by the inquiry, the Liberal brand took a beating. Under Martin they were reduced to a minority government in the 2004 election, and two years later they were defeated by the newly-united political right, under a new Conservative banner.
(2006-2014) Rise of the West
Stephen Harper ended 13 years of Liberal rule, winning a minority government in 2006. His Conservatives were handed a second minority in 2008, but captured their long-sought majority in Parliament in 2011 — an election that saw the NDP elevated to Official Opposition status for the first time in the party's history.The Commodity Juggernaut
An Albertan, Harper's political rise coincided with an economic power-shift under way in Canada. Since Confederation the country's manufacturing heartland of southern Ontario and Quebec had provided the bulk of the country's wealth, and determined much of its politics. But in the 21st Century, the growing importance of Pacific Coast trade with Asia, and the vast oil (see Oil Sands) and mineral resources of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan made the West the economic engine of the country. On the East Coast, a smaller renaissance was taking place in Newfoundland and Labrador, where oil and other natural resources were turning once-poor provinces such as it (and Saskatchewan) into providers of jobs and exporters of wealth.
Mining the Oil Sands
Very heavy equipment is required to haul the tarlike bitumen from the earth so that it can be processed and refined to make oil (courtesy AOSTRA).As if to reinforce Canada's new westward orientation, Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics in 2010, and Canadian athletes captured the largest number of medals, to that date, in the country's Olympic history.
Economic Uncertainty
Despite its booming resource sector, Canada's economy was hit by the 2008 global financial credit crisis and subsequent recession, although the country's banks weathered the storm better than many other western nations. But the job losses, and the further erosion of the manufacturing base, took their toll on government finances, and Canada was once again running budget deficits. Even so, Harper was judged by many Canadians the leader best able to manage the economy.
One of Harper's main political goals since coming to office was to re-make the country along social and economic conservative lines, and to strike a blow against the Liberal Party, which had governed Canada for most of its history. In 2011 he'd succeeded in putting the Liberals into third place in Parliament. But the Conservatives had failed to make lasting inroads in the important political battleground of Quebec. And by 2013, the Liberals had a young, new leader from that province — Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister — threatening Harper's vision and the Conservative hold on power.
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Vietnam Vet- Jimi Hendrix - Foxy Lady
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Janis Joplin's Psychedelic Porsche Up For Sale
The
singer's astrological sign, a verdant valley, and portraits of her band members
feature on the "art car made with love".
Rock
legend Janis Joplin's 1964 Porsche 356 Cabriolet that she bought from a used
car dealership in Beverly Hills in 1968 is to go under the hammer at an auction
next week.
After
buying the second-hand vehicle in dove grey, Joplin asked her roadie, Dave
Richards, to spruce up it up.
He
returned it with a psychedelic period-inspired work that he called 'History of
the Universe'.
Not
a square inch of the Porsche's bodywork was left untouched with such images as
Joplin's Capricorn astrological sign on one side, a verdant Northern California
valley below a mountain on another, and portraits of Joplin's band members in
another section.
Ian
Kelleher, RM Sotheby's West Coast managing director, said: "This isn't
just an art car. It's an art car that's made with love, made with heart, you
know. She asked a friend to do it. He did it and this is what it was and she
drove it, you know.
"It
was kind of a humbling exchange in a lot of ways. It isn't about who painted it
necessarily, it's just that somebody else reflected her personality in it and
she was obviously quite proud of it."
Since
her death, the car has been owned by Joplin's younger brother and sister and
for the last 20 years has been on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
and Museum in Cleveland.
The
vehicle will be auctioned at a sale organised by RM Sotheby's, the classic car
partnership of the global auction house, in New York on 10 December.
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1967 Centennial
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Fashion in the 1960s
The late 1960s were the exact opposite. Bright, swirling colors.
Psychedelic, tie-dye shirts and long hair and beards were commonplace.
Woman wore unbelievably short skirts and men wore tunics and capes. The
foray into fantasy would not have been believed by people just a decade
earlier.
It’s almost like the 1950s bottled everyone up so much that the late 1960s exploded like an old pressure cooker. Women were showing more skin than ever before.
For the first time in the 19th Century, London, not Paris, was the center of the fashion world. The British Invasion didn’t stop with The Beatles. It swept into all parts of life, especially clothing.
But actually, lost in the two extremes is the mid-60s, which I think actually had the coolest style, albeit more subtle. I love the long, slender shapes, the bright colors and the young, London look. I have always wished the Mod style stuck around a little longer.
In 1967, fashion fell in love with the leg. Short skirts worn higher above the knee gave legs exposure they hadn’t seen in years. Women took advantage of the extra leg room by pulling on some colored and patterned hose.
Women also wore peekaboo fishnets, spidery weaves and lace. Not only did they provide smoothness from hip-to-toe, but they also eliminated the possibility of garter show.
1967 Fashion: Twiggy was a fashion sensation
Youth continued to set the pace for fashion. The belt did not define the waist anymore, instead it created a new “fit and flare” attitude.
In addition to leg, the fashion world fell in love with Twiggy, the skinny 17-year-old British model who burst upon the scene, adorned every magazine cover and brought the age of the mini-mod to the forefront.
Her success was controversial at the time. To some, she was an insult to the female figure, while other lavished her fresh, new look. Her slightly androgynous look blurred the lines between genders.
Another interesting development in 1968: hardware. Accessories consisting of metal squares, nailheads, rattling chains, zippers, brass buttons, clamps were something new. The chain belt was another important accessory.
In men’s fashion, the mood departed somewhat from the mod of Carnaby Street, but the British look was still evident. Turtleneck sweaters were an important trend, eliminating the need for a tie. The more daring sported a turtleneck under dinner jackets for a casual elegance.
To read more detail about a certain year, click on the plus sign next to the year below.
Fashion in 1960
Fashion in 1961
Fashion in 1962
Fashion in 1963
Fashion in 1964
Fashion in 1965
Fashion in 1966
Fashion in 1967
Fashion in 1968
Fashion in 1969
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This was us in the 60s and 70s..... and we were beautiful
That 60's Look – Found Photos of Mod Girls in the 1960s
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CANADA'S MUSIC OF 60s..
Popular Music
In 1996, 3 of the top recording artists in pop, rock and country music were women. More significantly, Céline DION, Alanis MORISSETTE and Shania TWAIN were Canadian women. Not only were they stars in their own country, but individually they had sold millions of records and garnered industry awards and popular recognition internationally. Their achievements, while unique, became symbolic victories for which the Canadian music industry had been striving in the 25 controversial years since the introduction of legislation to create minimum levels of Canadian content in media and stimulate the development of domestically produced popular music.However, while Dion, Morissette and Twain represented the kind of global success by which the Canadian media chronically have measured its self-esteem, the mid-1990s also marked a time when many other performing and recording acts enjoyed unprecedented popularity in their own country without necessarily having the same impact outside its borders. Still more acts established themselves regionally through independently produced and marketed records that helped to change the shape of popular recording practices while reinforcing regional cultural differences and a national musical identity.
These 3 tiers of development confirmed the existence of a domestic star system and the arrival of a self-sustaining enterprise that appeared at last to have transcended decades of growing pains in the aftermath of the arrival first of rock and roll and, in 1971, of CanCon (Canadian content regulations).
Beginnings
Canadians had been making significant contributions to the development of recorded popular music since the mid-1870s. Thomas Alva Edison, son of a Canadian expatriate, used a piece of tin foil wrapped over a steel drum to play back the words "Mary had a little lamb" in 1877, while Alexander Graham BELL, inventor of the telephone, funded research (by his cousin Chichester Bell) that led to the development of the wax cylinder playing graphophone (1880) and established the American Graphophone Company (1887). Edison representatives recorded Lord DUFFERIN, governor general, at Rideau Hall in May of 1878 on a tin foil machine. That recording is lost. A recording of Lord STANLEY was made in September 1888, and though the original is now lost too, the recording survived through a copy made in 1935.Émile Berliner, German immigrant and student of electricity and acoustics, designed a mouthpiece transmitter for the telephone in Washington in 1877 that anticipated the basic concept for the microphone. In 1887 he patented the gramophone and in 1893 set up the United States Gramophone Company, which became the Berliner Gramophone Co of Philadelphia in 1896. In 1898, with his brother Joseph, he founded Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover. In 1900, Émile and his son Herbert established a branch of the Berliner Gramophone Co in Montrél to manufacture and distribute their gramophone discs and those of Victor Records throughout Canada.
In 1900, the Berliners purchased the rights to the "His Master's Voice" logo, later the universally recognized "Nipper" trademark of RCA Records, and set up the Compo Company in Lachine, Qué, the first independent pressing plant in Canada. Herbert Berliner also initiated the first system for distributing records independently, and in 1925 introduced the first electronically recorded discs in Canada. The same year Compo issued the first electronically recorded "live" recording, a church service.
As far back as 24 December 1901, Canadian Reginald FESSENDEN transmitted a radio signal from Brant Rock, Mass, to ships at sea. His broadcast of Handel's Largo heralded the beginning of AM radio. Fessenden's other inventions include the wireless telephone, radio compass, the tracer bullet and in 1919 a precursor of the first television. Operating out of Montrél, inventor Guglielmo Marconi laid claim to establishing the first radio station, XWA, in 1919 (or the second, since KDKA in Pittsburgh has made a similar claim).
The Rock Era
Canada's First Pop SuperstarThe first Canadian pop superstar was Ottawa's Paul ANKA, who penned the golden perennial "Diana," a song inspired by a crush on his babysitter that was written in 1957 when he was still 16 years old. Without the conventional good looks of a teen idol, he instead had versatility and the ability to write and produce his own songs, talents that saw him compose the pop standard "My Way" in 1968 and the enduring theme music for TV's The Tonight Show.
By the late 1950s, nearly every town in Canada could boast its own Elvis Presley hopeful: Dickie Damron of Bentley, Alta; Gary Cooper of Portage La Prairie, Man; Red Shea of Prince Albert, Sask; Cliff and Jerry of Minto, NB; The Versatiles of Kinnard, BC; Al Oster of the Yukon Territory; The Ducats of Port Aux Basques, Nfld; and Les Trois Clefs of Montréal.
The Band
Rock and roll didn't really arrived until an Arkansas rockabilly singer named Ronnie HAWKINS stormed into Toronto with his band The Hawks. From 1958 to the present, Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins not only has recorded prolifically but has been the unofficial dean of the Canadian school of hard rock, turning out one seasoned, brilliant musician after another. Most notable were the artists who made up the early 1960s version of The Hawks, which later was to become one of the most admired and influential rock and roll groups ever, THE BAND.The essential lineup of The Band was Richard Manuel, Robbie ROBERTSON, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and the lone American, Levon Helm. In 1966 they left Hawkins to tour with Bob Dylan during his controversial turn from acoustic folk to electric rock, and, under Dylan's wings, The Band discovered their own gift for songwriting. In 1968 and 1969 they released Music From Big Pink and The Band, albums that were remarkable for melding rock, folk, gospel, soul and country roots into a panoramic yet observant and detailed narrative account of North American folklore and character. The Band enjoyed great success and acclaim but were becoming a frayed and tired unit by the time they disbanded in style in 1976 with the concert The Last Waltz, which also formed the pivotal moment in the movie of the same name, one of the best filmed documentaries of rock and roll.
A reunited version of The Band featuring Helm, Hudson and Danko was still active in the 1990s (Manuel died in 1986). After a decade working behind the scenes in film mainly as a composer, Robertson ventured into a solo career that has yielded 4 ambitious albums reflecting his native heritage and roots to American music.
In fact, it often was noted that some of the wisest commentaries on American life came from the songs of Robertson, a Canadian. Yet strong regional ties and a receptiveness to the influence of climate and geography were qualities in Robertson's writing that he shared with Canadian folk singers such as IAN AND SYLVIA, Gordon LIGHTFOOT and Joni MITCHELL.
Canadian Singer-Songwriters of the 1960s
During the 1960s Canadian singer-songwriters such as Ian and Sylvia, Mitchell and Lightfoot were not only among the most acclaimed recording artists to have an impact internationally, but they also led the way for a continuing parade of singer-writers: Bruce COCKBURN, Murray MCLAUCHLAN, Willie P. Bennett and Stan ROGERS, who contributed some of the most identifiable and distinctive Canadian music of the second half of the 20th century.While Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" has become a global folk anthem and Lightfoot could eloquently switch from simple romantic imagery in "For Lovin' Me" to epic narrative style for "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" - songs that both, in their way, communicate Canadian experience - it is ironic and telling that both writers were typical of their time in that they had to find success abroad to be appreciated at home.
Lightfoot has continued to live in Canada; however, others fled to the United States, where they felt their music would be appreciated and would have a chance to be recorded and developed properly. These included John Kay of the hard rock band STEPPENWOLF, Zal Yanovsky of the "good-time" rock band the Lovin' Spoonful, Denny Doherty, a folk singer who became a Papa in the enormously successful folk-rock quartet the Mamas And Papas, pop songwriter Andy Kim, poet, novelist, songwriter Leonard COHEN, "blue-eyed soul" singer David CLAYTON-THOMAS and rock and roll maverick Neil YOUNG.
Young and Mitchell have proven to be the most enduring and influential of them all. Both infiltrated the Los Angeles folk and rock scenes in the mid-1960s, the Winnipeg-bred Young first finding fame with the pioneering rock band Buffalo Springfield. He later teamed up with 1960s-70s supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash before embarking on an erratic but always intriguing solo career. His numerous albums, such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After The Goldrush, Rust Never Sleeps, Freedom, Harvest Moon and Sleeps With Angels, reveal a wilfully independent and fearless artist. He is at home with gentle folk and country music but also ready to venture into lesser known modern idioms or to create fierce, uncompromising rock and roll. This spirit and the timeliness (or timelessness) of his smartest work have made him a leader among his contemporaries and a hero to a generation of younger songwriters and rock and roll bands.
Joni Mitchell, meanwhile, remained a solo act but also became part of the Crosby, Stills and Nash circle. From the brave confessional writing of her early albums, she ventured into bolder, more poetic long-form songs and different progressive idioms including jazz, becoming a highly stylized and distinctive artist in the process. In the 1990s her highly regarded albums such as Blue and Court and Spark were cited by numerous women artists including Canadians Sarah MCLACHLAN and Alannah MYLES as inspiration for their own work.
Domestic Music Industry
The success and praise Young, Mitchell, Cohen or Lightfoot earned for Canadian music came at the personal expense of having to record, tour or live outside the country. In the 1960s, Canadian recording studios and record companies lagged behind their American or English counterparts, lacking the technology or expertise to keep up or compete. Canada's independent labels usually existed to service small regional markets and were not very profitable to the few national distributors, such as London or Quality, that stocked their records. The major labels of the time (notably RCA, CBS, Warner Brothers, Capital) were foreign-owned and usually not interested in investing in Canadian recording talent.The music industry also had very few behind-the-scenes talents such as experienced managers or publicists, and, in the pursuit of amassing larger audiences, Canadian media preferred to program proven hits by established English or American acts over Canadians, often presuming their work to be inferior.
This was an attitude that took root and held on into the 1990s but was exposed as early as 1965, when a recording of the song "Shakin' All Over," by Winnipeg group Chad Allen and the Expressions was presented to radio stations under the name The Guess Who? Not knowing the identity of the band, many assumed it to be one of the latest groups in the 1960s British Invasion (of The Beatles, Rolling Stones etc) and played it. "Shakin' All Over" went on to become a worldwide hit, but when the band's identity was revealed it had to struggle to get another one.
Now reconciled to being The GUESS WHO, Chad Allen and the Expressions became the archetype of Canadian rock and roll, touring the country endlessly and notching more than a dozen modest hits for the Quality label before meeting talented Canadian producer Jack Richardson. Signing to his Nimbus 9 production company, The Guess Who had a huge international single in 1968 with "These Eyes," which became the launching pad for a high-rolling career that produced many more hits, including "American Woman,""Share The Land,""Clap For The Wolfman, "and later solo careers by Randy Bachman and Burton CUMMINGS.
Canadian Content Regulations
The evident lack of support for Canadian talent at nearly all levels of the popular music business prompted the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to adopt regulations requiring AM radio stations to play at least 30% of records that were demonstrably Canadian - the music or lyrics having been written by a Canadian, the artist being Canadian or the record having been produced in Canada. The ruling came into effect in 1971 with the immediate, desired result being an upturn in record production and exposure to more Canadian talent (seeRECORDING INDUSTRY).Anne MURRAY was the first star of the CRTC era, although her 1970 multimillion-selling single, "Snowbird," already had established her warm, clear vocal style and taste in light pop, country and folk and laid the foundation for a career that has seen her record over 30 albums, garner numerous JUNO and Grammy Awards and become one of pop music's most recognizable and respected singers.
CanCon Successes of the 1970s
With Canadian media hustling to find ways to program as much proven Canadian content as they could, however, Murray (as well as The Guess Who, Gordon Lightfoot and the middle-of-the-road folk/pop of The IRISH ROVERS) not only benefited from the extra airplay but very nearly suffered from overexposure. It was during the 1970s then, that, given an artificial but necessary incentive to grow, popular music would experience an almost unnatural spurt and suffer the greatest growing pains as a consequence.On a worldwide scale, the decade was a boom time for the music industry, and Canada's industry also experienced a period of unprecedented record sales for homegrown recording acts as a true star system awkwardly began to take shape. Following the tour-record-tour-record-tour dictum of the Guess Who, many new artists emerged, most notably in rock and roll, and had varying degrees of success at home or abroad: The Stampeders, Fludd, Five Man Electrical Band, CHILLIWACK, Crowbar, LIGHTHOUSE, PRISM, APRIL WINE, Trooper and TRIUMPH.
It became apparent, though, that Canada's small population and the continued resistance of radio and other media still created obstacles to the survival of the independents while the enforced investment by the major labels in Canadian talent was no guarantee of better recordings or easy access to the international market.
Significantly, 2 of the most successful acts to arrive in the 1970s, Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO) and RUSH, had 2 of the best and most powerful managers, Bruce Allen and Ray Danniels.
Initially, the Vancouver-based Allen used his high-powered tactics to guide Randy Bachman's BTO to become one of the most successful hard rock acts in the worId, ultimately eclipsing the impact of The Guess Who in the short term. By the time BTO began falling apart in the later 1970s, Allen and co-manager Lou Blair had another immensely popular act in LOVERBOY. In the 1980s, Allen would meet his biggest star, Bryan ADAMS, and by the 1990s would also be managing American country star Martina McBride, goldfingered record producers Bob Rock and Bruce Fairbairn, and pop singer Anne Murray.
Although Danniels has managed other acts and also been behind the creation of the independent Anthem Records label, his earliest, greatest and most consistent success has been with Rush, which in turn has proven itself to be a model of artistic growth and integrity during a career that has endured for 25 years. In that time, Rush has traversed heavy metal, progressive-rock, new wave rock, reggae and other idioms on the way to selling more than 20 million albums worldwide, establishing it as one of the world's most reliable concert attractions.
As the 1970s rounded the corner to the 1980s, a Canadian music establishment had begun to take hold that looked after its own corporate concerns but didn't necessarily reflect the musical climate. While it now had the annual JUNO AWARDS, produced by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Science (CARAS) since 1971 and which was ritually telecast by the CBC to acknowledge the accomplishments of those in the musical entertainment business, the industry showed itself to be conservative and resistant to change. Thus, while it was easy to reward the popular appeal of disco diva Patsy Gallant ("From New York to L.A.") or the sentimental balladry of Dan HILL ("Sometimes When We Touch"), the sociological impact of punk or new wave rock in the late 1970s was resisted with fear and distrust. Thus groups as diverse (and often politically outspoken) as Vancouver's DOA and Pointed Sticks or Toronto's Diodes and ROUGH TRADE became the new, revolutionary spirit of pop musical culture.
Francophone Artists
By the 1970s it was also apparent that French Canada not only had developed an industry that was self-sustaining and culturally in tune with its audience but was growing more apart from its English counterpart.Although in the 1970s and 1980s there were several examples of a French-English crossover by acts such as Gallant, rock and roller Michel PAGLIARO, teen TV celebrity René Simard, MOR instrumentalist André GAGNON, Manitoban Daniel Lavoie, sister folk duo Kate and Anna MCGARRIGLE or progressive folk/jazz group Harmonium, surprisingly few English pop acts ventured into Québec to reciprocate. Meanwhile, English-speaking Québec acts often remained Montréal-based phenomena (despite the residence of the "indie" Aquarius label and its successful hard rock act, April Wine). Most francophone recording artists - the hugely popular BEAU DOMMAGE, Ginette RENO, Offenbach, Robert CHARLEBOIS - enjoyed their Québécois success largely unknown in anglophone Canada.
While the folk tradition in Québec is lasting (seeFOLK MUSIC, FRANCO-CANADIAN), the transition to pop and more contemporary songwriting began in the 1950s with the CHANSONNIERS led by Félix LECLERC, whose plaintive emotional style blended pithy statements of Québécois sentiment with pointed reflections of cultural and political alienation. When the Québec recording industry created its equivalent of the Junos, it paid homage to Leclerc by calling it the Félix Awards.
Artists who followed his example were Raymond LÉVESQUE, Gilles VIGNEAULT (cited as the most influential and dramatic songwriter of the 1960s), Claude LÉVEILLÉE (who enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1990s), Claude Gauthier, Luc PLAMONDON and Jean-Pierre FERLAND (whose Jaune became the first double-length LP to be released by a Canadian). Québec talent responded to the impact of The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960s with their own versions of anglo-American hits, but inevitably Québec developed its own style through the work of such artists as Pierre Lalonde, Donald Lautrec, Michel Louvain, Johnny Farrago, Renée CLAUDE and René and Nathalie Simard.
Singers such as Ginette Reno and Michel Pagliaro and especially the "enfant terrible" Robert Charlebois took Québécois pop to higher levels of record sales, of rock and roll credibility or of artistic and intellectual merit. Their success helped the industry not only to find its feet but (as was not the case with the English side of the business) to feel secure in the strength and uniqueness of its culture. They soon were joined by a wave of artists covering the range of folk, pop, rock, blues, jazz and disco/dance music, from Richard Seguin to Villes Emard Blues Band to Boule Noire.
If the 1980s saw the development of a global awareness (symbolized in popular music terms by the coining of the term WORLD MUSIC to describe the rhythms mostly of Third World countries, and by the 1985 marathon concert fundraiser for famine-ravaged Ethiopia, Live Aid), it also witnessed the fragmentation of popular music into myriad forms and approaches.
Recording Artists of the 1980s-90s
These trends and concerns were reflected by Canada's pop music as well. Likewise, there was a whole new cycle of artists (and increasingly more of them as the industry came of age) to lead the way or benefit from these developments. Still, the most successful among them are Bryan Adams and producer-writer David FOSTER.The Vancouver-based Adams first achieved million-selling international record sales with songwriting partner Jim Vallance through such hits as "Cuts Like A Knife,""Heaven" and "Summer Of '69." In the 1990s, a collaboration with writer/producer Robert "Mutt" Lange netted ever bigger hits: "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,""Please Forgive Me" and "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman."
Foster, originally from Victoria, made his name in Los Angeles as a session musician but also was the leader of 1970s studio band Skylark and writer of Skylark's evergreen hit, "Wildflower." As a producer, writer and arranger he won Juno and Grammy awards for his work with Chicago, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston and others. In 1995 he collaborated with Adams, Vallance and another writer, Paul Hyde (of the then popular Payolas), on the song "Tears Are Not Enough." This was their contribution to African famine relief and, as recorded by Northern Lights, it was a massive group effort that brought together the cream of Canadian talent, including Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Young, Burton Cummings, members of Rush, Loverboy and many others, raising almost $3 million. At Live Aid, "Tears Are Not Enough" was sung by Bryan Adams.
As the 1980s rolled on, the new artists kept on coming: The Payolas, Headpins, Skinny Puppy, Doug And The Slugs, Barney BENTALL and Colin JAMES from the west coast; k.d. LANG, Northern Pikes, and The Pursuit Of Happiness from the Prairies; Red Rider, Jane SIBERRY, Kim MITCHELL, Honeymoon Suite, Glass Tiger, Platinum Blonde, The JEFF HEALEY BAND, The NYLONS (and many more) from Ontario; Gino VANNELLI, Luba and Corey HART from Québec; Haywire and Minglewood from the Maritimes.
With them came a stronger industry infrastructure of managers, publicists, studios, a variety of government or corporate funding opportunities (primarily FACTOR, the Fund to Assist Canadian Talent On Record), trade media (such as RPM and The Record), publishers and indie labels (notably the first and biggest CanCon success, Attic, and the first post-punk/new wave alternative label, Nettwerk) that reinforced and capitalized on an awakening pride in Canada's increasingly sophisticated and original music.
Spearheading the acceptance of rapidly changing 1980s technology and multi-media was the MuchMusic music TV channel (and, later, MuchMoreMusic) and its francophone equivalent, MusiquePlus. Initially relying on pop-rock video clips, MuchMusic's arrival in 1985 not only connected regional activities to the rest of the country but united its many diverse artists and, by focusing on new, emerging artists, created many new stars. These include Grapes Of Wrath, 54-40 and Sons Of Freedom on the West Coast and Sloan on the East.
Canadian pop entered the 1990s on a wave of national pride, much stronger than ever before yet also more diverse, divided and facing the challenges presented by the rapidly expanding vocabulary and opening vistas being created by technology. These took the form of copyright ownership in the face of digitized music relays, communication via World Wide Web sites (seeINTERNET) and the ongoing question of whether Canada still required content regulations. The impact of rap, hip-hop, acid jazz, techno and ever-evolving mutations on dance music was felt most in the large urban centres, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver with their rapidly growing population of black and Asian minorities. Still, despite hit records for Bass Is Base, Maestro Fresh Wes and Kish, few artists working in these idioms were able to sustain much domestic success or use it as a springboard internationally as the new millennium approached.
The francophone music industry had been a mirror of Canadian politics in that it remained distinct, yet during this period it yielded one of the country's biggest stars in Céline Dion.
Dion was a child star in Québec and could have remained astonishingly popular there if she had continued to record in French. She signed to Sony Records in Canada at the beginning of the 1990s and scored the first of many English hits, "Where Does My Heart Beat Now," while risking the alienation of her francophone audience (despite also continuing to record in French). By the time of 1996's Falling Into You album, Dion's warm buoyant personality, bravura singing and choice of slick, commercial romantic ballads and danceable pop had sold millions of albums and earned her Juno, Grammy and Oscar awards. She subsequently married her manager, Pierre Angelli, became a mother and signed a lucrative contract to perform nightly for a year at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. At the end of her Las Vegas engagement, she released a new album, Taking Chances, and resumed touring.
The 1990s also marked the coming of age of the Maritimes music industry. As in Québec, it had developed in isolation, its biggest star of the previous 30 years being Springhill, NS, native Anne Murray. Its towering influence was folk songwriter Stan Rogers.
A star system was now in place with its own hierarchy of artists and with a definite legacy with which to cite, the Canadian pop music industry celebrated 25 years of its Juno Awards (and, incidentally, CanCon law) in 1996 with a 4-CD box set, a TV documentary and a book. All were called Oh What A Feeling, the title being a nod to the early 1970s hit record by Hamilton's fiercely Canadian band, Crowbar. The CD box sold the equivalent of a million copies in weeks, qualifying it for a Diamond Award and allowing the industry to pat itself on the back and take stock.
Pop at the Turn of the Century
By the turn of the century, there were hundreds of recording acts of all kinds criss-crossing the country, signed to feisty and street savvy indie labels, licensing their indie compact discs to different countries around the world, promoting themselves via the Internet and building an audience. This was the indie circuit that had begun transforming the careers of Feist, Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire and The New Pornographers.As the third millenium began, these performers had begun to force a changing appraisal of exported Canadian music on the international stage while at the same time the impact of Dion and Shania Twain served to enhance the commercial viability of other CanCon acts.
It was the domestic popularity of the Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Jann Arden or the Barenaked Ladies that suggested Canadian popular music could finally be appreciated for its own character and quality at home. These acts spoke directly to Canadians with passion and also with humour about experiences that touched them and yet had universal resonance. Collectively they had sold millions of records and hundreds of thousands of concert tickets. If popular music is measured by sales of records and seats, these were the bands who had done the most to redefine Canadian pop music on the homefront. They were the pivot points between Dion or Twain and the new acts that in growing numbers were now criss-crossing the country in mosquito-crusted vans loaded with their instruments and brand-new self-released compact discs.
A New Century Brings a New Way of Doing Business
By 2008, if technology wasn't leveling the playing field of the Canadian recording industry it was changing it. The sales of compact discs had fallen yet again, by 7%, and there was talk of the CD's demise. Seeming to support this grim prediction, Sam The Record Man, long a symbol of the health of the recording industry, closed its Yonge Street doors in 2006. In May of 2008, A&B Sound (Western Canada's oasis for record sales with its Seymour Street Vancouver store cited as the cheapest place in North America to buy records) went bankrupt. The major corporations - EMI, Warner's, Sony/CBS, Universal - were downsizing, laying off staff, moving to smaller premises or closing branch offices. In Vancouver, for instance, EMI and Sony/BMG laid off staff with their surviving employees now working from home.Matthew Good and Bryan Adams were Canadians whose latest albums went straight to number one on the Nielsen Soundscan chart. That would be good news but Good's Hospital Songs debuted with 11 000 sales while Adams' 11 notched 10 000. When it's considered that a year before a Celine Dion album could premiere with 10 times those sales, that is not so good.
Adams, who only years before sold in the millions and was one of America's most popular recording acts, didn't have an American label for his 11. A deal was struck with Starbucks Coffee to distribute the record through its Hear Music operation. This wasn't new. Years before, Alannis Morissette agreed to distribute her latest record, an acoustic re-recording of her Jagged Little Pill, exclusively through Starbucks. Record retailers protested and the record was made available conventionally, but the message was clear that established artists had reached an impasse and were now trying to break through it with alternatives. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell have also released records through Hear Music.
Radiohead, one of the UK's most popular bands, made its In Rainbows available online with fans or the curious told to pay what they wanted. Although Radiohead has never announced how successful this strategy was, and later made the record available on CD in stores, the band wasn't signed to a label at the time and was exploring its options. If nothing else, the ploy got a lot of publicity and sent another clear message to the recording industry. Following Radiohead's example, American band, Nine Inch Nails, marketed an instrumental record this way.
However, neither Radiohead nor Nine Inch Nails were the first. This honour goes to Canada's Jane Siberry. She long ago reclaimed her music and trusted her fans to pay only what they wanted or could.
Why CD sales are down is the source of much discussion but a lot of it has to do with how technology has filled a void - or created one. A large segment of the public now downloads its music via iTunes, Puretracks or other MP3 servers. It doesn't buy records. Facing that reality, several labels, such as Vancouver's Mint or Winnipeg's G7 Welcoming Committee are making their newest releases available digitally first. As well, many new acts don't consider themselves to be part of any recording industry and are staunchly independent. If they know how to use a computer, most indies can arrange their own tours and sell records on their own webpage, myspace, CD Baby, iTunes etc. They can be heard on a variety of internet radio programs internationally rather than hope for airplay on the local commercial radio station.
Not that the old way of advancing a career has been abandoned completely. Commercial radio play and having CDs in stores are still valuable. For every local TV Heart Attack that claims it's content to be an indie in the face of industry turmoil there is a Crash Parallel. Crash Parallel, a Toronto quartet, signed to Sony/BGM with the result, so far, that its World We Know album has benefited from the clout a major label still wields.
Or there is a Michael Buble. His three Warner Bros. albums have sold in the millions. His crooning style is unlikely to get much radio play - although Buble is now writing hits such as "Home" - but it is effective on TV or on tour, where his charm and performance make their strongest impression. He also commands an older audience that grew up buying records.
Buble's exceptional popularity points out an irony in contemporary Canadian music. He is selling both domestically and internationally at a time when Canadian music is getting praise, though the acts receiving this praise aren't well known to the average Canadian. In the vanguard are Montreal's Arcade Fire, Toronto's Broken Social Scene or Vancouver's New Pornographers with many indie bands in the slipstream. All three make good records that international media love. At home, their cultural impact is minor but the international media don't care about record sales or Canadian Content regulations, they just think Canada is a stream of originality and creativity.
It's a hard won independence. For years the Canadian industry was dominant and dictated the rules and was often derivative. Then, along came other means to expose the music and to develop.
Calgary's Feist knows. Known universally by her last name, the highly original Leslie Feist has spent time in Paris and Toronto developing a style that owes a little to punk, pop and performance art but nothing to the Canadian recording industry. In April of 2008, her new album, The Reminder, won her five awards at the Juno Awards. Feist knows and now Canada does, too.
Early International Pop Stars
Of the Canadian pop celebrities before rock and roll's arrival in the mid-1950s, there are at least a dozen notables: Bea LILLIE, comedienne of the First World War years, who was in the cast recording of Berlin's Watch Your Step and Cheap; songwriter Shelton Brooks, whose credits include "Darktown Strutter's Ball" and Sophie Tucker's "Some Of These Days"; Guy LOMBARDO, bandleader, whose Royal Canadians recorded the celebrated, best-known version of "Auld Lang Syne"; Wilf CARTER, also known as Montana Slim, whose homespun country and western repertoire included the utterly charming "Love Knot In My Lariat"; Maynard FERGUSON, a jazz virtuoso whose fame spread internationally from the beginning of his career in the 1950s; pianist Oscar PETERSON, the most respected and honoured jazz musician Canada has produced; composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist Moe KOFFMAN, who completes a trio of the country's most revered jazz veterans; Hank SNOW, a fixture of Nashville's Grand Ol' Opry and probably the only Canadian country writer to have one of his songs, "I'm Movin' On," also become a rock and roll staple; Giselle MacKenzie, light pop singer and musician still remembered as a regular on the American 1950s television show Your Hit Parade; balladeer Robert GOULET, star of Camelot, heart throb, actor of sorts and briefly a cast member of the Howdy Doody Show; Percy FAITH, a musician at the CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION who became a composer and conductor for Columbia Records in the 1930s and whose biggest hit was "Theme From A Summer Place" in 1960. Finally there were The Four Lads, a Toronto singing quartet that first made its mark backing Johnny Ray on the 1952 hit "Cry." The vocal format of the Lads' biggest hits such as "Moments To Remember" (1955), "No Not Much" and "Standing On The Corner" overlapped and put the foursome somewhere between a barbershop quartet and a black doo-wop group. They were predecessors of 2 more Canadian acts, The Diamonds and The Crew Cuts.Early Domestic Pop Stars
Prior to rock and roll, radio and then television provided cultural links connecting the country's distant population centres. Canada's vastness and climate had as much to do with the musical and lyrical tone and language of Canadian music as its regional insularity or isolation, which produced music of distinctly different character in the Maritimes, French-speaking Canada, central Canada, the prairies and West Coast.Besides MacKenzie, Goulet and Peterson, other celebrities who owe their popularity to Canada's domestic media were Wally Koster, JULIETTE, Tommy AMBROSE, Alan Blythe and Tommy HUNTER. Whereas Lucille Starr's international hit "The French Song" or the Maritimes-produced weekly TV series Don Messer's Jubilee (seeDON MESSER AND THE ISLANDERS) had roots in Canada's diverse culture, most of those stars were facsimiles of American entertainers, creating a template for Canadian acceptance that endured at least into the 1980s.
Similarly, after Elvis Presley's pelvically generated shockwaves of 1954 reached Canada a year later, the first Canadian responses to have any national or international impact were pale copies of black rhythm and blues or doo-wop groups: the already mentioned Four Lads, Crew Cuts and Diamonds.
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1960s Dresses & Skirts: Styles,
Trends & Pictures
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... and of course....
Janis Joplin- Me and Bobby McGee
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BLOGGED:
Canada Military News: Red Roses- BRILLIANT PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU - 4get religion fight the terrorists - Canada's days of youngbloods real, raw and righteous- Jackie Kennedy dress like during the day job and batik dresses and wild child and Ts in the evenings- WWII kids love/d our troops in Canada, don't ever mistake that while we welcomed draft dodgers 2/ Our Tory parents loved us deeply and we always played Sat. night cards and church on sunday/ O Canada -Grandma's Apron -Happy Thanksgiving/Canadian Bill of Rights sidestepped by War Measures Act because in Canada VICTIMS MATTER/ Canada we need more disabled (disabilities are abilities in disguise) in parliament/Canada Thankgiving is almost here- God bless our troops and Canada /Girls Matter- #1BRising /Oct 8- Canada voted most respected country in the world- u wld be so proud
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The Allman Brothers Band
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Wilson Pickett- Hey Jude with Duane Allman
WP = Weekly chart peak position.
WP = Weekly chart peak position.
1964’s Biggest Hits
Previously,
we learned that many Canadian acts, like Hank Snow and Paul Anka, had
moved to the U.S. to bolster their careers. Now, with CBC radio firmly
established and the debut of CBC television in 1952, enabling artists to
gain significant exposure, many began remaining at home, like Bobby
Curtola. Moreover, foreign singers and bands began recording or settling
in Canada, even American artists (we’ll look at Heart later). Arriving
in Canada from Northern Ireland were The Irish Rovers who,
during a lengthy (especially performance-based) career, scored a few
hits including their 8 million selling cover of Shel Silverstein’s “The
Unicorn” in 1968 and their Juno-nominated smash “Wasn’t That a Party” in
1980. East Prussian born John Kay became a naturalized
Canadian citizen and founded the rock band Steppenwolf. An American
artist who ended up settling in Canada was Ronnie Hawkins. He started out as a solo artist with a backing band called The Hawks who broke with Hawkins to become their own hybrid band called The Band. What do I mean by “hybrid” band? Let me explain…
Denny Doherty in The Mamas and the Papas
Zal Yanovsky in The Lovin’ Spoonful
David Clayton-Thomas’ Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Hits of the Early 60s
In the 1950s, Canada continued contributing new musicians to the world stage in the genres of country (Tommy Hunter), jazz (Moe Koffman, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, and guitarist Lenny Breau), and classical (Pierrette Alarie, Lois Marshall, Louis Quilico, Léopold Simoneau, and contralto Maureen Forrester). Following
in La Bolduc’s footsteps were Quebec artists who enriched the landscape
of Canadian music by singing folk music in fabulous French. It wasn’t
until Beatlemania swept Canada in the 1960s that Quebec artists began to
perform pop and rock; for now, folk was the genre of choice. An
important word on this is best summed up by the Canadian Music
Encyclopedia:
Canada’s Hat Trick: You didn’t have to see Paul Henderson’s 1972 Summit Series goal to have lived it: Cox
Paul Henderson goal against Russia in 1972 Summit Series became part of Canada’s maturation into a nation
Frank Lennon / Toronto Star file photo
frank lennon shot of paul henderson..Yvon Cournoyer (12) of Team
Canada hugging Paul Henderson after scoring the winning goal in the
Canada U.S.S.R. hockey series in Sept. 28, 1972.
There’s this sorting out process that
accompanies aging, a sorting out of the memories that matter and the
memories that must have because you were there and everyone says
something big happened.
From here, from this point in my life, I can’t tell you with any honesty I know where I was when Paul Henderson
scored. Might have been in a classroom at Norwood Park School on
Hamilton Mountain because there’s definitely a memory of a TV being
wheeled in to Mrs. Howard’s Grade 7 class and a game, not sure which
game, being beamed in from Moscow.
Then again, I might have been in the park near
my house, throwing a ball, because there’s also a memory of not being
in school, being let out early because Team Canada was playing, and what
11-year-old was going to go inside to watch a grainy hockey image in
his living room when it was September and sunny and we weren’t in
school?
So did I see it? Do I remember it?
Mine wasn’t a hockey family. I wasn’t playing
hockey yet, and none of my siblings were. My parents were English
immigrants, and there certainly wasn’t a gathering at the dining room
table at 488 Upper James where Mum and Dad explained why this mattered
so much. When it came to the Soviets and their intentions, I remember
much more clearly Dad telling me in 1979 when the U.S.S.R. rolled into
Afghanistan that they’d never, ever leave.
Most other stuff he got right.
And I can’t say I ever remember any of my
three brothers or two sisters EVER talking about Henderson’s goal. Maybe
they did. But this notion that every Canadian family lived and died
with every moment, every shot and every goal, of that ’72 Summit Series is, I think, somewhat exaggerated with time.
But I remember something. I remember a time,
and a sense of something happening, and a sense for the first time that
sports were connected to something beyond the games. The Munich Olympic
massacre had just happened three weeks earlier, which made no sense at
all to this dopey kid but was obviously very bad.
Later that fall Ian Sunter kicked the Grey
Cup-winning field goal down at Ivor Wynne, and that mattered a lot
because Dave Spisak’s dad took me to the odd game and his lucky family
lived a few houses away from Dave Fleming, the Tiger-Cat scatback. That
gave me a connection to an important event in sport.
The next year, Secretariat would rule the
horse-racing world and for some reason I watched every race, probably
more races than I’ve watched since. It seemed important, and piled on
top of Munich and Sunter and, of course, Bobby Orr’s Stanley Cup winner
that I’m pretty sure I watched next door at the Reilly’s, together this
was a bundle of significant sporting events that seemed to tell me
sports had an importance, that they didn’t matter necessarily but really
mattered to many.
Otherwise, I only knew what Bob Hanley opined
on in the Hamilton Spectator and that everyone wanted to be Dave Keon in
road hockey and that Bill Spunska was a Scrub on Skates and that I
loved hockey cards without the slightest suggestion they were valuable.
Somewhere in that jumble of memories and events and half-formed ideas lived Henderson’s goal.
It meant “we” had won, and we meant us and the
Soviets were surely “them” and, with all the military officers and grim
faces, not a “them” I could imagine being anything like us.
More people, it seems to me, had seen the
series opener in Montreal, and been shocked by an ugly result. There was
no Bobby Hull or Orr, and Frank Mahovlich was a huge name but it was
his brother, Pete, who scored the memorable solo goal in Game 2 at Maple
Leaf Gardens.
Ken Dryden and Tony Esposito, so dominant in
the NHL, suddenly seemed very vulnerable when the Soviets were shooting.
That was weird, made no sense.
So I watched much of the competition, for
sure. For most of the series it seemed we would lose because those
Soviets always seemed to have the puck. People with opinions that
mattered seemed to think this would be a terrible thing, and the good
versus evil element is always easily sold, particularly when you’re the
good.
So then the goal happened and saved the day
for Canada, for an 11-year-old’s burgeoning sense of Canada. My dad and
his dad had gone to Expo 67 and we sang “O Canada” and “God Save the
Queen” every day in school. So while I didn’t think of Canada as a young
nation still finding itself, a nation that would surely feel the
imprint of an event like Henderson’s goal, that’s what Canada was and I
was part of it, really without actually knowing it.
So did I actually see the Henderson goal when
it happened? Or have I just seen it so many times since that it
reinforces a memory that wasn’t really there in the first place?
I’m just not sure. Maybe, maybe not.
But I didn’t have to see it. I have lived it. Then, and ever since.
That goal, whether I saw it or not, is part of me. And always will be.
MORE: Canada’s Hat Trick
The Allman Brothers Band
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Wilson Pickett- Hey Jude with Duane Allman
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Canadian Music Blog
Getting the rock and snowball rolling for fans of Canadian recording artists
Category: 1960s
1966’s Biggest Canadian Hits
A
total of 45 Canadian singles made RPM magazine’s Top 40 throughout
1966. None was able to reach the top. Bobby Curtola, The Carlton
Showband, and Wes Dakus authored songs that peaked at #4. Below is a
list of all Canadian Top 40 hits for the year with their peak chart
position. Bear in mind, that this is a picture of cross-Canada success.
Songs may have charted much higher or lower in various cities as radio
stations usually give local artists more support. Below the list, check
out some cool trivia on the year’s hits and their artists.
WP = Weekly chart peak position.
1966 HITS
| TITLE | ARTIST | WP |
| Hoochi Coochi Coo | Wes Dakus | 4 |
| While I’m Away | Bobby Curtola | 4 |
| The Merry Ploughboy | The Carlton Showband | 4 |
| Like a Dribblin’ Farm | The Race Marbles | 6 |
| Hey Girl Go It Alone | Big Town Boys | 7 |
| Spin Spin | Gordon Lightfoot | 7 |
| Walk On By | Bobby Kris and the Imperials | 8 |
| You Laugh Too Much | Little Caesar and the Consuls | 9 |
| Believe Me | The Guess Who | 10 |
| Love Drops | Barry Allen | 10 |
| What Am I Gonna Do | Robbie Lane and the Disciples | 10 |
| Brainwashed | David Clayton Tomas | 11 |
| Rose Marie | Ray Hutchinson | 12 |
| Blue Lipstick | Patrician Anne | 13 |
| My Kinda Guy | The Willows | 15 |
| Real Thing | Bobby Curtola | 15 |
| Soldier Boy | Debbie Lori Kaye | 16 |
| Clock on the Wall | The Guess Who | 16 |
| Rainbow | Terry Black | 17 |
| Hurting Each Other | The Guess Who | 19 |
| Baby It’s All Worthwhile | Dee and the Yeomen | 19 |
| C’mon Everybody | The Staccatos | 20 |
| I Can’t Explain | The King Beezz | 20 |
| It’s a Long Way Home | The Staccatos | 22 |
| Turn Her Down | Barry Allen | 22 |
| Until It’s Time | Catherine McKinnon | 23 |
| 1-2-5 | The Haunted | 23 |
| Walking the Dog | Jerry Palmer | 25 |
| I’m a Loner | The Jaybees | 25 |
| A Love Like Mine | Dee and the Yeomen | 27 |
| That’s Why I Love You | Joey Hollingsworth | 27 |
| All of My Life | Don Norman and the Other Four | 27 |
| Please Forget Her | The Jury | 27 |
| Stop Me From Fallin’ in Love | Beau Hannon | 28 |
| Dream Boy | The Allan Sisters | 28 |
| I Symbolize You | Last Words | 28 |
| Whatcha Gonna Do About It | The British Modbeats | 32 |
| And She’s Mine | The Guess Who | 32 |
| Oh Gee Girl | Liverpool Set | 33 |
| Bound to Fly | 3’s a Crowd | 34 |
| Let’s Run Away | The Staccatos | 35 |
| In a Minute or Two | Dee and the Yeomen | 35 |
| Wildwood Days | Bobby Curtola | 36 |
| A Bit of Love | Jimmy Dybold | 37 |
| Mercy Mr. Percy | Little Caesar and the Consuls | 38 |
1966 CHOICE TRIVIA
LINKS
More Charts…
Late 60s Overview…
1965’s Biggest Canadian Hits
1965
was the first full year that Canada had nationwide weekly singles
charts thanks to RPM magazine. What is most surprising is that, in the
midst of the British Invasion, there were over 50 Top 40 hits by
Canadian artists through the year. Two of these made it to #1: The Guess
Who’s “Shakin’ All Over” and “You Really Got a Hold On Me” by Little
Caesar and the Consuls, both of which were covers. The year saw the
first Canadian Franco song make the nationwide Top 40—Michel Louvain’s
“C’est un secret”. Note that The Staccatos were the embryonic form of
The Five Man Electrical Band and The Sparrows of Steppenwolf. Below is a
list of all Canadian Top 40 hits for the year with their peak chart
position. Bear in mind, that this is a picture of cross-Canada success.
Songs may have charted much higher or lower in various cities as radio
stations usually give local artists more support. Below the list, check
out some trivia on the year’s hit artists.
WP = Weekly chart peak position.1965 HITS
| TITLE | ARTIST | WP |
| Shakin’ All Over | The Guess Who | 1 |
| You Really Got a Hold On Me | Little Caesar and the Consuls | 1 |
| Makin’ Love | Bobby Curtola | 2 |
| If You Don’t Want My Love | Jack London and the Sparrows | 3 |
| Walk That Walk | David Clayton Thomas | 3 |
| Mean Woman Blues | Bobby Curtola | 3 |
| Tossin’ and Turnin’ | The Guess Who | 3 |
| Walkin with My Angel | Bobby Curtola | 3 |
| Sloopy | Little Caesar and the Consuls | 3 |
| Hey Ho | The Guess Who | 3 |
| Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues | Gordon Lightfoot | 3 |
| It Was I | Big Town Boys | 5 |
| Poor Little Fool | Terry Black | 6 |
| Our Love Is Passed | Jack London and the Sparrows | 7 |
| So Many Other Boys | The Esquires | 9 |
| It’s About Time | Bobby Curtola | 9 |
| Hobo | Wes Dakus | 9 |
| A Million Tears Ago | Johnny and the Canadians | 9 |
| Little Liar | Terry Black | 10 |
| Take the First Train Home | Dee and the Yeomen | 10 |
| Forget Her | Bobby Curtola | 10 |
| Baby Ruth | The Butterfingers | 11 |
| Alone and Lonely | Bobby Curtola | 11 |
| Give Me Lovin’ | The Great Scots | 11 |
| Ain’t Love a Funny Thing | Robbie Lane and the Disciples | 12 |
| I’m Not Sayin’ | Gordon Lightfoot | 12 |
| It’s All Right with Me Now | Barry Allen | 12 |
| Remember the Face | The Allan Sisters | 13 |
| Hard Times with the Law | The Sparrows | 13 |
| Put You Down | Big Town Boys | 14 |
| Easy Come, Easy Go | Barry Allen | 14 |
| Only Sixteen | Terry Black | 14 |
| C’est un secret | Michel Louvain | 14 |
| Won’t Be a Lonely Summer | Dianne Leigh | 16 |
| He Belongs to Yesterday | Pat Hervey | 18 |
| Must I Tell You | Liverpool Set | 18 |
| I’ll Be the Boy | Jack London and the Sparrows | 19 |
| Love’s Made a Fool of You | The Esquires | 19 |
| Don’t Ask Me to Be True | J.B. and the Playboys | 20 |
| Small Town Girl | The Staccatos | 20 |
| Say It Again | Terry Black | 24 |
| Move to California | The Staccatos | 26 |
| Because You’re Gone | The Nocturnals | 28 |
| Think About Me | Pat Hervey | 31 |
| Out of the Sunshine | David Clayton Thomas | 31 |
| Ringo Deer | Garry Ferrier | 33 |
| Leaning on the Lamp Post | The Bradfords | 33 |
| One Good Reason | Ritchie Knight and the Midnights | 33 |
| I Can’t Live Without You | Joe Popiel | 35 |
| Till We Kissed | The Guess Who | 36 |
| Sandy | Robbie Lane and the Disciples | 36 |
| Weepin’ Willow Tree | Ray Griff | 39 |
| Cry is All I Do | The Esquires | 39 |
1965 CHOICE TRIVIA
LINKS
More Charts…
Late 60s Overview…
1964’s Biggest Canadian Hits
1964
was the year in which RPM magazine debuted and began publishing
nationwide music charts. The first Canadian Top Singles chart available
is from June 22, so we do not have a list of the most popular singles
for the entire year. It is difficult for the more obscure artists from
the period to determine, due to a lack of online information, whether or
not they were Canadians. We have only included artists for which we
have received confirmation that they were. Lorne
Greene scored the only Canadian #1 hit during the latter half of 1964, a
country and western spoken word piece entitled “Ringo”.
Below is a list of all Canadian Top 40 hits from 1964 with their peak chart position. Bear in mind, that this is a picture of cross-Canada success. Songs may have charted much higher or lower in various cities as radio stations usually give local artists more support. Below the lists, check out some cool trivia regarding the year’s hits.
WP = Weekly chart peak position.1964 HITS
| TITLE | ARTIST | WP |
| Ringo | Lorne Greene | 1 |
| Unless You Care | Terry Black | 2 |
| We’ll Sing in the Sunshine | Gale Garnett | 2 |
| As Long As I’m Sure of You | Bobby Curtola | 11 |
| Blue Souvenirs | Danny Harrison | 16 |
| Larry | The Allan Sisters | 23 |
| Las Vegas Scene | Wes Dakus | 23 |
| Come Home Little Girl | Bobby Curtola | 25 |
| Lovin’ Place | Gale Garnett | 35 |
1964 CHOICE TRIVIA
LINKS
More Charts…
Early 60s Overview…
Birth of Nationwide Music Charts (1964-1966)
Prior
to 1964, Canada did not have national song charts. Walt Grealis, OC,
eager to develop a dynamic music industry in Canada, decided to take it
upon himself to establish this via his magazine RPM. Single-handedly, he
contacted record stores and radio stations across the country and
painstakingly compiled the charts every week often working into the
night. RPM became the authority for national music charts for 36 years
and until Nielsen took over the role in the new millennium. The first
single from a Canadian artist to top the nationwide charts was “Ringo”
by broadcaster and actor Lorne Greene. It was a spoken word country and
western tune. Another country artist in the period was Lucille Star who
scored several hits, some with her partner Bob Regan (the duo was dubbed
The Canadian Sweethearts). Her “French Song” was popular in 1964.
Vancouver’s Terry Black emerged as a teen star and managed several hits including “Unless You Care”. He made an appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. After working full-time for the Bell Telephone Company, Shirley Matthews scored the major hit “Big Town Boy” recorded in New York. After retiring from professional singing, she became an accomplished tennis and squash player and now owns a fitness and racquet club chain. When she was 10, Gale Garnett emigrated from New Zealand to Canada and became both a singer and an actress. “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” reached #2 on the charts and won a US Grammy Award.
Edmonton became somewhat of a musical hub in the 60s thanks to a number of Edmontonian stars which included the Allan Sisters and Wes Dakus. The latter built a recording studio in the city. Barry Allen, guitarist for Wes Dakus’ band The Rebels enjoyed a fairly successful solo career. Buffy Sainte-Marie, Canada’s first high-profile First Nations musician arose writing “Universal Soldier” which was later covered by Scottish artist Donovan.
Although in the midst of the British invasion, a remarkable number to hits were scored by Canadian artists in 1965 and 1966. (This was to change in the late 60s downturn). Leading the way was rock band The Guess Who. From 1965 to 1975, they scored 33 Top 40 hits. When their fame skyrocketed internationally in the early 1970s, they led what was dubbed “The Canadian Invasion” in the United States. Another group that did well was Little Caesar and the Consuls. Their song “You Really Got a Hold on Me” (a cover of The Miracles’ 1962 hit) topped the charts in 1965. The following year, they cracked the Top 10 with “You Laugh Too Much”. Embryonic forms of Steppenwolf (The Sparrows) and The Five Man Electrical Band (The Staccatos) scored hits during the mid-60s.
Departing from country band Les Montagnards, Claude Dubois released a solo album in the mid-60s and landed two big hits: “J’ai Souvenir Encore” and “Ma petite vie”. He became one of the all-time greats of Franco music in Canada including induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Debuting in 1966, Michel Pagliaro was to become one of the few Canadian acts who has scored hits in both official languages. He was the first to score Gold records in both English and French.
Links
1964’s Biggest Hits
1965’s Biggest Hits
1966’s Biggest Hits
Buffy Sainte-Marie
The Guess Who
Claude Dubois
Michel Pagliaro
Five Man Electrical Band
Mini Profiles on Barry Allen, Terry Black, and Little Caesar & the Consuls
Steppenwolf
Years Most Active: 1967-1976
Canadian Members:
– John Kay (lead vocals)
– Goldy McJohn (keyboards)
– Jerry Edmonton (drums)
American Members:
– Michael Monarch (guitar)
– Rushton Moreve (bass)
Genre: Rock
Achievements:
– John Kay (lead singer) Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1996)
– John Kay (lead singer) Canadian Walk of Fame (2004)
Biggest Hits:
“Born to Be Wild” (1968)
– #1 on the Canadian RPM Charts
– #2 on the American Billboard Pop Charts
“Magic Carpet Ride” (1968)
– #1 on the Canadian RPM Charts
– #3 on the American Billboard Charts
Some Other Hits:
– “Move Over” (1969) <#12 RPM>
– “Rock Me” (1969) <#4 RPM>
– “It’s Never Too Late (1969) <#33 RPM>
– “Hey Lawdy Mama” (1970) <#18 RPM>
– “Monster” (1970) <#16 RPM>
– “Who Needs You” (1970) <#28 RPM>
– “Ride with Me” (1971) <#29 RPM>
– “Straight Shootin’ Woman” (1974) <#5 RPM>
Though
their music sounds tame by today’s standards, back in the late-60s, the
music of Steppenwolf was considered hard rock. It is perhaps more true
to say that their music was a big influence behind the establishment of
heavy metal music later on. In fact, in the band’s huge hit “Born to Be
Wild”, the term “heavy metal” is used for the first time in the lyrics
of a rock song:
…I like smoke and lightningHeavy metal thunderRacin’ with the windAnd the feelin’ that I’m under…
Steppenwolf
was formed in the year of Canada’s centennial birthday (1967) in
California by a naturalized Canadian citizen (born in East Prussia)
named John Kay.
Kay
fronted the Toronto-based outfit, Sparrow, two years prior. The band
made a big impact with their debut performance in Waterloo, Ontario. A
month later they supported Gary Lewis & The Playboys at Massey Hall
in Toronto. With their success, their manager took Sparrow to New York
arranging a record deal with Columbia Records. They released a couple of
singles, both of which failed to chart. They decided to move to
California and performed in gigs alongside The Doors and The Steve
Miller Band.
After the
move to Los Angeles, a couple of members left the band and new recruits
were called in. Canadian Dennis Edmonton, who’d been a member of
Sparrow, departed for a solo career under the stage name Mars Bonfire
but not before writing the aforementioned “Born to Be Wild”. His brother
Jerry Edmonton stayed with The Sparrows as their drummer. Their name
was changed to Steppenwolf after Hermann Hesse’s autobiographical novel
of the same name. (On a side note, Bruce Palmer left Sparrow to join
Neil Young’s Buffalo Springfield.)
Steppenwolf
released two singles, but rocketed to worldwide fame with their
third—“Born to Be Wild”—which was featured in the 1969 biker film Easy Rider,
during its opening credits with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding
their Harley choppers through the American west. The song has been
associated with motorcycles ever since. Steppenwolf’s cover of Hoyt
Axton’s “The Pusher” was featured in the film as well.
The band
was as successful with its single “Magic Carpet Ride” written by John
Kay. This song has been featured in several movies including Canadian
Mike Myers’ Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Steppenwolf
scored a Top 10 hit in the U.S. with “Rock Me”. The band released a
number of political concept albums over the next few years and went
through a few personnel changes.
They
disbanded in 1972 but after enthusiastic responses to reunion concerts,
they reunited in 1974, released a new album and their last Top 40 hit,
“Straight Shootin’ Woman”. They disbanded a second time in 1976. A
number of bogus versions of the band were assembled with various former
members for touring. In the 1980s, Kay reformed his own version of the
band performing their old hits and some new numbers but Steppenwolf will
always be remembered for their wild biker and magical carpet themes of
the late-60s. Jam’s Canadian Pop Encyclopedia adds:
In 1994,
on the eve of Steppenwolf’s 25th anniversary, Kay returned to the former
East Germany for a triumphant series of Steppenwolf concerts; that trip
reunited him with friends and relatives he had not seen since his early
childhood. The same year, Kay published his autobiography, “Magic
Carpet Ride”.
John Kay was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and was given a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2004.
The Band
Formed: 1967 in Toronto
Years Active: 1967-1976
Canadian Members:
– Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals)
– Richard Manuel (piano, harmonica, drums, saxophone, organ, vocals)
– Garth Hudson (organ, piano, clavinet, accordion, synthesizer, saxophone)
– Rick Danko (bass guitar, violin, trombone, vocals)
American Member:
– Levon Helm (drums, mandolin, guitar, bass guitar, vocals)
Genre: Rock
Achievements:
– Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1989)
– Robbie Robertson (member) Canadian Walk of Fame (2003)
– American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1994)
– Ranked #50 in Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Artists of All Time (2004)
– Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2008)
– Star on the Walk of Fame (2014)
Most Well-Known Songs:
– “The Weight” (1968)
– “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down” (1969)
– “Up On Cripple Creek” (1970) <#10 RPM>
– “Rag Mama Rag” (1970)
– “Life Is a Carnival” (1971) <#25 RPM>
– “Don’t Do It” (1972) <#11 RPM>
– “Ain’t Got No Home” (1974) <#35 RPM>
– “Ophelia” (1976)
– “Remedy” (1993) <#14 RPM>
The Band
is one of the most idiosyncratic phenomena in music history. They were
often used as a backing band by solo artists but they were their own
band. They were considered to be responsible for the purest American
music of the day, but they were not American, they were essentially
Canadian. They were embraced as strongly by music critics as The Beatles
or The Rolling Stones but to a significantly lesser degree by the
public. Their albums charted much better than their singles. Their
biggest hit—”Up On Cripple Creek”—peaked at only #25 on the Billboard
Pop Charts (1970). In contrast, they had three Top 10 albums (six if
those with Bob Dylan are included). Their album with Bob Dylan, Planet Waves
(1974) was #1 in the U.S.. The Band’s self-titled 1969 album went
platinum in the U.S.. Moreover, their singles tended to do better in
both Canada and the U.K. than in the U.S.. For example, their classic
“The Weight” (ranked #41 in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All
Time list, published in 2004) made it only to #63 on the American charts
but was a Top 40 hit in Britain.
Perhaps
one of the reasons they were loved by critics was that they were all
very talented musicians. Each member of the band could play several
instruments. Singers Manuel, Danko, and Helm each brought a distinctive
sound. Helm had an American twang that gave The Band a country flavour;
Manuel alternated between baritone and falsetto, and Danko was a tenor.
Robbie Robertson was the group’s chief songwriter and sang lead on only
three of their recorded songs.
Besides the critics, fellow artists lavished praise on them. Eric Clapton has said that he had wanted to join the group.
The Band
evolved from the backing group of American rockabilly singer Ronnie
Hawkins and later worked significantly with American artist Bob Dylan.
In 1958, Ronnie Hawkins and his backing band went to perform in Ontario
where they were paid more money than in the southern U.S.. The members
of the group left, one by one, and were replaced gradually by Canadian
musicians. Backing Hawkins, they were known as The Hawks. They were so
popular that Ronnie Hawkins became known as Toronto’s answer to Elvis
Presley. But, in 1963, with an overbearing personality, Hawkins became
the odd man out and was given the boot by his own group, the group of
Canadians that he’d assembled. The group became known as Levon and the
Hawks or The Canadian Squires and recorded a few singles including “The
Stones That I Throw”, a minor hit in Canada.
In 1965,
they went to the U.S. to serve as Bob Dylan’s backing band, The
Crackers, helping him in his transition from folk to rock. They released
their first album, Music From Big Pink in 1968, which includes their acclaimed song “The Weight”, a song featured in the biker flick Easy Rider.
Critics point out that the music on the album was an entirely different
style than what anyone else in the music business was doing at that
time. Bruce Eder says, “It was as though psychedelia, and the so-called
British Invasion, had never happened…. The press latched on to the album
before the public did, but over the next year, the Band became one of
the most talked about phenomena in rock music.”
The group
made their debut as The Band in 1969, releasing a self-titled album,
dominated by Robbie Robertson’s writing, that contained the songs “Up on
Cripple Creek”, “Rag Mama Rag”, and “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie
Down”. The latter was later covered by Joan Baez, making it to #3 on the
Billboard pop charts in 1971. And the former got them onto the Ed
Sullivan show and their popularity exploded. Their album peaked at #9 on
the Billboard charts and they embarked on their first tour as a
headlining act. In 1969, The Band performed at some of the biggest rock
festivals, including the legendary Woodstock Festival and the Toronto
Pop Festival at Varsity Stadium.
Their third album Stage Fright
was released the following year and made it to #5 on the Billboard
Album charts. The Band’s anxiety from the touring and sudden fame and
fortune may have resulted in the darker themes of the album. Robertson
began dominating their work and taking up the spotlight which led to
resentment from the other members. But Robertson felt that he had to
compensate for other members whose talents were becoming overtaken by
addiction and substance abuse. Despite their mounting disunity, they
were still able to train it to Canada to participate in the all-star
rock concert tour, Festival Express, with Janis Joplin and the Grateful
Dead.
The Band’s fourth album, Cahoots,
was released in 1971, its best-known tracks being “Life Is a Carnival”
and “Don’t Do It”. The former includes horn arrangements by Allen
Toussaint who was asked to do subsequent work for The Band. Both Stage Fright and Cahoots
were not well received by critics and The Band was worn out; they took a
lengthy break from both performing and recording new material. Their
next recording, Rock of Ages (1972), was a live album from their New Year’s Eve concert. In 1973, they released Moondog Matinee,
a collection of studio versions of the older songs that the group used
to perform on-stage and numbers from their days as The Hawks. In the
summer of that year, they performed at a huge rock concert, along with
The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers, on a race track in New York,
attended by some 600,000 people, a world attendance record at the time.
Two albums came out the following year: Before the Flood (Bob Dylan/Band tour album from shows earlier in the year) and Planet Waves (a Bob Dylan album that featured The Band).
The fact
that The Band was not recording any new material should be interpreted
as not all being well within the group. But in 1975, they mustered
somewhat of a comeback with the new album Northern Lights — Southern Cross,
presenting their first original material in four years. The album was
hailed their best since their self-titled sophomore effort and included
the use of synthesizers. All tracks on the album were written by
Robertson.
The Band
decided they were unhappy with Capitol Records and were offered a
multi-million dollar deal from Warner Brothers who were still kicking
themselves for not having signed the group back in ’67. But The Band had
a contractual obligation to record one more album for Capitol. The
result was Islands which was pretty much thrown together to
complete their 10-album deal with Capitol. Nevertheless the album had
its moments according to the critics. It was released in 1977.
By 1976,
it was too late to save the Band as a working ensemble. The individual
members had grown too far apart. They gave a final concert—“The Last
Waltz”—in November at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, the home
of their first gigs in 1969. Musical guests included Bob Dylan, Van
Morrison, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil
Diamond, and Canadians Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. A triple album of
the gig was eventually released by Warner Brothers in 1978 and a film
was made, directed by Martin Scorsese, who developed a working
relationship with Robbie Robertson. The two would work together on many
film projects over the years to come.
All
individual members released solo albums afterwards, none of which did
well. Because Robertson had dibs on royalties of The Band’s songs (being
their principal composer), he, unlike the others, was financially
secure. In order to earn money, the others, without Robertson, assembled
for various concert tours.
Helm, who has always disputed Robertson’s claim to the royalties, received applause for his acting debut in Coal Miner’s Daughter. In 2007 he released a solo album, Dirt Farmer, which was awarded a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album.
In 1986,
while on tour, Richard Manuel committed suicide by hanging himself in
his Florida motel room. Robertson joined the others for a memorial
concert in New York. And he released his first solo album the following
year which included a tribute to Manuel called “Fallen Angel”. This
self-titled album, which was produced by Canada’s Daniel Lanois
(co-producer for U2), won Album of the Year at the Junos. Robertson
himself was awarded a second Juno award for Male Artist of the Year. He
received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2003.
In 1989,
The Band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. At the
awards ceremony, Robertson, Danko, and Hudson performed with Blue Rodeo.
The Band was part of the international stellar cast in Roger Waters’
1990 production The Wall in Berlin, viewed by an estimated one billion people. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
In 1993,
The Band (without Robertson who was enjoying a successful solo career)
released their first original studio album in 16 years, Jericho. This was followed by High On the Hog (1996), and Jubilation (1998).
In late 1999, Rick Danko died in his sleep at age 56. Following his
death, The Band disbanded for good. In 2008, they received a Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award.
’60s Hybrid Bands
Previously,
we learned that many Canadian acts, like Hank Snow and Paul Anka, had
moved to the U.S. to bolster their careers. Now, with CBC radio firmly
established and the debut of CBC television in 1952, enabling artists to
gain significant exposure, many began remaining at home, like Bobby
Curtola. Moreover, foreign singers and bands began recording or settling
in Canada, even American artists (we’ll look at Heart later). Arriving
in Canada from Northern Ireland were The Irish Rovers who,
during a lengthy (especially performance-based) career, scored a few
hits including their 8 million selling cover of Shel Silverstein’s “The
Unicorn” in 1968 and their Juno-nominated smash “Wasn’t That a Party” in
1980. East Prussian born John Kay became a naturalized
Canadian citizen and founded the rock band Steppenwolf. An American
artist who ended up settling in Canada was Ronnie Hawkins. He started out as a solo artist with a backing band called The Hawks who broke with Hawkins to become their own hybrid band called The Band. What do I mean by “hybrid” band? Let me explain…
In the
middle of the 60s, Canada and the United States were swept up in
Beatlemania. The British Invasion knocked Paul Anka, Elvis, and a host
of acts off the charts. In order to combat this, Canadians and Americans
joined forces, coming together to create what I’m calling “hybrid
bands”. These were bands, some of whose members were Canadian and some
American. There were perhaps five very popular ones: The Band, Steppenwolf, The Mamas and the Papas, The Lovin’ Spoonful, and Blood Sweat and Tears.
The latter three were predominantly American outfits (only one member
in each band was Canadian), so we will just write a few notes on them.
The first two were primarily Canadian bands, so we will profile them.
Because it released only three albums and was never a big commercial
success (though highly regarded by rock critics and an inductee into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) we will not talk about Buffalo Springfield here, but later on we will mention them in conjunction with Neil Young whom we will profile in great detail.
Denny Doherty in The Mamas and the Papas
Denny
Doherty was a Canadian singer-songwriter who, with three Americans, were
The Mamas and The Papas, a hybrid band from 1965 to 1971. They released
five albums and scored ten hit singles, the biggest being “California
Dreamin’” (#4), “Monday, Monday” (#1), and “Dedicated to the One I Love”
(#2). Doherty co-wrote the bands’ songs “I Got a Feelin’”, “For the
Love of Ivy”, and “I Saw Her Again”, the latter reaching #5 on the
Billboard charts and, naturally, going #1 in Canada. Doherty was
inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996. The Mamas and The
Papas were inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1998.
Zal Yanovsky in The Lovin’ Spoonful
Zal
Yanovsky was a Canadian guitarist and singer who, from 1965 to 1967, was
in the short-lived hybrid band The Lovin’ Spoonful with three
Americans. They scored a number of hits; their three biggest all came in
1966—“Summer in the City” (#1 in both the U.S. and Canada), “Did You
Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind” (#2), and “Daydream” (#1 in Canada and
#2 in the U.S.). Zal Yanovsky was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall
of Fame in 1996. The Lovin’ Spoonful was inducted into the American Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
David Clayton-Thomas’ Blood, Sweat, and Tears
In 1968
Blood, Sweat and Tears recruited a Canadian lead singer: David
Clayton-Thomas. All other members were American. Clayton-Thomas is the
one who fronted the band when they rose to superstardom, and he is the
one who, unaided, composed one of their biggest hits—“Spinning Wheel”.
Their second album (self-titled) topped the Billboard charts, was the
third biggest of the year, and won the Grammy Award for Album of the
Year beating out The Beatles’ Abbey Road! Their follow up album (Blood, Sweat, and Tears 3),
released in 1970, also topped the charts. The band’s biggest hits were
all released in 1969, reached #2 on the Billboard Pop Charts, and went
#1 on the Canadian charts. These were a version of Laura Nyro’s “And
When I Die”, Clayton-Thomas’ “Spinning Wheel”, and a cover of Berry
Gordy and Brenda Holloway’s “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy”. David
Clayton-Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in
1996.
Gordon Lightfoot
Born: 1938, Orillia, Ontario
Debut: 1962
Genre: Folk
Some Achievements:
– Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1986)
– Canada Walk of Fame (1998)
– Four Juno Awards for Male Vocalist of the Year (1971, 72, 73, and 75)
– Cited as Canada’s male artist of the 1970s by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (1980)
– 20 Top 30, 10 Top 10, and 3 #1 Singles in Canada
– 14 Top 30, 8 Top 10, and 3 #1 Original Studio Albums in Canada
Biggest Hit:
“Sundown” (1974)
– 3rd biggest song of the year in Canada
– #1 Hit in the U.S.
Other #1 Hits:
– “If You Could Read My Mind” (1971)
– “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976)
Some Other Hits:
– “Remember I’m The One” (1962)
– “I’m Not Sayin’” (1965)
– “Spin Spin” (1966)
– “Go Go Round” (1967)
– “Talking in Your Sleep” (1971)
– “Summer Side of Life” (1971)
– “Beautiful” (1972)
– “You Are What I Am” (1972)
– “Carefree Highway” (1974)
– “Rainy Day People” (1975)
– “The Circle is Small” (1978)
Gordon
Lightfoot was perhaps the most significant Canadian male singer of the
1970s. He won Junos for Male Vocalist of the Year four times that
decade. Six of his songs made the yearly Top 100, a feat which only The
Guess Who matched. One of those songs—”Sundown”—finished as the 3rd
biggest song of the year 1974. Three of his original studio albums
topped the charts that decade, and an additional four made the Top 3.
But the man started out in the early 60s with a couple of major domestic
hits.
Lightfoot
began singing as a boy soprano in his church choir, then on local radio
stations and finally in Kiwanis festivals. When a teenager he learned
piano, drums, and guitar, sang in a barbershop quartet, and became an
accomplished high school athlete. After high school, he moved to Los
Angeles (1957-8) to study jazz composition. To support himself, he
wrote, arranged, and produced commercial jingles.
He
returned to Canada performing with CBC TV’s choral / dance group The
Swinging Eight. He took a liking to folk music and began performing in
Toronto cafés. In 1962, he released a couple of singles, one of which
did very well—”Remember I’m the One”. In ’63 he went to Britain to host
BBC TVs “Country and Western Show”. He became highly regarded as a
composer and many acts began performing his songs, like Marty Robbins,
Harry Belafonte, and Elvis Presley. Lightfoot’s “For Lovin’ Me” became a
hit for Peter, Paul and Mary.
He signed a
recording contract with United Artists in 1965 and released “I’m Not
Sayin’”. He made appearances at major folk festivals and The Tonight
Show and released his debut album—Lightfoot!—the following year
including classics like “For Lovin’ Me” and “Early Mornin’ Rain”. He
released three more albums in the 60s (plus a live album) and had a few
hits singles domestically. Outside of Canada, he was known better as a
songwriter. But all that changed in 1970, when, he, now with Warner
Bros., released the album Sit Down Young Stranger and its
single “If You Could Read My Mind”. The album went to #12 on the
Billboard Charts. The single went to #5 in the U.S., #1 in Canada, and
managed to crack the Top 30 in Britain.
He
continued churning out hits, his biggest coming in 1974. The album and
the single of the same name (Sundown) both topped the charts in the U.S.
as well as Canada where it finished as the 3rd biggest song of the
year. It was his first of two platinum original studio albums in the
States. His second was 1976′s Summertime Dream (also going
platinum in Canada). Its single “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” became
Lightfoot’s second biggest hit, topping the charts in Canada and
reaching #2 on the Billboard charts. His last Top 10 hit in Canada came
the following year: “The Circle is Small” but his albums continued to do
well. His 1993 work Waiting for You made the Top 30 in Canada.
In the 1980s, he averaged 40 to 50 concerts a year. In the 90s, touring
more than recording, he gave 60 to 70 concerts per year.
Gordon
Lightfoot never won a Grammy Award but was nominated four times. Other
artists who have recorded Lightfoot’s songs include Bob Dylan, Ian &
Sylvia, Glen Campbell, Anne Murray, Nana Mouskouri, Johnny Cash, Johnny
Mathis, John Mellencamp, and Barbra Streisand. Fellow Canadian Robbie
Robertson of The Band declared that Lightfoot was one of his “favourite
Canadian songwriters and is absolutely a national treasure.”
Gilles Vigneault
Born: 1928, Natashquan, Quebec
Debut: 1962
Genre: Folk
Most Well-Known Songs:
– “Jos Monferrand”
– “Jack Monnoloy”
– “Mon Pays”
– “Les gens de mon pays”
– “Gens du pays”
– “Pendant que”
– “Si les bateaux”
“A song is a small bridge between the banks of a river, between two people, or two cultures. [It] is most useful when it inspires someone to plant a tree, when it becomes a subtle device of seduction, or when it becomes a lullaby. These are all little bridges.”—Gilles Vigneault
With the
soul of a poet and bearing social, political, and environmental issues
close to his heart, Gilles Vigneault was one of the principal figures
who sculpted Québec folk music. He began crafting verse and composing
music in the 50s during his studies. He supported himself by working as a
library assistant and archivist. He also served as an algebra and
French teacher. At the end of the decade he founded his own publishing
house to distribute his works. Singer Jacques Labrecque covered
Vigneault’s first song, “Jos Monferrand”.
In the
early 60s, Gilles worked as a writer and host for CBC radio and TV in
Québec City. In the summer of 1960, at a music festival in the city, the
audience, asked him to sing some of his songs. He sang in public for
the first time which was well-received. He, thus, began singing
regularly at public events. This led to the release of his debut album
in 1962. For this, he was awarded the Grand prix du disque from Montréal
radio station CKAC.
He wrote
songs for other singers and reserved some for himself. Pauline Julien
sung his song “Jack Monnoloy” which won second prize at the
International Song Festival in Poland, 1964. Monique Leyrac performed
his song “Mon Pays” written for the film Il a Neigé sur la Manicougan, winning first prize at the same festival the following year.
“Mon Pays”
was the song that really catapulted Vigneault to superstardom,
prompting the city of Montréal to dedicate a float to him (and Leyrac)
during the annual St-Jean Baptiste parade. Thereafter, he began touring
Canada and Europe and appeared in a number of shows including Expo ’67
in Montréal and ’70 in Osaka.
In 1970,
Gilles was deeply affected by the October Crisis and wrote a number of
songs about it. Four years later, he participated in the Superfrancofête
show on the Plains of Abraham with fellow singers Robert Charlebois
(representing the younger generation) and Félix Leclerc (representing
the older generation). The outdoor concert was attended by some 130,000
people. The highlight of the concert was the three of them singing
together Raymond Lévesque’s “Quand les hommes vivront d’amour”.
In the
late 70s, Vigneault developed an interest in children’s music and
released a few albums, one which won him an award. In the 80s he
performed mostly in France. Montreal’s 350-year birthday party occurred
in 1992, at which Gilles performed before an audience of 70,000. In
2005, he released his first instrumental album. Vivre debout appeared in 2014 making it to #4 on the Billboard Canadian albums chart.
Over the
years, Gilles Vigneault has received a number of honourary doctorates
and won a number of awards at home and abroad. A school in Marseilles,
France is named for him. His songs have been covered by scores of
Canadian and European singers.
Ian & Sylvia
Formed: 1959, Toronto
Debut: 1962
Disbanded: 1975
Members:
– Ian Tyson (b. 1933 in Victoria, B.C.)
– Sylvia Fricker (b. 1940 in Chatham, Ontario)
Genre: Folk
Achievements:
– Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1992)
Biggest Song:
“Four Strong Winds” (1963)
– Considered one of the greatest folk songs of all-time
– Determined by a CBC poll to be the most essential piece of Canadian music
– Covered by scores of artists
Some Other Popular Songs:
– “You Were On My Mind”
– “Someday Soon”
– “Lovin’ Sound”
– “Last Lonely Eagle”
– “Everybody Has to Say Goodbye”
– “Play One More”
– “Summer Wages”
– “The Renegade”
Ian and
Sylvia (Tyson) were a husband and wife duo who blew everyone away with
their beautiful folk songs in the 1960s. They have been credited with
being the first Canadian folk act to command a large international
following. Music critic Richie Unterberger writes of Ian & Sylvia:
. . . they were overlooked influences upon early folk-rockers such as the Jefferson Airplane, the We Five, the Mamas and the Papas, and Fairport Convention, all of whom utilized similar blends of male/female lead/harmony vocals. They were also inspirations to fellow Canadian singer/songwriters such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Gordon Lightfoot. . . . they helped expand the range of folk by adding bass (sometimes played by Spike Lee’s father Bill) and mandolin to Ian’s guitar and Sylvia’s autoharp. Just as crucially, they ranged far afield for their repertoire, which encompassed not just traditional folk ballads, but bluegrass, country, spirituals, blues, hillbilly, gospel, and French-Canadian songs.
Ian Tyson
was born in Victoria in 1933. He had dreamed of becoming a cowboy and
began competing in rodeos. After sustaining injuries in a fall, he took
up the guitar. He started out playing as a regular at Vancouver’s
Heidelberg Café in 1956. He then became guitarist for Jerry Fyander and
the Seasonal Stipes but felt his musical career was not going anywhere,
so he relocated to Toronto in 1959 playing gigs full-time in local cafés
trying to break into the music market. He met singer/actor Don Francks
first, and then Sylvia Fricker.
Sylvia Fricker was born in Chatham, Ontario in 1940. While in her teens, she frequented the folk clubs in Toronto.
When they
teamed up, they both played guitars and sang in harmony. Sylvia played
the autoharp on occasion. In 1961, they performed at the Mariposa Folk
Festival. In the early 60s Canada and the U.S. were swept up in a folk
revival. The duo quickly moved to the forefront of the movement. They
went down to New York in 1962 later catching the attention of Albert
Grossman (manager of Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary). Grossman got
them a contract with Vanguard Records and they released their first
album later that year. This debut consisted primarily of traditional
British, Canadian, and French folk songs and a couple of blues numbers.
Its moderate success got them on the list of performers in the Newport
Folk Festival in 1963.
It was the duo’s second album, Four Strong Winds,
that secured their breakthrough. Its title-track has become one of the
most famous folk songs of all-time. Not only did it become a big hit in
Canada, it became a lasting hit. It has been covered by a number of
artists since, including but not limited to Johnny Cash, The Searchers,
The Seekers, Bobby Bare, and The Kingston Trio. Perhaps the most famous
cover is the one by fellow-Canadian Neil Young in 1978.
In 1964, Ian and Sylvia married then released their third album Northern Journey.
This featured Sylvia’s best-known composition: the bluesy “You Were on
My Mind”. It’s poppier cover by the We Five became one of the first big
folk-rock hits, charting internationally. The album also contained a
composition from Ian that rivaled “Four Strong Winds” in
popularity—“Someday Soon”.
In the duo’s fourth album, Early Morning Rain (1965), they introduced Canada’s emerging folk artist Gordon Lightfoot by presenting a couple of his compositions. Play One More,
their fifth album, showcased a more electrified live style that was
becoming popular with groups like the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Byrds. In
1966, Ian & Sylvia appeared on BBC TV in Britain and the following
year in New York at Carnegie Hall.
In 1967,
they were featured on a weekly program on CBC television and released
two albums, which were a turn towards the pop mainstream. When their
contract ended with Vanguard, they switched to MGM and with this change
and their experimentations with country and country-rock, their
popularity steadily declined.
In 1968,
they formed a full band called The Great Speckled Bird which was later
to influence the styles of Poco and The Eagles. The band, composed of
some of the highest-profile session musicians in the business, like
David Wilcox, was a free-form country-jazz instrumental experiment.
Positive response to performances of the band inspired them to release
an album on the Ampex label. Ampex however was in the midst of folding.
It failed to establish widespread distribution, and thousands of copies
of the album never left the warehouse. The album has become a much
sought-after collector’s item and is considered a classic of the
country-rock genre. The Great Speckled Bird performed at Expo 70 in
Japan and the Atlanta Pop Festival.
In the mid
70s, the duo of Ian & Sylvia had run out of steam and split both
professionally and personally. Ian moved to Alberta engaging in ranching
and Sylvia in broadcasting. She moved more towards pop music as a solo
artist. Later on, Ian began making records again, as a soloist, doing
country. His 80s and 90s albums have received tremendous critical
acclaim in Canada.
On a
positive note, despite their divorce, the two have maintained a
friendship ever since and have even reunited on occasion. In 1986, they
participated in a special live performance with guests Gordon Lightfoot,
Murray McLauchlan, Emmylou Harris, and Judy Collins.
Ginette Reno
Born: 1946, Montreal, Quebec
Debut: 1961
Genres: Pop / Adult Contemporary
Achievements:
– Canadian Walk of Fame
– Juno Award in 1970 for Best Female Singer
– Juno Awards in 1972 and 1973 for Most Outstanding Performance by a Female
– Released 60 albums
Biggest Hit:
“Je ne suis qu’une chanson” (1979)
– Title-track from the album that sold 387,000 copies in Quebec.
Some Other Hit Singles:
– “Non papa”
– “J’aime Guy”
– “Tu vivras toujours dans mon coeur”
– “Beautiful Second Hand Man”
– “T’es mon amour, t’es ma maîtresse”
– “Les Yeux fermés”
– “Aimez-le si fort”
– “La Dernière Valse”
– “Reste auprès de moi”
– “Le Sable et la mer”
– “À ma manière”
“What a Colossus of the stage, what a magnificent performer, what a voice, what soul, what warmth she radiates… Ginette Reno is music pure and simple, music with no nationality, no boundaries, ageless, beyond time. Ginette Reno is the soul of music, a succession of notes that she rethinks, reworks, to which she gives new life and finally delivers to us through her own view of things, her warmth, her voice and her incredible talent.”—Pierre Beaulieu, Montreal La Presse, 1 Jun 1977
Ginette
Reno was born in eastern Montreal in 1946. She is not only a singer but a
composer, author, and actress. Over the span of her four-decade career,
she has released some 60 albums. She has been lauded by many Quebec
singers as their inspiration, including international superstar Celine
Dion. Fluent in both French and English, Reno, like Celine Dion, has
performed songs in both languages.
Reno was
born Ginette Raynault and, while still young, began attracting large
crowds by singing in front of her father’s butcher shop at St. Lawrence
market. This led to her participation in amateur singing contests,
finishing first in most. She hired a singing coach and paid him with
money she earned by delivering newspapers. She started performing in
nightclubs and released her first single in 1961 (“Non Papa” / “J’aime
Guy”). Its success turned her into a star. She scored a huge hit in 1964
with “Tu Vivras Toujours Dans Mon Coeur”. She began performing at some
of the provinces and country’s most prestigious venues including Place
des Arts (PDA) and the National Arts Centre (NAC). She also performed at
Expo ’67 in Montreal.
In 1969,
Reno performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and signed a
recording contract with Decca which made her an international star. She
gave two shows on BBC TV. Due to popular demand, she returned to London
the following year to sing at the Savoy Theatre and in 1971 to host a
series of shows with African-born British singer Roger Whittaker.
Because English Canadian radio and television normally snub French
songs, Reno had to record a song in English to become known to Canadian
anglophones. In 1970, her “Beautiful Second Hand Man” was a big hit,
reaching No. 6 on the CHUM chart. She won a Juno Award that year for
Best Female Vocalist. In 1972, Reno participated in the Tokyo
International Song Festival and won first prize. She had another hit
with Jean-Pierre Ferland in 1974 called “T’es Mon Amour, T’es Ma
Maîtresse”.
In the
mid-70s, while continuing with her singing career, Reno stayed in Los
Angeles to study at Lee Strasberg’s Studio of Dramatic Art. In 1978, she
appeared on popular American shows Merv Griffin, Dinah Shore, and The
Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
In 1979, Reno released her all-time biggest hit, the title-track from the album Je Ne Suis Qu’une Chanson.
Despite a big economic recession in the Province, the album managed to
sell 387,000 copies. Given that Quebec at the time had a population of
about 6.5 million, this meant that 6% of all seniors, adults, youth and
children bought a copy, making it a “2x diamond” album in the Province.
In 1980, Ginette co-hosted the Juno Awards with pop-pianist Frank Mills.
She toured France but, according to the Canadian Music Encyclopedia,
“she never was successful there”.
Her drama schooling in Los Angeles proved to be a wise move as she made her film debut in Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo
in 1991. Throughout the 90s, she continued with her acting, starring in
some TV series and movies. In 2003, she starred with Paul Sorvino in
the Canadian movie Mambo Italiano. Between her acting stints,
Reno has continued to record, winning numerous awards. In 1998, she
released her first English album since 1979—Love Is All. In 2009, Ginette Reno released Fais Moi La Tendresse, which topped Canada’s album charts, booting U2′s No Line on the Horizon from the No. 1 spot. And in 2011, her La musique en moi won the Felix award for album of the year.
Bobby Curtola
Born: 1943, Port Arthur, Ontario
Debut: 1960
Genre: Pop
Achievements:
– RPM Gold Leaf Award (Pre-Juno) in 1965/6 for Male Vocalist of the Year
– First Canadian singer to have a gold LP.
– Released some 50 singles and 15-20 albums
– 70% of his singles made the Top Ten.
Biggest Hit:
“Fortune-Teller” (1962)
– Sold 2 million copies.
Some Other Hit Singles:
– “Aladdin”
– ”As Long as I’m Sure of You”
– “Alone and Lonely”
– “It’s About Time”
– “Walkin with My Angel”
– “Mean Woman Blues”
– “Makin’ Love”
– “Forget Her”
– “While I’m Away”
– “Real Thing”
– “Don’t Sweetheart Me”
– “Three Rows Over”
– “Indian Giver”
– “Hitchhiker”
In 1960,
Bobby Curtola, with his first hit “Hand in Hand with You”, became
Canada’s second big pop star and teen idol after Paul Anka hit the
airwaves in 1957. He had scores of hit singles, the biggest being
“Fortune Teller” in 1962.
In 1943
(some sources say 1944) in Port Arthur, Ontario, Bobby Curtola was born.
He began singing at high school dances and at age 15 formed a rock band
called Bobby and the Bobcats. His skills attracted the attention of
songwriting brothers Basil and Dyer Hurdon who owned the record label
Tartan. They wrote the song “Hand in Hand with You” which they recorded
with Curtola in 1959/60. Its moderate success encouraged them to write
more songs for Curtola and they became his managers, carefully arranging
his record releases and club dates, and forming his fan club.
In 1962,
Curtola released “Fortune Teller” and its double A-side “Johnny Take
Your Time” which became his biggest hit, selling two million copies and
charting in the U.S.. He scored a second international hit with
“Aladdin”. This big break erupted into a string of hits during the
fiercely competitive British Invasion years that knocked most Canadian
and American singers off the charts.
Bobby
Curtola was Canada’s only teen-idol in the early 60s and specialized in
what were dubbed “rock-a-ballads”. His voice was described as a “silvery
tenor” with a “soft-sweet quality”. In 1967, Bobby toured Canada and
the following year switched to a nightclub career. By this time, he had
released 46 singles, 32 of which had made the Top Ten! He made a guest
appearance on the Bob Hope Show. After 1972, he spent part of the year
performing in Las Vegas, opening for Louis Armstrong. Like Paul Anka,
Las Vegas offered him a multimillion dollar contract.
He
recorded occasionally in the 80s. In the 90s there was an “oldies”
revival and RCA offered him a 5-album deal. He toured Canada and
Malaysia in 1998 and Europe in 2001.
Unlike
Paul Anka who left us and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, Bobby
Curtola stayed in Canada, proving that it was possible to succeed in pop
music and remain at home. This paved the way for later Canadian pop
musicians. Curtola performed the first commercial to sound like a hit
pop record: “Things Go Better with Coke”.
Curtola is
married with two sons, and currently lives in Edmonton. He still
performs across Canada, Las Vegas and even the Princess Cruise Lines.
Biggest Hits of the Early 60s
Canada did not have a national singles chart until mid-1964. Below, from various sources, are big hits by Canadian artists that made the year-end charts. Because the sources are different and different charts calculate the relative positions of the songs by different means, take the positions with a grain of salt. We place them here simply to give an idea of some of the more popular songs of the early 1960s.
1960
| Song | Artist | Pos |
| Theme From a Summer Place | Percy Faith | 1 |
| What in the World’s Come Over You | Jack Scott* | 14 |
| Puppy Love | Paul Anka | 23 |
| Burning Bridges | Jack Scott* | 35 |
| It’s Time to Cry | Paul Anka | 66 |
| My Home Town | Paul Anka | 77 |
| * Part Canadian | ||
| Source: US Billboard |
1961
| Song | Artist | Pos |
| Classmate | Beau-Marks | 18 |
| Don’t You Sweetheart Me | Bobby Curtola | 40 |
| Hitchhiker | Bobby Curtola | 76 |
| I’ll Never Be Alone Anymore | Bobby Curtola | 100 |
| Source: CHUM, Toronto |
1962
| Song | Artist | Pos |
| Fortune Teller / Johnny Take Your Time |
Bobby Curtola | 21 |
| Remember I’m the One | Gordon Lightfoot | 50 |
| I’ve Been Everywhere | Hank Snow | 82 |
| Mr. Heartache | Pat Hervey | 93 |
| Source: CHUM, Toronto |
1963
| Song | Artist | Pos |
| Charlena | Richie Knight & The Mid-Knights | 16 |
| Three Rows Over | Bobby Curtola | 24 |
| Indian Giver | Bobby Curtola | 28 |
| Any Other Way | Jackie Shane | 40 |
| Source: CHUM, Toronto |
1964
| Song | Artist | Pos |
| The French Song | Lucille Star | 21 |
| Big Town Boy | Shirley Matthews | 37 |
| Source: CHUM, Toronto |
Homemade Rock (1960-1963)
Montréal’s
The Beau-Marks have been credited with releasing the first hit rock
recording made entirely in Canada. The song was “Clap Your Hands” and
the year was 1960. It quickly scaled the charts all the way to number
one. It was also released in the U.S., Europe, and Australia where it
was the 5th biggest song of the year. A French version was recorded too,
called “Frappe Tes Mains”. The following year they scored a big hit
with “Classmate”. The Beau-Marks differed considerably from 50s vocal
ensembles The Crew-Cuts, The Diamonds, and The Four Lads in that they
were a pure rock band that composed most of its own material.
Unfortunately, despite incredible popularity and performances in New
York’s Carnegie Hall and TV’s American Bandstand, the group disbanded
after releasing only three albums.
Rock bands sprang up all over Canada, perhaps most notably in Québec where rock and roll was called by the French name Yé-Yé. Music historian Richard Baillargeon noted that there were 500 yé-yé bands in the province, 50 of which had significant careers. The Mégatones kicked things off with their album Voici les Mégatones in 1962. The single “Rideau S.V.P.” became a classic.
While Canada, as a federation, was struggling to establish its own unique cultural identity in the midst of strong British and American influences, Québec was striving to define its own character within Canada. One of the most important musical figures that helped sculpt such a distinctive portrait was folk artist Gilles Vigneault.
Other big stars in Québec were folk singer Claude Gauthier (“Ton Nom” and “Le Grand Six Pieds”), Claude Léveillée, Clemence Desrochers (though better known as an actress), and Donald Lautrec. Pianist and composer André Gagnon was instrumental in accompanying and writing for many of these stars, especially Léveillée. We’ll talk more about him later. Monique Leyrac performed covers of these singers’ songs on TV, bringing them to the attention of English Canada.
Canada‘s subsequent pop stars after Paul Anka were Ginette Reno, who went on to release over 60 albums in both French and English over the years, and Canada’s next teen-idol, Bobby Curtola, who ended up releasing some 50 singles, many of which made the Top Ten. His biggest hit, “Fortune-Teller” came in 1962, selling millions of copies worldwide. Richie Knight & The Mid-Knights had one of the biggest hits of the early 60s: 1963′s “Charlena”. Also big that year was Jackie Shane‘s “Any Other Way”.
Homegrown folk artists starting out in the early 60s included the husband-wife team of Ian & Sylvia (“Four Strong Winds”) and Canada’s polka king Walter Ostanek. Folk-pop superstar, Gordon Lightfoot, made his debut in 1962 with the hit “Remember I’m The One”. He became a huge international success in the 1970s. With the growth of Canadian music, artists from other countries began covering Canadian songs. Bonnie Dobson‘s 1961 hit “Morning Dew” was covered by Lulu in 1968.
Links
Hits of the Early 60s
Bobby Curtola
Ginette Reno
Ian & Sylvia
Gilles Vigneault
Gordon Lightfoot
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CANADA
Category: 1950s
Biggest Hits of the 1950s
Below,
from U.S. Billboard Magazine, are big hits by Canadian artists that made
the year-end charts. Foreign artists with whom Canadians collaborated
are in blue.
| 1952 | ||
| Song | Artist | Pos |
| Cry | Johnnie Ray & The Four Lads | 3 |
| Delicado | Percy Faith | 10 |
| Please Mr. Sun | Johnnie Ray & The Four Lads | 30 |
| 1953 | ||
| The Song from Moulin Rouge | Percy Faith | 1 |
| 1954 | ||
| Sh-Boom | The Crew-Cuts | 4 |
| 1955 | ||
| Moments to Remember | The Four Lads | 17 |
| Hard to Get | Gisele MacKenzie | 26 |
| 1956 | ||
| No, Not Much | The Four Lads | 20 |
| Standing on the Corner | The Four Lads | 29 |
| 1957 | ||
| Little Darlin’ | The Diamonds | 3 |
| Diana | Paul Anka | 24 |
| 1958 | ||
| The Stroll | The Diamonds | 48 |
| 1959 | ||
| Lonely Boy | Paul Anka | 5 |
| Put Your Head on My Shoulder | Paul Anka | 12 |
Jean-Pierre Ferland
Born: 1934, Montreal
Debut: 1959
Genre: Folk, Pop / Rock
Biggest Hits:
– “Feuilles de gui”
– “Je reviens chez nous”
– “T’es mon amour, t’es ma maîtresse”
– “Les Immortelles”
– “Fleurs de macadam”
– “Ton visage”
– “Rue Sanguinet”
– “Avant de m’assagir”
– “Le Petit roi”
– “Ste-Adèle P.Q.”
– “Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin”
– “Marie-Claire”
– “Quand on aime on a toujours 20 ans”
– “Androgyne”
The All
Music Guide calls Jean-Pierre Ferland “one of the great
singer/songwriters Quebec has produced, second only to Félix Leclerc and
Gilles Vigneault”. The Canadian Music Encyclopedia calls him “a
romantic singer par excellence”.
Ferland
began his musical career as a clerk for CBC Montreal in the 50s when his
workmates encouraged him to develop his already-gifted vocal talent.
After leaving his desk job, he began performing as a folk singer and
made his recording debut in 1959, appearing that same year as a singer
on the show “Music Hall”. In 1962, Ferland’s song “Feuilles de gui” won
awards at home and abroad (the grand prize at the Gala Internationale de
la Chanson in Brussels). That year he performed a show in Paris and
co-hosted a CBC program at home. In 1963, Jean-Pierre won the best
singer prize at an international song festival in Poland. For the
remainder of the ’60s, he put on a number of concerts, performed on TV,
and kept winning various awards. His “Je reviens chez nous” in ’68
became a classic throughout the French-speaking world.
Legend has
it that Jean-Pierre Ferland attended Robert Charlebois’ 1968 cult
event, L’Osstidcho, and left in tears, acknowledging that the great
Québécois chanson would never be the same. But Ferland himself began a
major shift in musical style that manifested itself with the release of
the pop-rock classic Jaune in 1970. Ferland performed at the International Expo in Osaka, Japan and, by the end of the year, Jaune had sold 60,000 copies. One rock critic calls Jaune
“a brilliant art rock album that redefined the Quebec recording
industry; it is Quebec’s own Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
Incidentally, this album appears as the only one from a francophone
soloist in Bob Mersereau’s controversial “Top 100 Canadian Albums”,
resulting from his survey of 600 music journalists, deejays, retailers,
and musicians of all ages from all over Canada.
Ferland’s aesthetic change was confirmed with his psychedelic rock release, Soleil, the following year. In 1974, he recorded “T’es mon amour, t’es ma maîtresse” with Ginette Reno.
Two years later, Jean-Pierre began working on films as an actor, writer, and musician, the first being Chanson pour Julie.
With four other Quebec superstars, he performed in Quebec city during
their Heritage Week and then in Montreal for the St-Jean-Baptiste
celebrations. He was featured in a 1978 CBC English TV super-special
called “Between Chopin and William Tell”.
During the
80s, Jean-Pierre Ferland slowed down as a composer and focused on
hosting TV programs. He made a triumphant comeback in the mid-90s when
he released Écoute Pas Ça, a critical and commercial success.
Having composed over 450 songs and released over 30 albums, Ferland was
appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1996 and is now
considered one of the best singer/songwriters, not only in Quebec but in
the entire French-speaking world. In 2007, he was inducted into the
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He performed with Celine Dion on the
Plains of Abraham in 2008.
Paul Anka
Born: 1941, Ottawa, Ontario
Debut: 1955
Genres: Pop / Adult Contemporary / Jazz
Achievements:
– Canadian Music Hall of Fame
– Canadian Walk of Fame
– Hollywood Walk of Fame
– Juno Award in 1975 for Composer of the Year
– Wrote over 400 songs
– 3 Number One Hits, 13 Top Ten Hits, 25 Top Thirty Hits
Biggest Hits:
“Diana” (1957)
– Peaked at #1 on the charts.
– 2nd biggest-selling single of all-time worldwide.
“Lonely Boy” (1959)
– Peaked at #1 on the charts.
– 4th biggest single of the year in Canada.
– 5th biggest single of the year in the U.S.
Top 20 Hit Singles:
<Peak Chart Position in the Billboard Hot 100>
– “Crazy Love” (1958) <#15>
– “Let the Bells Keep Ringing” (1958) <#16>
– “You Are My Destiny” (1958) <#7>
– “My Heart Sings” (1959) <#15>
– “It’s Time to Cry” (1959) <#4>
– “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” (1959) <#2>
– “My Home Town” (1960) <#8>
– “Puppy Love” (1960) <#2>
– “Summer’s Gone” (1960) <#11>
– “Dance On Little Girl” (1961) <#10>
– “Tonight My Love, Tonight” (1961) <#13>
– “The Story of My Love” (1961) <#16>
– “Eso Beso (That Kiss!)” (1962) <#19>
– “Love Me Warn and Tender” (1962) <#12>
– “A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine” (1962) <#13>
– “You’re Having My Baby” (1974) <#1>
– “I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone” (1975) <#8>
– “I Believe There’s Nothing Stronger” (1975) <#15>
– “One Man Woman/One Woman Man” (1975) <#7>
– “Times of Your Life” (1976) <#7>
Peak Positions in the Canadian RPM charts (from mid-1964 onward):
– “Goodnight My Love” (1969) <#23>
– “Do I Love You” (1972) <#16>
– “You’re Having My Baby” (1974) <#1>
– “Let Me Get to Know You” (1974) <#13>
– “I Believe There’s Nothing Stronger” (1975) <#1>
– “I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone” (1975) <#1>
– “One Man Woman, One Woman Man” (1975) <#4>
– “Make It Up to Me in Love” (1977) <#34>
Hits He Wrote for Others*:
– “My Way” (1969) – for Frank Sinatra
– “She’s a Lady” (1971) – for Tom Jones
– Theme of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962)
* Although he composed these for other singers, for some of them, he sang his own version as well.
David
Cobb in Canadian Magazine quoted a Parisian reviewer commenting about
Paul Anka after seeing him perform in Paris: “A finger of Johnnie Ray, a
touch of Frankie Laine, the zest of Elvis Presley, several drops of the
Platters – shake and serve. That’s the Paul Anka cocktail.”
Simply
put, Paul Anka was Canada’s first international rock and roll superstar,
first teen-idol, and should be regarded as the godfather of Canadian
pop.
He was
born into a tightly-knit family in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. His
parents owned a two-storey restaurant and lounge, The Locanda, which was
a popular hangout for the city’s Lebanese community and offered free
meals to singers who performed there. When Paul became a teenager, he
knew he wanted to be a singer and in show business. His father felt that
show business was not legit and that he should become a proper
businessman. But through the support of his mother, his dad gradually
softened up. He studied some piano and sang in the St. Elijah Syrian
Orthodox Church choir.
He began
to sing everywhere and assembled a vocal group called the Bobbysoxers.
Among the venues where they performed was a local topless club. Anka
says he was too young to be there, so they made him remain in the
dressing room when he wasn’t on stage. Even gutsier was his practice of
secretly borrowing his mother’s car, before he was old enough to obtain a
license, to drive across the river to Hull, Quebec to perform. One
night, the car broke down on the bridge and he kept pushing it on in
first gear until the piston shot through the hood.
In those
days, New York City was the end-all and be-all of the world’s
entertainment industry. Anka dreamed of going. He discovered a contest
put on by Campbell’s Soup of collecting labels, the victor winning a
free trip to New York. He spent three months’ collecting the soup labels
and won the contest. He was mesmerized by the city and vowed to return.
In the
summer of 1956, Anka went to Los Angeles to visit his uncle. He worked
at a playhouse selling snacks during intermissions. Everyday he would go
through the yellow pages and call record companies to ask for an
audition. One day his uncle drove him to Modern Records / RPM and he
performed a song he wrote called “Blau-Wile Deveest Fontaine”. He was
signed onto this same label as B.B. King and John Lee Hooker, among
others. The song became the flipside of “I Confess” and was released as a
single that year. It did not become as successful as Anka had hoped.
When he
returned home, at only 14 years of age, he was invited to appear on CBC
TV’s shows “Pick the Stars” and “Cross-Canada Hit Parade”. His parents
suggested that, in case his career in singing fails to take off, he
should have a backup plan of something more practical. So, while still
writing songs, Anka took some journalism courses and landed a job with
the Ottawa Citizen (newspaper). Whenever there was a rock concert in
Ottawa—Fats Domino, The Platters, Chuck Berry*—Anka was there, always
attempting to make it backstage to meet the stars. He succeeded in
sneaking into Domino’s dressing room to get his autograph. Manager
Irving Feld caught him and kicked him out but not before Anka suggested
that he take down his name so he could hire him for one of his shows one
day. During those days in Ottawa, Anka also met and befriended such
Canadian acts as The Diamonds and The Four Lads.
___________
*A piece of trivia: apparently Chuck Berry was inspired to write his song “Sweet Little Sixteen” after seeing an Ottawa fan.
___________
Breakthrough … More Like Smashthrough
Later that
year, Paul’s parents gave him $100 to return to New York to visit
record companies with some of the new songs he had written. He stayed at
the President Hotel with the group The Rover Boys who introduced him to
ABC-Paramount producer Don Costa. Anka sang to him a song he wrote
about a former babysitter. The song’s name was “Diana”. Costa liked it
and the song was recorded. At 16, Paul was too young to sign the
recording contract, so his father came down to New York to sign on
Paul’s behalf. The song was sent to radio stations around the
English-speaking world. Everyone sat back and watched it scale the
charts, higher and higher, on both sides of the Atlantic. When it
reached number one, Paul Anka was now an international pop star and teen
idol. “Diana” went on to sell over 10 million copies, becoming the
second biggest of all-time after Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”.
Promoters
began to ring up Anka expressing their desire to send him on a world
tour. As fate would have it, the man who’d kicked Anka out of Fats
Domino’s dressing room, and who’d been told by Anka to take down his
name in case he needed him in the future—Irving Feld—arranged Anka’s
tour and became his manager. In late 1957, Paul Anka embarked on a
91-city tour of Canada, the U.K., and the U.S.. Later in 1958, he toured
Japan and then, with Buddy Holly, Australia. He also became the first
pop star from North America to play behind the Iron Curtain. Feld ended
up saving Anka from the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly as is
explained in Canada’s Jam Pop Encyclopedia:
[Paul Anka] also did a set of concert dates at the Olympia in Paris, breaking all previous attendance records. It was in 1959 that Anka appeared in Feld’s biggest rock n’ roll show of all [The Winter Dance Party Tour]—it featured Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, Dion and the Belmonts, and others. Fate sidestepped Anka when Feld told him the he wanted him to stay because he’d promised his father he’d keep an eye on him, thus missing the fateful plane crash of February 3, 1959 that killed Holly, the Big Bopper and Valens.
Prior to
Holly’s demise, Anka wrote a #1 hit song for him that became one of his
last: “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”. “Diana” was followed up with several
more songs that did well on the charts: “It’s Time to Cry”, “My Heart
Sings”, “You Are My Destiny”, “Crazy Love”, “Put Your Head On My
Shoulder”, “Puppy Love”, “My Home Town”, and “Dance on Little Girl”.
Reminiscing about his string of hits, Don Costa said in 1975, “He just
couldn’t write a bad song”.
He was also invited to appear in a couple of motion pictures in addition to writing songs featured in them. These included The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (with Mickey Rooney) and Girls Town.
Though both films are considered by most as turkeys, the song “Lonely
Boy”, featured in the latter film was another number one hit and the 4th
biggest song of the year 1959 (5th in the U.S.).
Shedding Hair
There
comes a time in every young man’s life, when, with impending hair loss,
hormone deceleration, and a mutating metabolism, the realization takes
hold that one cannot be a teen machine forever. Anka found that the
strenuous rock and roll grind was repressing rather than utilizing his
talents, and began to change his style and image into a lounge act. He
debuted at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas and became the youngest artist
to headline the Copacabana in New York. It was June 1960; Anka was 20
years old and a millionaire. Instead of resting on his laurels and
sailing off into the sunset, he continued catering to the adult market
and scoring songs for movies in which he starred. Such films included Look In Any Window (1961) and The Longest Day (1962). His theme-song for the latter film was nominated for an Oscar.
In 1962,
Anka left ABC-Paramount, which sent shockwaves through the recording
industry. He also stunned everyone by making a bold but incredibly smart
business move: he bought the rights to all his songs. The record
company settled on a quarter-million dollars and told him he was nuts.
But with countless reissues and covers of his songs over the years, he
made a fortune. Anka felt strongly about owning the rights to his own
songs, so he made a landmark deal with his new record company—RCA
Victor—in which he produced his own masters through his own company for
release on RCA. His new songs, however, became only moderate hits.
Perhaps his biggest success was composing the theme song for The Tonight
Show starring Johnny Carson which debuted in 1962.
Rock stars
are notorious for attracting women and, by this point, you are probably
wondering about Paul’s love life. He had written the song “Puppy Love”
for Mouseketeer and actress Annette Funicello. The two were dating but
their hectic careers presented too much of a strain for them to continue
with their relationship. Anka ended up marrying a European model named
Anne DeZogheb. They tied the knot in Paris in 1963.
The
British invasion, with the Beatles leading the march, was blamed for
stalling the careers of many North American singers like Paul Anka. He
later commented that he saw the Beatles perform in Paris and bought some
of their records but didn’t think they’d wipe everyone in the U.S. and
Canada off the charts. But that’s exactly what they did.
Anka did
manage three or four noteworthy hits after the British Invasion in the
60s. He must have figured that if the Europeans could storm the American
charts, why can’t North Americans score on the European charts. He
spent considerable time performing in Europe, and his song “Ogni Volta”
was the first multi-million seller in Italian history. When in North
America, he worked primarily in Las Vegas hanging out with the “Rat
Pack” and Frank Sinatra.
I’ll Do It My Way
What
ultimately turned Anka’s career around in the U.S. and Canada was a
string of events at the end of the decade that began during a visit to
France in 1968. Paul was listening to the radio and heard the Claude
Francois song “Come d’Habitude”. He felt there was something to the song
and sought to buy the rights. He succeeded at no cost.
Later on,
Paul was having dinner with Frank Sinatra and a few friends. Sinatra
told him he was quitting the business, that he was sick of it. Anka was
devastated. He really looked up to Sinatra and couldn’t believe he was
retiring. He decided he had to do something.
At one
o’clock in the morning in his New York apartment during a thunderstorm,
Paul Anka sat down at his piano, pulling out the song he’d heard in
France. He subtly reworked the melody and began to think up some English
lyrics. “What would Frank say if he were singing this melody?” he
thought while playing it on the piano over and over again. And the words
began to come out. “And now the end is near, and so I face the final
curtain…”. Wikipedia quotes Paul as saying:
I read a lot of periodicals, and I noticed everything was “my this” and “my that”. We were in the “me generation” and Frank became the guy for me to use to say that. I used words I would never use: “I ate it up and spit it out.” But that’s the way he talked. I used to be around steam rooms with the Rat Pack guys – they liked to talk like Mob guys, even though they would have been scared of their own shadows.
He
finished off the song at 5AM. He called up Sinatra who was at Caesar’s
Palace in Las Vegas and played him the song. Sinatra was blown away and
wanted to record it immediately. Apparently, Anka’s record company was
furious, thinking that he should have kept the song for himself. But
Anka had written it for Sinatra. Frank Sinatra recorded the song in only
two takes in less than half an hour. He rang up Paul in New York and
played it for him over the phone. Anka says, “I started crying. It was
the turning point of my career.” The song, of course, was “My Way” and
was released in 1969. Not only did it pull the plug on Frank Sinatra’s
plans of an early retirement, it became his signature song. It saved the
careers of both Anka and Sinatra. The song has been covered by
countless artists over the years, including Elvis Presley, Tom Jones,
and Nina Simone.
An
interesting bit of trivia is that David Bowie had been asked to pen
English lyrics to “Comme d’Habitude” in 1968. He came up with “Even a
Fool Learns to Love”. But because Anka had already bought the rights to
the original French version, Bowie’s was never released. “Life on Mars”
became Bowie’s riposte to losing out on the fortune.
Paul Anka also wrote “She’s a Lady” for Tom Jones in 1971 which became the Welsh singer’s biggest hit.
Comeback and Glide
In terms
of his own recordings, after 1963, Anka had hit the Top 40 only once
through the remainder of the 1960s (“Goodnight My Love” in 1969). In the
1970s all that changed when he began recording ballads. He teamed up
with songstress Odia Coates and released “You’re Having My Baby”. Not
only was it a number one hit, it finished in 7th place in RPM’s Top 100
singles of the year. Follow-up singles “I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone”
and “I Believe There’s Nothing Stronger” topped the charts as well. He
was awarded a Juno Award in 1975 as composer of the year. In 1980, Paul
Anka was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Gliding on
the successes of those songs, he recorded less frequently, though
continually, after 1975. In 1983, Anka teamed up with Peter Cetera and
momentous Canadian producer David Foster and released “Hold Me ‘Til The
Morning Comes”. His 1998 album Body of Work features duets with
such singing giants as Celine Dion, Patti LaBelle, Tom Jones, and Frank
Sinatra. In 2005, he recorded the album Rock Swings, which
is—you guessed it—swing versions of classic rock songs like Van Halen’s
“Jump”, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen
Spirit”, and others. Its success prompted the 2007 follow-up Classic Songs: My Way,
consisting of more big-band arrangements of contemporary standards
(Bryan Adams’ “Heaven”, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, Foreigner’s
“Waiting for a Girl Like You”) and featuring duets with Jon Bon Jovi and
Michael Buble.
In 2005,
Paul Anka was awarded a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto. He has
also been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the American
equivalent). A street in Ottawa is named “Paul Anka Drive” in his
honour.
The Diamonds
Formed: 1953, Toronto, Ontario
Last Hit: 1961
Members:
– Dave Somerville (lead)
– Phil Levitt (baritone) – Replaced by Mike Douglas 1957
– Bill Reed (bass) (died 2004) – Replaced by John Felten 1958 (died 1982)
– Ted Kowalski (tenor) – Replaced by Evan Fisher 1958
Genre: R&B
Achievements: Canadian Music Hall of Fame
Biggest Hit:
“Little Darlin’” (1957)
– Peaked at #2 on the charts
– 6th biggest single of the year (Cashbox)
Some Other Hit Singles:
– “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” (1956)
– “The Church Bells May Ring” (1956)
– “Words Of Love” (1957)
– “Zip Zip” (1957)
– “Silhouettes” (1957)
– “The Stroll” (1957)
– “Kathy-O” (1958)
– “Walking Along” (1958)
Canada‘s
third and final famous quartet in the 50s was The Diamonds. Like the
Four Lads and Crew Cuts, they were also from Toronto; unlike those two,
the members were not from St. Michael’s Boys Choir. Their road to fame
was similar to the Crew Cuts as we’ll see in a minute.
The band’s
founding member Levitt said the beginnings of the Diamonds came when he
was vacationing with a friend one summer at Crystal Beach on Lake Erie.
Some girls heard them singing and encouraged them to continue. That
autumn, Levitt entered the University of Toronto and met Ted Kowalski.
Later on, they went to the CBC to audition for a local talent show where
they met sound engineer Dave Somerville who decided to give them vocal
training. He joined them as their lead singer when they were invited to
sing for a Christmas party at a local church. It was then that the
Diamonds were born.
The group
began to work on radio shows for the CBC and Nat Goodman became their
manager. He got them an appearance on the same show that launched The
Crew Cuts’ career—Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Show—in Cleveland, U.S.A..
They tied with another contestant and their prize was to perform as
guests of the show for a week. This led to a recording contract with
Coral Records. Four songs were released but did little to bring fame to
the group.
In 1955,
they played the Alpine Village Club in Cleveland and were discovered by
the same deejay as The Crew Cuts—Bill Randle. Like the Crew Cuts, Randle
got them signed onto Mercury Records who asked them to do cover tunes,
converting R&B songs to pop. These covers became big hits and
included Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers’ “Why Do Fools Fall In Love”
(#12 on the U.S. charts), The Willows’ “Church Bells May Ring” (#14),
and their biggest hit, which reached #2 on the charts, The Gladiolas’
“Little Darlin’”. The latter was listed as the 6th biggest single of
1957 according to Cashbox. On December 30th, 1957, they released an
original song, “The Stroll” which peaked at #4 on the charts, made them a
dance sensation on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and
launched a dance craze of the same name. In the late-50s, The Diamonds
appeared with a number of big-name acts on TV: Elvis Presley, Perry
Como, Tony Bennett, Steve Allen and Jimmy Dean. They were also featured
in the movie musical The Big Beat and sang the theme song for Kathy-O. The band scored their last hit in 1961.
With a
number of personnel changes and the expiration of their record contract,
the group focused on touring for the next few decades. Apparently they
made it to the country charts in 1987. They were inducted into the
Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
The Crew Cuts
Formed: 1952, Toronto, Ontario
Disbanded: 1964
Members:
– John Perkins (lead)
– Rudi Maugeri (baritone)
– Ray Perkins (bass)
– Pat Barrett (1st or high tenor)
Genre: Pop
Achievements: Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Juno Lifetime Achievement Award.
Biggest Hit:
“Sh-Boom” (1954)
– Peaked at #1 on the charts
– 5th biggest song of the year (Cashbox)
Some Other Hit Singles:
– “Crazy ‘Bout Ya Baby” (1954)
– “Gumdrop” (1955)
– “Earth Angel” (1955)
– “Angels In The Sky” (1955)
– “Mostly Martha” (1955)
– “Don’t Be Angry” (1955)
– “Young Love” (1957)
Like the
Four Lads, The Crew Cuts’ members also attended the St. Michael’s Choir
School in Toronto. They gave up their provincial government jobs when
they began making money with their singing. They were asked by Toronto
deejay Barry Nesbitt to sing on his weekly teen show and began
performing gigs in local clubs around Niagara Falls. When they had saved
some money, they drove down to New York City and entered the Arthur
Godfrey Talent contest, finishing in second place. But this led them
nowhere. They did record a song—“Chip, Chip Sing a Song Little
Sparrow”—with a minor label but this did nothing to improve their lot
and they continued performing at more shabby clubs.
In March,
1953, the band returned to Toronto and opened for singer Gisele
MacKenzie at the Casino Theatre. She raved about them to her record
label but failed to remember the group’s name. The following winter, the
band was playing at a club in Sudbury one night. It was 40 below. Their
agent contacted them saying that they had been invited to appear on the
Gene Carroll television show in Cleveland (U.S.). Hoping that this was
the break they were awaiting, they hopped into their car and drove
nearly a thousand kilometers without a heater. They thawed themselves
out I suppose and managed to perform three times.
The Crew
Cuts had been going by different names at the time and Bill Randle, a
local disc jockey in Cleveland, was the one who, after seeing their
unique hairstyles, came up with the band’s permanent name. He booked
them for an audition with Mercury Records. Mercury was blown out of the
solar system and immediately signed them.
The Crew
Cuts’ scored their first hit, the original “Crazy ‘Bout You Baby” in
1954; it made the Top Ten. They recorded a cover of The Chords’
“Sh-Boom” beefing it up with a big-band orchestration. And it lunged up
the charts all the way to number one. It was to become the 5th biggest
song of the year according to Cashbox, doing far better than the
original version. The band recorded a number of original songs and cover
tunes. Interestingly, their cover tunes, which were usually pop
treatments of former R&B songs, tended to do well in the U.S.;
whereas, their original songs became big hits in Canada.
After
their huge success, the band returned to Toronto where they were greeted
with a full-blown ticker-tape parade. They continued breaking into the
Top 20 for the next few years. Their cover of The Penguins’ “Earth
Angel” went to number three in 1955. Their last Top 20 hit in the U.S.
was “Young Love” in 1957; a country version by Sonny James was also a
hit. The following year, the group moved from Mercury to RCA Victor
where they stayed for six years, disbanding in 1964. In addition to
their singles, they released nine albums. They received a Juno Lifetime
Achievement Award in 1984 and were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall
of Fame.
The Four Lads
Formed: 1947, Toronto, Ontario
First Single Release: 1952
Disbanded: 1977*
Members:
– Bernie Toorish (lead / second tenor)
– James Arnold (first tenor)
– Connie Codarini (bass)
– Frank Busseri (baritone)
Genre: R&B
Achievements: Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Juno Lifetime Achievement Award.
Biggest Hit:
“Moments to Remember” (1955)
– Peaked at #2 on the Pop Charts
Some Other Hit Singles:
– “The Mockingbird” (1952)
– “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” (1953)
– “Skokian” (1954)
– “No, Not Much!” (1956)
– “Standing on the Corner” (1956)
Experts at
a capella and harmony, and influenced by spirituals and gospel music,
the Four Lads formed in Toronto after the friends learned to sing as
members of the St. Michael’s Choir School. (Two of them were to found
the rock and roll band The Crew Cuts later on.) The Four Lads’ lead
vocalist Bernie Toorish (born 1931) had grown up in a musical family and
had begun performing from the age of three.
They went
through a series of name changes, including The Four Dukes, which they
were asked to change when told another group had taken that name, and
they finally settled on The Four Lads. After debuting in 1949 on CBC
radio, they began performing for some 30 weeks at New York’s Le Ruban
Bleu dinner club. They signed with Columbia Records and performed
backing vocals for Jonny Ray’s hits “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud
That Cried” in 1951. Both were huge hits with sales exceeding five
million copies. They began veering away from spirituals and recording
pop songs.
Their
first release, “The Mockingbird”, came in 1952. Their first gold record
came out the following year—“Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. From there,
they racked up many hits, their biggest being “Moments to Remember”
(1955) which reached #2 on the U.S. pop charts. “No, Not Much” the
following year was a million-seller as well. Their expert and closely
harmonized singing was well received, labeled as “polished, crisp, with
an overlay of vibrato on the long notes” (AMG). The Four Lads also
released a number of albums, five them going gold. They made a number of
TV appearances in the 50s, and, though performing primarily in the
U.S., made the occasional appearance in Canada.
Their last
hit came in 1961. The following year, they made some changes in
membership. Over the course of their career, The Four Lads, have sold
some 50 million recordings. They received a Juno lifetime achievement
award and have been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
*
Although the group disbanded in 1977 when Toorish became an insurance
underwriter, after their induction into the Music Hall of Fame in 1984,
enough interest was generated to prompt him to reactivate the group and
they began performing at clubs and on cruises.
Félix Leclerc
Born: 1914, La Tuque, Quebec,
Debut: 1951
Died: 1988
Genre: Folk
Some Hit Songs:
– “Notre Sentier”
– ”Moi, mes souliers”
– ”Le tour de l’Île”
– ”P’tit Bonheur”
– ”Litanies du Petit Homme”
– ”Alouette en Colère”
– ”Train du Nord”
Multi-talented
Leclerc was a singer-songwriter, actor, poet, novelist, and playwright.
His father was a grain and lumber dealer and he had ten siblings. The
whole family was a musical one; all sang and played various instruments.
As a child he fell in love with Mozart and Schubert.
Leclerc
composed his first song, “Notre Sentier” at age 18 when he began
studying at the University of Ottawa. But the Great Depression hit hard,
and he was forced to abandon his educational pursuits. He proceeded to a
small town near Trois-Rivières where he worked as a farmhand. After
several jobs, Félix became a radio announcer and scriptwriter. During
this time he picked up the guitar.
In 1939,
he settled in Montreal where he worked as a scriptwriter for
Radio-Canada. His series were extremely popular. He introduced some of
his songs on these series. One has to remember that television was not
yet in the homes of the populace and radio plays were the primary form
of entertainment. Leclerc did some on air acting in a few of these drama
series. Because of their popularity, he was able to sell collections of
his stories and poems, and he gradually rose to fame through the 40s.
In 1950,
the Parisian Jacques Canetti, artistic director of Philips Records,
heard Leclerc perform in Montreal and immediately offered him an
engagement in Paris. His debut performance was very well received and he
was offered a recording contract and invited to tour throughout France,
Belgium, and Switzerland. He stood out amongst other stars with his
unique style: performing earthy folk songs on the guitar, singing in a
robust baritone voice, and dressed in a checkered lumberjack shirt.
Leclerc pretty much became an overnight superstar. In early 1951 he was
awarded the Grand prix du disque in Paris for his song “Moi, mes
souliers”. Beneath his name, printed in large letters on the billboards,
was “le Canadien”.
Félix
Leclerc was for all intents and purposes, the first international
Canadian superstar. Canada was not to produce its first anglophone
international superstar for another six years. As such, Leclerc really
was the one who laid the groundwork for all the chansonniers to come.
In 1953,
he returned to Montreal to partake in the city’s music festivals, and he
was given a hero’s welcome. Five years later, he was awarded his second
Grand Prix du disque and his third in 1973. In 1974, he appeared with
fellow male singers Gilles Vigneault and Robert Charlebois at the
Superfrancofête in Quebec City. Leclerc appeared in five feature films.
He was awarded an honourary doctorate in 1982.
Leclerc invoked a unique and critically-acclaimed musical style that is best summed up by the Canadian Music Encyclopaedia:
In 160
songs (146 original songs and 14 covers), Félix Leclerc distinguishes
himself from his French-speaking European and Quebec predecessors by his
combination of carefully chosen verse and the unique style of musical
setting for acoustic guitar. Among his characteristic traits are the
guitar’s lowered tuning (all strings one or one-and-a-half tones below
standard) and the placement of the right hand over the high range of the
fingerboard. In the right hand, the integration of artificial harmonics
(as in ‘Hymne au printemps’), the rapid strumming of the thumb on the
strings (‘La Drave’), the quick arpeggios executed with the thumb and
index finger imitating the pick (‘Les 100 000 façons de tuer un homme’),
and the combination of arpeggios and classical tremolo (‘Le tour de
l’Île’) are noteworthy. In the left hand, there are occasional thumb
barrés in the bass as well as occurrences of diminished seventh chords
and major chords with added sixths.
Quebec was
shocked and shaken by Leclerc’s death, gathering by the thousands to
commemorate their foremost singer-poet. Messages were sent from around
the globe, including from the government of France. Countless, streets,
parks, schools, buildings, and places in the Province now bear his name.
The Félix Awards, given to Quebec musicians, are named after him. In
2000, the Canadian Government honoured him by putting his image on a
postage stamp.
Percy Faith
Born: 1908, Toronto, Ontario
Debut: 1950
Died: 1976
Genre: Easy Listening
Biggest Hit:
“Theme From a Summer Place” (1960)
– Peaked at #1 on the U.S. Charts
– Peaked at #2 on the U.K. Charts
– Peaked at #4 on the Canadian Charts
– #1 single of the year in the U.S. (Billboard)
– Won Grammy (1961) Award for Record of the Year
Some Other Hits:
– “Delicado” (1952)
– “Song from the Moulin Rouge” (1953)
– “Theme for Young Lovers” (1960)
Percy
Faith, conductor, arranger, pianist, and composer, was born in Toronto
in 1908. He was to become Canada’s second easy listening musician (after
Guy Lombardo), helped tremendously by recording the biggest single of
the year 1960 on the U.S. Billboard charts—“Theme from a Summer Place”.
He also arranged hits for other artists including Johnny Mathis, Burl
Ives, Doris Day, and Tony Bennett. His band-leading career began at the
height of the brass-dominated swing era which he rearranged into softer
mood music by introducing large string sections.
At age
seven, Faith began taking violin lessons; piano followed three years
later. From 1920 on, he performed as an accompanist for silent films in
Toronto cinemas. In 1923, at age 15, he gave his first recital in
Toronto’s prestigious Massey Hall and was considered a prodigy. His
career as a concert pianist was destroyed, however, when he injured his
hands in a fire three years later.
Undeterred
from pursuing his desired career in music, he turned to arranging,
first for hotel orchestras, and then for radio. It was during this time
that he developed his lush pop instrumental style, and he became a
staple for the CBC live-music broadcasting in the 1930s. At the end of
the decade “Music by Faith” was also being aired in the United States,
and he was offered a job as director of “The Carnation Contented Hour”
on NBC radio Chicago, which he accepted. He composed piano, choral, and
orchestra works and won a $1,000 prize in 1943 for his operetta “The
Gandy Dancer”. During these years, he often visited Canada to conduct
concerts and CBC TV special broadcasts.
After five
years in Chicago, he was offered a job with NBC in New York which he
took in 1945. Percy Faith’s real recording and arrangements for popular
singers began in 1950 when he joined Columbia Records as musical
director and recording artist. He arranged pop and folk songs for other
singers and pioneered easy listening mood music with the release his own
albums. He was the first to record albums consisting solely of songs
from Broadway shows and was one of the first to experiment with Latin
rhythms.
He wrote
Guy Mitchell’s first (and number one) single, “My Heart Cries for You”
and he arranged three big hits for Tony Bennett. He scored his own first
number one single in 1952, “Delicado”. His “Song from Moulin Rouge”
also did well the following year. In the mid-50s, Faith began composing
film scores, beginning with Love Me or Leave Me.
In 1960,
Percy Faith scored his mega-hit, “Theme from a Summer Place”: #1 in the
U.S., #2 in Britain, and #4 in Canada. It was the biggest song of the
year in the U.S. according to their Billboard charts and it won a Grammy
Award for record of the year. He won another Grammy Award in 1969 for
his album, Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet. With the advent of
harder rock in the late-1960′s, Faith’s music became gradually less
popular, though he still recorded up until his death from cancer in
1976.
Birth of Canadian Rock ‘n Roll (1950s)
In the 1950s, Canada continued contributing new musicians to the world stage in the genres of country (Tommy Hunter), jazz (Moe Koffman, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, and guitarist Lenny Breau), and classical (Pierrette Alarie, Lois Marshall, Louis Quilico, Léopold Simoneau, and contralto Maureen Forrester). Following
in La Bolduc’s footsteps were Quebec artists who enriched the landscape
of Canadian music by singing folk music in fabulous French. It wasn’t
until Beatlemania swept Canada in the 1960s that Quebec artists began to
perform pop and rock; for now, folk was the genre of choice. An
important word on this is best summed up by the Canadian Music
Encyclopedia:
In
Québec, the history of popular music unfolded quite differently.
Instead of copying Americans, French Canadians created their own style
of pretty and simple poetry inspired by traditional folk songs and
played on the guitar by chansonniers (“songmakers” or
singer-songwriters).
First and foremost among these chansonniers was the inspired genius of Félix Leclerc, who deservedly became Canada’s first international folk superstar. Second in rank to him was Jean-Pierre Ferland
who started out as a folk musician in the 50s, but in the 70s switched
to pop/rock releasing some critically-acclaimed albums. Other
chansonniers included Yves Albert and Jacques Labrecque. In 1956, Raymond Lévesque
scored a big hit with his “Quand les hommes vivront d’amour”. Its
message of brotherhood and search for justice, its folky guitar and
jazzy piano made it, amongst changing pop styles, a timeless classic of
chanson québécoise. The song has been performed by many French singers.
Percy Faith
became Canada’s second easy listening star (after Guy Lombardo). In the
following decade he scored a massive hit with his “Theme from a Summer
Place”, the number one single of the year on 1960′s Billboard chart.
Nearly-forgotten Winnipeg songstress Gisele MacKenzie
(no relation to Bob and Doug, eh), after getting her own CBC radio
show, recorded some songs of her own which became hits in 1955.
Prior to
American Bill Haley’s revolutionary comet-clocking chart-topper, Canada
had already set itself up to usher in the rock ‘n roll era with its hit
R&B group The Four Lads. Following suit were The Crew Cuts and The Diamonds.
These three Toronto-based quartets launched the rock era in Canada by
converting some American R&B tunes into rock and by creating some
original selections of their own.
With all
this activity in the 1950s, Canadians would never have believed what was
to happen in 1957. Their first anglophone international pop superstar
arrived from within the nation’s capital. And he was of neither European
nor African descent, but Asian. He released a single that rocketed up
to Number One on both sides of the Atlantic and became the second
best-selling single of all-time (after Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”).
He was Canada’s first real teen-idol, scored several more chart-toppers
in the late 50s, became a millionaire while still a minor, switched
from rock to adult contemporary in the 60s, wrote the theme for the
Tonight Show, composed Tom Jones’ biggest hit, foiled Frank Sinatra’s
plans of an early retirement by writing his signature song, and
rekindled his own singing career with several chart-toppers in the 70s.
To date, he has written some 400 songs. He should be regarded as the
godfather of Canadian pop. And his name is Paul Anka.
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