Well, I didn't have any of the fancy gadgetry I needed to listen to your clips. MP3 indeed. Then I wandered off and found a Stompin Tom video library, and decided to download the RealPlayer stuff, and then I had to close Netscape, and so here I am back again and I'll go have a listen.
Of course Fred Eaglesmith has an incredible sense of humour. He's one of us!
... I give up. Your second link sent a message the server couldn't understand, and I still don't have what I need to listen to the first link. No music for me.
I had gone looking for a Stompin Tom audio clip.
The girls are out to bingo
and the boys are getting stinko;
They'll think no more of Inco
On a Sudbury Saturday Night.
(Inco's the nickel ... whaddaya call it, plant? smelter? ... in Sudbury, a hard rock town up north of Toronto, the cause of the moonscape that the environment became there.)
http://www.stompintom.com/stompintomtimes/todayssenior.html Tom is a man of drastic decisions. His biggest one affecting his career happened in 1972 when he squared off with the directors of the Canadian National Exhibition.
He had agreed to appear in the Grandstand, bringing his own band, sound equipment and lighting for a two hour show in front of 20,000 people.
He looked forward to the night, and told the CNE people he was happy with the $2,500 fee they proposed for his group. He asked management to draw up a contract for him.
But a close friend who had a copy of a contract the CNE had signed with American country star Charlie Pride pointed out a startling fact: Pride was hired to sing, with Connors' group to back him, for a fee of $35,000 - for only six songs!
Tom hit the roof. He had won Canada's Juno awars three years in a row as top country singer, while Pride had won the US equivalent only once.
Tom told the CNE he wouldn't appear, and said he would not ocnsider signing at the CNE unless the directors adopted a policy of booking at least 60 per cent Canadian talent. The CNE argued that it hired 95 percent Canadian talent - but Tom replied that 95 percent of the entertainment budget went to American or foreign acts while the paltry five percent of the money went to Canadians who performed 95 percent of the work.
Country music writer Henry McGuirk points out that "there were even statements made at the time to try and discredit Tom by suggesting he was a racist and was simply refusing to work for a black man.
"It seemed that they would go to any length to deflect attention away from the real issue which was to have Canadian talent headlining at the Canadian National Exhibition."
He's had delegations from the north ask him to refrain from singing "Sudbury Saturday Night". On one occasion he threatened not to sing the controversial song and let the patrons tear apart the room in anger. The delegation left in defeat.
http://www.stompintom.com/videoclips.htmlWell, the Blue Berets clip ends right where the song was to begin.
You can hear some of The Hockey Game song though. All of Tom's songs are sung to a single tune, pretty much.
If you watch I am the Wind, you get to see Stompin Tom and a truck, and hear him say "eh?", and if you listen closely you can hear a bit of Sudbury Saturday Night in the background. Ooh, there's a truck in Margo's Cargo, too.
Do you know Rita MacNeil at all?
Working Man
Chorus
It’s a working man l am
And I’ve been down under ground
And I swear to God if ever see the sun
Or for any length of time
I can hold it in my mind
I never again will go down under ground
At the age of sixteen years
Oh he quarrels with his peers
Who vowed they’d never see another one
In the dark recess of the mines
Where you age before your time
And the coal dust has heavy on your lungs
Chorus
At the age of sixty-four
Oh he'll greet you at the door
And he'll gently lead you by the arm
Through the dark recess of the mines
Oh he'll take you back in time
And he'll tell you of the hardships that were had
Chorus
(Repeat Chorus)
(Repeat Chorus)
God I never again will go down under ground
Clip here:
http://www.ritamacneil.com/discography/vcolume1.htmAnd a variation (with Men of the Deep, I think) here:
http://www.ritamacneil.com/miningthesoul.htmMining The Soul Story....
From Cape Breton Island, comes the magic of two internationally acclaimed performers; multi-award winning singer-songwriter Rita MacNeil re-unites with The Men of The Deeps, North America's only coal miners' chorus for a heart-felt performance of MINING THE SOUL - an extensive Canadian tour and exclusive new recording.
Far beneath the surface of the earth, some say the heart and soul of Cape Breton beats. A tumultuous industry has given character to this part of the country, character that is reflected in its people and their music. The island speaks of working class values, strong friendships, unfailing courage and unwavering faith. These emotions have found their voice in MINING THE SOUL.
The MINING THE SOUL tour, which features both MacNeil and the choir, promotes the CD of the same name, and is MacNeil's first major tour with the Men, who worked with her in 1989 on a song called Working Man. MacNeil got a glimpse of what life underground is like when, just for fun, she toured the Princess mine. "I was thinking it would be a fun thing to do - duh." Going down the mine shaft did something to her. It was as if the spirit of the workers spoke to her through the pitch blackness. The song Working Man came to her, practically writing itself, she says.
"...In her hymn to Nova Scotia's miners, Rita MacNeil was joined by The Men of The Deeps...they filed onto the stage from the wings and auditorium to construct a three-tiered wall of light and sound above MacNeil and beneath a glowering red sky upstage. It was a brave and epic stunt, simple in its humanity and emotionally overpowering, that brought the audience, awestruck, to its feet..." (Toronto Star)
Yeah, too sappy for you, I bet. I just like that song.
(She also appears in the final episode of season 4 of Trailer Park Boys, singing this song as she helps harvest the pot crop, after the Boys press the passengers off a passing bus into service to get the crop in before the cops get it. Rita's pathologically shy, and this was a first. I made my mother watch 15 minutes of all the f-word-ing just to see her.)
Anyhow, the two of them, Tom and Rita, kinda represent working-class / naive music-making here, and are not universally appreciated:
http://www.craptastic.com/cancon/dreck.html Stompin' Tom Connors
I'm going to take heat for this one. A true
Canadian, paid his dues, blah blah blah.
Harmless yes. But sorry, he sucks. He wrote the
same song thousands of times over and
accompanied himself with a piece of plywood.
Rita MacNeil
Another reader submission:
"I have just as much desire to clutter
this area with fat jokes as the next
guy. I'm no fan of the music either,
but I think that these days with
looks like that if you can A) Sell at
least a few albums here and there,
B) have ANY large number of fans
(even if they are all over 50 and live
in Nova Scotia), and C) keep a
bland TV series featuring mainly
your homely ass (watched mainly by
the above group) for more than a
season, you deserve a bit of respect.
Junkhouse performing on her show
was good for a laugh. She looked
just horrified. That's like booking
Marilyn Manson at an Up With
People concert."
Well, I like Crash Test Dummies *and* Moxy Fruvous *and* Bare Naked Ladies, but I'm old and don't matter, and I liked Freddy and the Dreamers. But they're right about Dan Hill. Many moons ago, my menial co-worker buddy and I set out on a road trip to Quebec City, and our boss, the lawyer I was articling for, decided to invite himself along with his obnoxious wife, with whom he was nauseatingly in love. He sat in the back seat singing "Sometimes When We Touch" for 500 miles ... and back.
But they forgot the appalling Diana Krall ...
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