GARY, the PIG OF GOLD! – THE STOMP IS GONE

“Yeah, right,” I remember so many of my American pals – musicians included! – asking me whenever push came to glove: “What the hell good ever came out of Canada?!!”

Well, besides the Quality Record-era Guess Who, SCTV, and of course Young Neil, for seventy-seven years there roamed across the Great Wide Northlands a man, a myth – dare I say a LEGEND who cast a long, black, yet somehow barely perceptible shadow over every guitar lasher who means a half hoot on either side of the dreaded U.S. / O Canada border. A man who possessed a wicked tongue, beaver-sharp mind, commanding left leg and, above all, a wit and wisdom before which few others dare even stand, let alone deserve to approach.

That man, that myth, and/or that legend was, and forever shall be…

Stompin’ Tom Connors.

Nadia Elkharadly: My Toronto

I’ve often called myself a Toronto snob.  I was born and raised in this city, and no matter where else I go in the world, I’ll always think of it as home.  I love Toronto so very much.  There’s no better reminder of how much I love this city than when visitors from far away places come to the city, and I get a chance to show them my Toronto.  Not the CN Tower, the Skydome (I will never call it by its other corporate name thank you!)  I’m talking about the fun little places that I have come to love, and love showing off to people who come to town.

JAIMIE VERNON: DO THE FAN DANGLE-O

On Wednesday March 6th Canadian music legend Stompin’ Tom Connors passed away peacefully at the age of 77 from natural causes. Tom was a folk & country fixture around Canada for nearly six decades. He might very well be the last of the Canadian troubadours following in the footsteps of Wilf Carter (aka Montana Slim), Hank Snow, and the Canadian Sweethearts: Bob Regan and Lucille Starr. Connors walked amongst the rarified air of Canadian country Gods. He was a fixture at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern during its inception where his rousing songs and foot stomping put a hole in the stage – which the venue wanted him to pay for. On subsequent visits he resorted to stomping on a piece of wood to save the stage further injury – and Tom Connors became Stompin’ Tom Connors.