Starting on Canada Day, I will be taking a look at some of our famous musical Canucks. Today we’ll start with 1950s to the early 1970s.
So we unleashed the Biebs unto the world, let’s not forget Paul Anka, the real teen icon Canada produced. Anka was just 16 when he began to flip the doo-wop and pop world on its head in the late 1950s.
Not only just a singer, Anka also wrote his and other musicians’ music. Without Anka, the Johnny Carson Show would be without its famous theme, Tom Jones’ She’s a Lady would never come to be, and Frank Sinatra’s My Way wouldn’t have been. Even Michael Jackson’s famed posthumous hit, This is it, was written by Anka and Jackson in the 1980s.
Fast forward a Kennedy assassination and Lester Pearson inauguration later and we find ourselves in 1965 Winnipeg. As topical issues such as civil rights, the Cold War and hippie counterculture rose, there became a void for musicians to fill. In Winnipeg, Stephen Stills would meet a spindly Canuck by the name of Neil Young.
A year later, the two would form Buffalo Springfield and the song For What it’s Worth was recorded.
Young would go on to further international acclaim with his solo career and occasionally with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Songs like Ohio and Southern Man would call in to question government brutality and racism.
Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain cite Young as a major influence on their careers, earning Young the title of “Godfather of Grunge.”
Gordon Lightfoot and Stompin’ Tom Connors both helped to popularize what we know as more modern Canadian Folk music. There was Connors’ lighter Canadian contemporary songs like, The Hockey Song and Bud the Spud to his darker The Black Donnelly’s. Lightfoot helped define folk music in the 1960s and 1970s and had incredible success internationally.
Towards the end of the decade rose one of the most hauntingly poetic musicians in Leonard Cohen.
Listening to Suzanne is an experience. The song is like a paintbrush that never once leaves its canvas.
Only when his voice stops do you see the picture of Suzanne and Leonard alongside the Montreal harbour.
Considering most of the founding members of Steppenwolf were Canadian, the band would never come to be – at least not in the way we know them as. The Magic Carpet Ride would have to wait for another day.
Speaking of music that sounds great while riding a Harley down Highway 9, Guess Who is next up on the discussion.
No, seriously, the Guess Who. I wish you could see These Eyes to know I’m not kidding, I really don’t want to make you come Undun. You may have No Time for these bad song puns, really it must be making you “Shakin’ All Over.”
All jokes aside, it is interesting to see American pop culture sensationalize American Woman as a song about pretty American girls…when really it’s about a group of Canadian guys more excited to see the Canadian girls than that American woman.
Where would we be without The Band? The Canadian bred band first gained famed by backing Bob Dylan in Bob Dylan and The Band. The release of songs like The Weight and Up on Cripple Creek set the stage for their successful 30-year career.
As we begin to enter the 1970s, we have Alberta’s own Joni Mitchell gaining popularity internationally. She’s sold more than 10 million albums internationally. Along with Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin, Mitchell became an idol for younger girls – especially for those in Alberta.
Stay tuned for Part II: ‘70s onwards.
