“Back in the day” when LP’s were still the norm, there were two truly great record stores that I would frequent in Toronto: Peter Dunn’s Vinyl Museum and Incredible Records.
Dunn’s (which closed more than 15 years ago) sold so many records at his three locations that his plastic LP protectors and inner sleeves still turn up on used albums sold in the Toronto area.
Ironically, it was Incredible Records that was a true museum. The walls were plastered with rare concert posters from the 1960s and 1970s and the main counter contained various memorabilia that was unmatched anywhere in Toronto at the time.
One of the items that always caught my eye was a copy of Charles Manson’s LP that was released on the ESP label. Every time I walked into the store, Manson’s contorted face (on the faux-LIFE mag cover) would taunt me.
I always wanted to hear what that album sounded like, so I did a bit of blog-o-trolling and came across a decent FLAC download [part-1|part-2] at the Stadium Studios blog that I converted to mp3 format. This CD re-issue is made from an LP and not the master tapes, but the quality is still worthy for download.
Incredible Records moved to Sebastopol, California (west of Santa Rosa, which is north of San Francisco) in the 1990s.
Lie: The Love and Terror Cult (actual title Charles Manson Sings) is the debut album by Charles Manson, originally released by ESP-Disk. Recorded on September 11, 1967 and August 9, 1968 (overdubs), its distribution began during the Manson murder trial.
The cover is a copy of the 19 December 1969 Time Life front cover, only with “LIFE” substituted with “LIE”.
“Cease to Exist” had been previously recorded by the Beach Boys under the name “Never Learn Not to Love”, and appears on their 1969 album, 20/20, and as the B-side of the single of “Bluebirds over the Mountain”. The single gives songwriting credit to Manson and Dennis Wilson. Manson is not given co-writing credit on the album. It is worth pointing out that the Beach Boys’ version does include significant changes (including a bridge that wasn’t part of Manson’s version, and changing the line “Cease to exist” to “Cease to resist”, which does alter the meaning of the song).
Portions of the album have been sampled by many other artists, such as Front Line Assembly. Many of the songs have also been re-recorded; a version of “Look at Your Game, Girl” appears as a hidden track on Guns N’ Roses’ cover album “The Spaghetti Incident?”, while GG Allin covered “Garbage Dump” for his 1987 album You Give Love a Bad Name and Redd Kross and The Lemonheads have both covered “Cease To Exist”. Dilute released a cover of Home is Where You’re Happy in 2002 on the CD compilation If The Twenty-First Century Didn’t Exist It Would Be Necessary To Invent It (5 Rue Christine). The Brian Jonestown Massacre does a slightly reworked cover of “Arkansas” (called “Arkansas Revisited”) on their 1999 album Bringing it All Back Home - Again. The band’s leader, Anton Newcombe, has expressed interest in Manson’s songwriting.
Devo are alleged to have plagiarized their song “Mechanical Man” from Manson’s composition of the same name.
An acoustic version of the song “Sick City” was recorded by Marilyn Manson but has never been officially released. The Marilyn Manson song “My Monkey”, from the album Portrait of an American Family, contains samples of Charles Manson speaking, as well as lyrics from the track “Mechanical Man”.
All proceeds from one reissue of the album, released by Awareness Records, are donated to a California fund for victims of violent crime (California law prohibits Manson from collecting any money or royalties for his work).
Artist: Charles Manson Title: LIE Label: Awareness Records Catalogue No: 08903-0156 Year: 1974 (CD Release 1987)
Lineage: Original Silver CD > Nero > Wav > BonkEnc > Flac
Track Listing:
1) Look At Your Game Girl
2) Ego
3) Mechanical Man
4) People Say Im No Good
5) Home Is Where Youre Happy
6) Arkansas
7) Ill Never Say Never To Always
8) Garbage Dump
9) Dont Do Anything Illegal
10) Sick City
11) Cease To Exist
12) Big Iron Door
13) I Once Knew A Man
This is my final Bela Bartok LP transcription and my second from 1965 on the Supraphon label (SUA 10650) out of Czechoslovakia. Andre Gertler on violin and Diane Anderson, piano. I liked the Hungarian Folks Songs so much, I created a special 32kHz/80kbps/mono version for quick download to your mp3 player - or you can listen online in the player below.
Bela Bartok
Sonata for Violin and Piano No.1
I - Allegro appassionato
II - Adagio
III - Allegro
If you haven’t already, you should check out my post of Bartok’s Violin Concerto No.1. You should be able to fit these two albums together on one CD - a great companion on a long road trip. This particular LP is a real gem from 1965 in near mint condition. Unlike my other Bartok posts, you should hear negligible surface noise and debris in this transcription.
Andre Gertler - violin
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Karel Ancerl
Recorded in Supraphon Studios in Prague
Musical Supervision: Miloslav Kuba
Sound and cut: ing. Platz
Supraphon SUA 10696 (mono, 1965)
Made in Czechosolovakia
I found this interesting gem at the Midas Mart in Meaford, Ontario. The LP packaging was a bit obtuse, but this only piqued my interest more. The back cover contained a mix of French and English titles, which is not unheard of in Canada, except that the record was issued on the Wabana label out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Even more confusing is the Wabana label itself, which uses the stamp of the long defunct Dom. Wabana Ore Limited of Newfoundland. According to Artefacts Canada:
The miner’s brass safety tag is a round piece of brass that was used by the mining company to keep track of the miners in the mines. Each Miner’s Brass was engraved with “Dom. Wabana Ore Limited, Wabana NFLD” and its own ID number [the Wabana label uses id 2556]. There is also a hole at the top of the brass and a small slit at the bottom, so the tags could be hung on a board while the miners were inside the mine. Upon leaving the mine for the day, each miner was required to take their own tag, and if at the end of the day someone’s tag was not removed, the company would know that the miner was still in the mine somewhere.
Perhaps there is a tragic folk tale behind miner 2556? As it turns out, ABBC stands for the names of the artists involved: Naïm Amor, Thomas Belhom, Joey Burns and John Convertino. ABBC is a colaboration of the Amor Belhom Duo and the Tucson band, Calexico. It turns out that Calexico played The Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 - just 4 days before I bought this album for a mere 25 cents!
The album itself is experimental pop that crosses ambient, folk, and country, with some of the best minimalist DIY production I have ever heard. As this album is an excellent example of why we need to support independent labels (and because it is still available), I am only going to offer up one track - the haunting Gilbert, hoping that this will encourage you to go out and buy the LP or CD from Sure Fire Distribution.
I can hear a lot of potential influences hidden in the powerful mood of Gilbert: Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and The Violent Femmes.
Amor / Belhom / Burns / Convertino
Tête à Tête
CD Wabana ORE24
November 2000
During the recording of CALEXICO’s Spoke album in 1996 at their homes in Tucson, Arizona, JOEY BURNS and JOHN CONVERTINO were introduced to two French musicians, NAIM AMOR and THOMAS BELHOM through a mutual friend, French filmmaker MARIANNE DISSARD, who directed the GIANT SAND documentary Drunken Bees. At that time, the four musicians hit it off and began the first of many recording sessions that eventually would lead to the making of Tête à Tête.
In 1997, Naïm and Thomas moved to Tucson and began playing regularly in town as AMOR BELHOM DUO, often sharing bills with John and Joey. This soon led to more recording sessions, an extension of the two duos’ improvising and collaborating on stage. The majority of the Tête à Tête recordings were done at the homes of Burns/Convertino, live on 2, 4 and 8 track. The remainder of the album was recorded at Waterworks Studio in Tucson by Jim Waters. Due to Calexico’s busy tour schedule after the release of The Black Light, the making of Tête à Tête spans over a 15 month period. Beside the two duos, the album features German musician, MARTIN WENK, who played in Calexico’s European touring ensemble and Marianne Dissard on vocals.
John and Joey have been playing together for 9 years, having first met in Giant Sand. They continue working with Howe Gelb and their other side project, OP8. Over the years, John and Joey have collaborated with various artists (Victoria Williams, Richard Buckner, Barbara Manning, Rainer Ptacek, Vic Chesnutt [who was featured in this Basement Rug compilation]. After the release of The Black Light in 1998 on QUARTERSTICK RECORDS, the duo toured both Europe and the US, alongside The Dirty Three, Pavement, Vic Chesnutt and Lambchop. As a result of their increased exposure in Europe, they have been asked to contribute in a number of international projects (Jean-Louis Murat, Holland’s VPRO Moondive Project with Correo Aereo, Pablo Nahar,De Dijk,Ponda O’Brien, DJ Graham B).
Naïm and Thomas met over 10 years ago in Paris, first playing in French hardcore band WITCHES VALLEY (Extreme Return to the Source). From 1992 to 1997, they belonged to GENERATION CHAOS (Citoyens En France), an experimental musical and theatrical avant-garde political activist group, performing with contemporary music percussionist/composer Jean-Charles François (director of UCSD music school from 1972 to 1986) and stage director Marc O’. Their first album as Amor Belhom Duo, Wavelab Performance, was recorded in their new city of residence, Tucson, in 1998 and features guest performances by John and Joey.
Everyone knows the famous Donovan cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier”, but how many remember his Dylanesque cover of Mick Softley’s “The War Drags On“?
Mick Softley was a figurehead during the British folk scene. He set up his own folk club, only to have it shut down by the police in its first year. Shortly thereafter he began singing at The Cock, a pub in St. Albans, where he met a young Donovan Leitch, and they began singing together on many occasions. Donovan later cited Softley as a “major influence”.
This recording was ripped from the Marble Arch LP: Universal Soldier (1967), which was a mixed-bag re-issue of Donovan’s 1965 EP of the same name and other UK-issue B-sides.
The War Drags On
by Mick Softley
Let me tell you the story of a soldier named Dan.
Went out to fight the good fight in South Vietnam,
Went out to fight for peace, liberty and all,
Went out to fight for equality, hope, let’s go,
And the war drags on.
Found himself involved in a sea of blood and bones,
Millions without faces, without hope and without homes.
And the guns they grew louder as they made dust out of bones
That the flesh had long since left just as the people left their homes,
And the war drags on.
They’re just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they’re doing it, it don’t seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country’s known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
Last night poor Dan had a nightmare it seems.
One kept occurring and re-occurring in his dream:
Cities full of people burn and scream and shoutin’ loud
And right over head a great orange mushroom cloud.
And there’s no more war,
for there’s no more world,
And the tears come streaming down.
Yes, I lie crying on the ground.
Gordon Lightfoot dominated Canadian AM radio when I was growing up in the 1970s. His success led to excess - both in his personal and professional life. After signing a million-dollar deal with Warner Brothers in 1970, Lightfoot hit the road for touring and hard and fast living. In the studio it led to grander and grander productions that took Gord farther and farther away from his roots and the incedible presence of his voice. A similar thing happened to Glenn Campbell in the 1960s when he was transformed from a country/bluegrass guitarist into a pop-star.
Like many “folkies”, Lightfoot got his start in coffeehouses that featured a beatnik mix of folk, poetry, spoken word, jazz, and blues. His 1966 debut album on United Artists (UAS-6487) featured a track called “Oh, Linda” that has been indelibly stamped in mind since my childhood.
I can remember sitting on the living room rug (the basement rug came later) and listening to the warm tones from Bill Lee’s bass booming out the right speaker (a tube-based Imperial/Telefunken console stereo), and Lightfoot begging for his lover on the left. The stereo mix has Bill’s bass bleeding slightly into the left channel, with an echo effect on Gord’s voice bleeding to the right. A simple, clever, and powerful configuration.
The recording itself took place in a dank New York city studio in 1964 that you can read more about in the liner notes below. You can listen to Oh, Linda from the player below while you are reading:
This two-disc, 49-song collection combines Lightfoot’s first four albums into one specially priced package and offers a comprehensive look at the Canadian singer-songwriter before he achieved pop stardom. These late-1960s recordings are more pared down than his better-known 1970s work, showing Lightfoot to be a thoughtful songwriter who was equally comfortable with personal love songs and more political fare. A much stronger folkie sensibility is on display here, which may be a revelation to those only familiar to his glossier folk-pop work, but a boon to his longtime followers. –Marc Greilsamer
Liner Notes from Lightfoot! by John Court
“So you come home from work or whatever to your favorite chair, open a cold beer and energize the telly. There is the ostensible World News and all the unrest it provokes, followed by a suggestion that Ice Blue Something is what we must look to for security in this nuclear Age of Anxiety. And as if that’s not enough of the Big Lie from the Big Eye for one gulp (we must of needs deduce that Katy Winters moves in a fairly odoriferous circle), there is next this purportedly candid footage of some fellow protesting that he gets forty shaves from this extraordinary razor blade. Now we know, you and I,in our placid personal truths, that we won’t get anything like forty shaves ourselves, but that this fellow has cornsilk growing out of his face and therefore possibly is not personally lying; the big grain of salt we must wash down with our beer,though, goes with the protestation that we must also get about forty shaves, or the honers of this extraordinary blade will be unhappy to buy us a pack of Coo-coo brand, the bona fide inferior blade. It can wear you down, this kind of opportunity to have a bad experience with a razor blade and then send away for your free supply of The Inferior. It can wear you down.
Which brings to mind the first recording session for this album, at the risk of mentioning the real-world fact of a phonograph record’s birth pangs. It was a kind of melancholy Fall night that nobody could do anything about, and we were in the small Studio D of a large and impersonal New York recording company. Since there were only to be another guitar and a bass accompanying Gordon, we thought that a small studio might conjure a musical intimacy worth going for. But the moon was pulling too hard on everybody that night, and the color of the walls in this particular studio successfully captured the mood of gloom we thought we’d left outside. Our assistant engineer, an older fella, seemed none too emotionally involved in this kind of music, maybe none too involved even in this business of recording. From all that was apparent, he might have been happier in his work had it been cobbling shoes or trimming trees; he meant no harm, neither did he mean especially well. And anyone not born and bred in New York City can be extremely sensitive to this kind of split hair.
Anyway, the first tune Gordon put down that night was his Rich Man’s Spiritual and in filling out the “take” sheet this assistant engineer guy wrote “Richman’s Spiritual”, by which he probably didn’t mean to suggest anything about the implicit Brotherhood of Man, but only that, if indeed he tuned in on anything at all anymore, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to tune in on that night’s activities. So alien were they to anything that had ever moved him. Now, apart from all else, that’s a reasonably sad circumstance for a man and probably much too common a one in these times of magnified opportunity; that the man with, say, the soul of a baker should get caught up in the role of an assistant sound engineer. And because it’s a sad proposition, there was an essential sadness felt for the man when he went on to transcribe our artist’s name as Gordon Whitefoot rather than ask what was it again. That kind of sympatico can serve to distract even the most insensitive among us, and the night in Studio D had definitely taken on such a cast. But what’s remarkably more, and the single important fact at the bottom of all this meandering, is the privilege to report that, later on, blossoms of a sort were made to grow in such a cold and angular atmosphere. Gordon’s eventual delivery of, among other tunes, his own Early Morning Rain seemed to make just the right use of those grey walls. And the great wealth of feeling he’s written right into that song is about the same shade of grey as was that entire session. Oh, there were many more happy sessions after the first, but it has been mentioned here in morbid detail to demonstrate the shadowy ways in which a real artist can find virtue lurking out the other side of predicament.
Gordon Lightfoot is his name, ladies and gentlemen. Gordon Lightfoot. Remember it well, as certainly you will because it’s that kind of name. He sings them all like he wrote them and in most cases he did. what’s even more important,and not always the case, he usually sings his own songs better than anyone else does. Which fact says a lot about the directness with which they come from the heart, or wherever that place is where artists are most comfortable with their thoughts and themselves. But whether he wrote it or not, when Light-foot the singer takes up a song there is an authority that the ear is quick to accept and relax behind. Gordon’s vocal talent is doubtless a sensational example of that elusive quality that puts a chasm between the amateur and the sheerly professional. Like must also be true for really great bakers and assistant sound engineers, to cloak the whole thing in terms of the necessary doing for the necessary living, and how a good feeling about one lends itself to a good feeling about the other.
Yes, Gordon Lightfoot, with ample gifts and gratitude, has good reason to be a happy guy. A Canadian happy guy with Swedish wife and a season as star of an English-made Country and Western tv show under his wide-buckle belt (as well as his own monthly special currently on Canadian tv). He wears cowboy boots most of the time, like Tyson of lan and Sylvia, his friend and hand-up-the-ladder. And he says “oot” for out, like Tyson and Goulet and Bobbie Burns. But, along with Tyson, he understands about the cowboy and the psychology of open spaces that makes up the mood of life in the biggest part of Canada, as it did and does in the American West.
It’s these guys who have become the poets of that way of life, filtered as it now necessarily is through the Ice Blue democratic news of the world that affects us all, regardless of race, creed or color. And it’s gratifying to see the songs of a Gordon Lightfoot begin to receive the attention they deserve.
For, hung as they so often are on a wide-open-spaces metaphor, they nonetheless deal most poetically with the way life is for all of us, in one way or another. We won’t get hung up here reciting how Peter, Paul and Mary, a fairly well established branch of folk musical royalty, have had two substantial U.S., Canadian, Australian and European hits with Lightfoot tunes (in France, they sing “Tu N’ Aurais Jamais Du M’Aimer” when they mean That’s What You Get For Lovin’ Me). Or that Marty Robbins’ version of Gordon’s Ribbon of Darkness was number one on the Country and Westem charts for several weeks recently. Suffice it to say that, at the very moment of this writing, other artists of awesome stature and diverse interests are recording his originals. And meanwhile, back at the Lightfoot, Gordon’s treatment of the work of his songwriter contemporaries gets and keeps the respect of audiences wherever he is heard.
So, then. Of the fourteen songs on this, the first time out for an important artist, eleven are his own. All fourteen might just as easily have been his own, but in three instances Gordon felt strongly enough about other people’s work to want it included in his first collection. Nor, interesting to note, were the three exceptions chosen simply for reasons of musical variety. The album is not that kind of album, really. And frankly not the sort that is paced fast song-slow song-fast song for maximum and most symmetrical contrast. It is, rather, more like a statement; a collection of thoughts most importantly on Gordon Lightfoot’s mind these days. Ones he was anxious to organize in a single place and record for posterity before getting on to more adventurous projects, longer works in the ballad and talking blues vein, along with occasional and deft forays into the jungle of Top Forty competitions. Elsewhere, the expression “Country and Lightfoot” is already in use among the cognoscenti, and those who predict that a subtle amalgam of ‘Rock and Country is next in sight on the Pop horizon are well aware of the work of Gordon Lightfoot. For that matter, several of the aforementioned tunes on this album are already on their way to becoming standards. It’s just that the guy who wrote tnem would like to take the next little while and sing them for you, like they’re supposed to be sung, before he gets on to the next thing. And that, one supposes, is the logical content of a creative life in the real world. Coo-coo him no blades.”
LIGHTFOOT!
by Wayne Francis
It was the fall of 1964. Lightfoot enters a downtown New York recording studio on a gloomy evening to begin work on his debut album. They choose a small room in the studio to record, thinking that the smaller room might capture the intimacy of Gordon accompanied only by two guitars and bass.
Rich Man’s Spiritual is the first tune laid down on that night. It is the type of song Lightfoot enjoyed playing live in those days, going back to his days as one half of the Two Tones, when they would close their sets with Children Go Where I Send Thee, the traditional folk spiritual. Lightfoot had also written other songs in that vein such as Where Are All The Martyred Children, but Rich Man’s Sprirtual was clearly his best song of that genre.
Then it was Long River, with Bruce Langhorne, the highly sought after session guitarist of that era, weaving beautifully with Lightfoot’s guitar. This song would be the first on record to document Lightfoot’s fascination with the wild and untamed beauty and solitude that was Canada. And in the last verse we find the singer telling us that he’d “give it all to you, if her love were true”. Ah yes, love and nature. A theme Lightfoot would return to many times in the coming decades, with startlingly beautiful results!
The Way I Feel with its gentle folk guitar arrangement cradling the tender lyrics of lost love and lonliness. That gloomy New York night could have easily provided a perfect backdrop for Lightfoot to convey every ounce of sadness that this song suggests.
Then into For Lovin’ Me. By this time For Lovin’ Me had already been recorded by Ian & Sylvia and made a hit by Peter, Paul and Mary. Now Lightfoot gives us the song in it’s definitive, driving form. While the other recordings of the song by other artists gave the song a delicate interpretation, Lightfoot gives us a harder edged delivery, in a style he continues to play the song in right up to the present.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. A very nice cover of the Ewan McColl classic that later became a hit for Roberta Flack. Lightfoot’s rendidtion is set apart by his stunning vocal.
Phil Ochs’ Changes is next. Lightfoot and Ochs were friends and the already established Ochs was a strong Lightfoot supporter. Ochs wrote Changes while in Toronto and Lightfoot was one of the first to hear and record the song. Check out the article Ochs wrote about Lightfoot in 1965 in Broadside magazine.
And then Early Morning Rain! What more can be said about this song that hasn’t already been said? Covered by the likes of Dylan and Presley, it was written in 1964, but Lightfoot drew upon an experience some six years earlier when he was studying music in Los Angeles in 1958 and he found himself at LAX one early morning, more than a little homesick.
Another tale of bittersweet longing, but in a much more playful style, Steel Rail Blues. Lightfoot early on displayed a restlessness in his writing where he was either trying to get back to home and loved ones, or to escape the same. This tension between these two basic longings give much of Lightfoot’s writing that universal appeal, whereby so many of us can relate in a very direct way.
On Sixteen Miles, Lightfoot showcases a beautifully, effortless melody that on the surface seems so simple, yet it is deceptively discrete. This song finds Lightfoot seeking comfort in the wilderness from “an old love”, not unlike Long River and although he vows he “won’t remember her at all”, we realize that the urge to return will again resurface, setting up the inevitable attempt to reconcile or move on, and another song.
Lightfoot supposedly wrote I’m Not Sayin’ while watching a hockey game on TV. A strong driving melody, with some great guitar licks courtesy of David Rea that Red Shea and Terry Clements would continue to embellish for many years. The subject matter and sentiment here is not far removed from For Lovin’ Me.
Another cover, this time Hamilton Camp’s apocalyptic, Pride Of Man. Lightfoot would continue to perform this song live into the mid 70’s.
For every For Lovin’ Me or I’m Not Sayin’ there must be a Ribbon Of Darkness. Lightfoot’s stance in the former songs is softened by his ackowledgement in songs like Ribbon Of Darkness of the true nature of relationships and the peril and hurt that are the consequence. Lightfoot also demonstrates some fine whistling in this song that would resurface on later songs like Brave Mountaineers and Ghosts Of Cape Horn. Lightfoot often would whistle on many of his early demo recordings to provide an instrumental break when he was playing only guitar without accompaniment.
Oh, Linda was and is a distinct recording in Lightfoot’s long career. Backed only by an interesting bass guitar line, Lightfoot delivers a knock out vocal.
The album closes with the hopeful Peaceful Waters. It comes across as an almost folk music hymn. “May this world find a resting place, where peaceful waters flow.”
Lightfoot! was really Lightfoot’s only true folk album, with the acoustic guitars played by David Rea and Bruce Langhorne, two of the best folk music stylists of the day, along with Lightfoot’s own folk influenced playing and last, but certainly not least, the superb acoustic bass throughout the album, played by Bill Lee (father of film director, Spike Lee). By his next album more Nashville influences are creeping into the sound, and although there would always be a folk aspect to Lightfoot’s music, in my opinion, his first album is his purest folk effort. Lightfoot would comment in the early 80’s that the folk label that persisted with him throughout his career was causing his records, which were much more rock natured by that time, to miss out on radio because programmers still had him pegged as a strictly folk artist.
Lightfoot!, although recorded in late 1964, was not released until January of 1966. The time in between was spent by his management, securing a satisfactory record deal. Although he signed with United Artists, a truly satisfactory record deal would not come about until five albums later, when he made the historic one million dollar signing with Warner Brothers in 1970, the company he has remained with to this day.
I was watching a 1960s black and white documentary film on the tobacco fields of Tillsonburg a few days before I bought this album at a local Goodwill store. Every year vagabonds and migrant workers flocked to Tillsonburg, Ontario to make good money (up to $14 per day) processing tobacco. This is the subject matter that made the songs of Stompin’ Tom so popular and the reason why he still has a large following in all age groups - he is Canadiana at its best. My Stompin’ Grounds was Tom’s 7th album (1971), and was the debut for his newly formed “Boot” label (BOS-7103). You can listen to the song “Tillsonburg” in the player below:
Track Listing:
1) My Stompin Grounds
2) The Bridge Came Tumblin’ Down
3) Snowmobile Song
4) “Wop” May
5) Cross Canada
6) Tillsonburg
7) Tribute to Wilf Carter
8) Song of the Irish Moss
9) Song of the Peddler
10) Bonnie Belinda
11) Name The Capital
12) Song of the Cohoe
He was born Charles Thomas Connors (known as Tommy Messer) in Saint John, New Brunswick to the teenaged Isabel Connors and her boyfriend Thomas Sullivan. He spent a short time living with his mother in a low-security women’s penitentiary before he was seized by Children’s Aid Society and was later adopted by the Aylward family in Skinners Pond, Prince Edward Island.
At the age of 15 he left his adoptive family to hitchhike across Canada, a journey that consumed the next 13 years of his life as he traveled between various part-time jobs while writing songs on his guitar. At his last stop in Timmins, Ontario, he worked in one of the local gold mines and was offered a year-long contract to sing on stage at the Maple Leaf Hotel, which earned him the attention of the local CKGB radio station.
Connors’ habit of stomping the heel of his left boot to keep rhythm earned him the nickname “that stompin’ guy”, or “Stomper”. It wasn’t until Canada’s 100th birthday, July 1, 1967, that the name Stompin’ Tom Connors was first used, when Boyd MacDonald, a waiter at the King George Tavern in Peterborough, Ontario introduced Tom on stage. Based on an enthused audience reaction to it, Tom had it officially registered in Ontario as Stompin’ Tom Ltd. the following week. Various stories have circulated about the origin of the foot stomping, but it’s generally accepted that he did this to keep a strong tempo for his guitar playing - especially in the noisy bars and beer joints where he frequently performed. After numerous complaints about damaged stage floors, Tom began to carry a piece of plywood that he stomped even more vigorously than before. The “stompin’ ” board has since become one of his trademarks. After stomping a hole in the wood, he would pick it up and show it to the audience (accompanied by a joke about the quality of the local lumber) before calling for a new one. It was reported that when asked about his “stompin’ board”, Tom replied, “it’s just a stage I’m going through”. Stompin’ Tom periodically auctions off his “stompin’ boards” for charity with the latest board selling for over $14,000.00.
As the 1970s progressed, he retired to his farm in Norval, near Georgetown, Ontario, to protest the lack of support given to Canadian stories by the policies of the Federal government, particularly the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). He also boycotted the Juno Awards in protest of the qualification guidelines set by Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) for possible nominees who were being consistently nominated and awarded outside of their musical genre. He strongly opposed artists who conducted most of their business in the United States being nominated for Juno’s in Canada. Connors, who referred to these particular artists as “turncoat Canadians”, felt that in view of the fact that they had chosen to live and work in the U.S., it was only fair that they competed with Americans for Grammy Awards, and left the Juno competition to those who lived and conducted business in Canada.
His protest caught national attention when he sent back his six Junos accompanied by a letter to the board of Directors:
“Gentlemen: I am returning herewith the six Juno awards that I once felt honored to have received and which, I am no longer proud to have in my possession. As far as I am concerned you can give them to the border jumpers who didn’t receive an award this year and maybe you can have them presented by Charley Pride. I feel that the Junos should be for people who are living in Canada, whose main base of business operations is in Canada, who are working toward the recognition of Canadian talent in this country and who are trying to further the export of such talent from this country to the world with a view to proudly showing off what this country can contribute to the world market. Until the academy appears to comply more closely with aspirations of this kind, I will no longer stand for any nominations, nor will I accept any award given. Yours very truly, Stompin’ Tom Connors.
He remained in retirement for 12 years before persistent love from young roots revivalists drew him back into the studio and on to the stage. To this day, Stompin’ Tom’s performances remain popular, and he remains one of Canada’s more prolific recording artists. His songs often pay tribute to Canadian newsmakers or personalities, and can be topical, referring to news events of the day.
This is my final 
If you haven’t already, you should check out my post of 
I found this interesting gem at the 
Gordon Lightfoot dominated Canadian AM radio when I was growing up in the 1970s. His success led to excess - both in his personal and professional life. After signing a million-dollar deal with Warner Brothers in 1970, Lightfoot hit the road for touring and hard and fast living. In the studio it led to grander and grander productions that took Gord farther and farther away from his roots and the incedible presence of his voice. A similar thing happened to Glenn Campbell in the 1960s when he was transformed from a country/bluegrass guitarist into a pop-star.
