We’re on the air.
It’s Canadian History tonight!
With apologies for my poor singing, many can instantly recognize that melody thanks to one man who wrote songs about his experiences in towns from coast-to-coast.
His songs
Bud the Spud.
Sudbury Saturday Night.
The Hockey Song became famous across the country and he became one of our greatest singer-songwriters.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today, I’m sharing the story a man known for his black cowboy hat…
Stompin’ Tom Connors!
Currently on X, formerly Twitter, and on Threads, I am running daily polls to determine Canada’s Greatest Song.
I created a list of 300 songs and each day followers vote on randomly selected songs.
There have been over 450,000 votes as of writing this and some musicians are emerging as favourites.
One of those is Stompin’ Tom Connors.
The story of Connors may have ended with him as an icon, but the road to get there was difficult and rough.
The journey of Stompin’ Tom Connors began on Feb. 9, 1935, when Charles Thomas Connors was born, in Saint John, New Brunswick to Isabel Connors and Thomas Joseph Sullivan.
From the beginning, drama and difficulty was part of the life of Connors.
Since his mother was Protestant and his father was Catholic, his maternal grandparents refused to allow the couple to marry despite having a child together.
Soon after Connors was born, his father left the picture and Connors was raised by his mother.
She did the best she could, but money was tight, and they lived in a poor area of Saint John, a place Connors called the poorest and most rundown part of the city, in the home of his maternal grandparents Lucy and Joe Scribner.
Whatever stability Connors had at this time was upended in 1939 when both of his grandparents died within only a few weeks of each other.
With her parents gone, Isabel moved her and Connors into a small two-bedroom apartment.
Around this time, Connor’s father Thomas returned briefly. His time in the life of Connors at this point was just long enough for Isabel to become pregnant with a daughter.
Once again, Thomas was gone, this time to become a soldier, leaving Connors and his mother to fend for themselves again.
The tough times became tougher with money tight. During a trip to visit relatives, during which he and his mother hitchhiked, he saw his mother steal food for the first time to feed the two of them.
This, like hitchhiking, became a regular feature of Connors early life.
After he and his mother returned home, Isabel met Terrance Messer and moved in with him.
Whereas Thomas was an absentee father, Terrance was even less of a father for Connors. Whatever money the family brought in was used to buy alcohol by Terrance. Connors bed in that home was nothing more than a fur coat on the floor. The family was soon evicted from their first place due to an inability to pay the rent.
Connors said later in his life,
“I moved more times in my first five years than most people do in a lifetime. Looking back on it, I can see that it must have been tough, being on the road like that. But it didn’t seem that way at the time. For all I knew, every little kid in the world was traveling down some dirt road with his mother.”
Isabel eventually became pregnant with a daughter, who was named Nancy. On the birth certificate her father was listed as “unknown”, but Connors always believed that Terrance was the father.
Despite the tough times in poverty living with his mother inspired his musical abilities. He said:
“She used to stand in front of the mirror with a broom for a guitar and play all the cowboy songs.”
These are songs were by individuals who were the pioneers in the country music genre like Jimmie Rodgers or Fiddlin’ John Carson.
In the early spring of 1944, his mother was arrested for stealing, and Connors lived with her in a low-security women’s penitentiary.
He wrote in 1995,
“It was pretty dull being in jail. They did let me wander around inside a bit, but they wouldn’t let me down the halls where the men prisoners were in the cells.”
Isabel was released from jail a month later. She didn’t realize it but there was an All Points Bulletin out for her arrest.
After she was released a month later, Isobel, Connors and his sister Nancy went to Saint John, New Brunswick.
Connors didn’t know it, but this was the end of the line for his time with his mother.
Despite serving her time in jail, there was an all-points bulletin out on Isabel. I couldn’t find the exact reason why, but it may have been the fact she had her children in jail with her and the authorities believed she was an unfit mother.
While they were at the YWCA looking for a place to stay, someone phoned the police.
As Isabel and Nancy were led through the hallway into the kitchen, Connors was told to wait in the office. After Connors was separated from his mother, the office door opened, and a Mrs. Corbett from the Children’s Aid Society was there with a plain-clothed police officer.
Connors mother bolted for the door, but a staff member grabbed her, while another attempted to grab him.
He wrote,
“I was up on the tables, kicking over lamps, pulling down curtains and screaming to high heaven as I narrowly escaped his grasp nearly a dozen times.”
Connors attempted to run into the hallway, but two YWCA women blocked his way. The police officer grabbed him and pulled him away from his mother. Connors had such a firm grasp on his mother’s blouse that when the doctor yanked him away, he took a significant part of the blouse with him.
He was thrown into a police cruiser and drove him to the Children’s Aid Society.
He wrote,
“They put me in a small detention room with the door locked, and that’s where I stayed and cried for the rest of the night. I just knew, I was never going to see my mother again.”
In his new home, things were not going to be any better.
While Isabel had to steal to feed them, and they often struggled to find a place to live, she was a loving mother to Connors.
Love would not be a word I would use for Connors time at the orphanage.
He was physically abused, including being punished by the staff for infractions such as bedwetting. At one point he was put in a washing machine while it was running. Another time, a young man threw a milk bottle at his head. It shattered and left Connors with a scar he carried for the rest of his life.
He said of that time,
“The Second World War was coming to an end, but in some sectors, the atrocities were still going on. They beat the hell out of me, and everybody else, with leather straps and bamboo canes, and whatever else they could lay their hands on.”
All of this happened in the first decade of Connors’ life. From his birth to the age of nine, he had dealt with poverty, an absentee father, another father who was an alcoholic, stealing to eat and beatings at the hands of the people who took him from his mother.
At the age of nine, he was adopted by Cora and Russell Aylward of Skinners Pond, Prince Edward Island.
While the home provided stability, it was not a loving home.
He got along well with Russell, but he was often in conflict with Cora.
He said, “She constantly reminded me that I was just an orphan who was also a bastard and that I should be grateful because she had rescued me.”
He believed her animosity stemmed from wanting to adopt a girl and that he was only adopted to work on the farm.
Feeling unloved and unwelcomed….
A few years later, Connors ran away to hitchhike around Canada.
Some sources say he ran away when he was 13, while other sources 14, 15… Connors wrote in volume one of his autobiography Stompin’ Tom: Before the Fame, that he left home when he was 12.
Regardless of when he left home, at a very young age to begin a new life as a hitchhiker where he got his hands on his first guitar for $19.
He described it as worn down, with a bowed neck and a lot wrong with it and although he realized that he would soon have to save up to buy a new guitar he still wrote his first song, Reversing Halls Darling.
Inspired by musicians like Wilf Carter and Hank Snow who were born in the Maritimes like Connors.
Carter was born in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia and spent his early life traveling around Canada working odd jobs while he wrote music before he got his big break in 1930 with his first radio broadcast on CFCN out of Calgary.
Hank Snow was born in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia and as a young man he worked in sawmills and as a cabin boy on fishing boats.
Both men had grown up poor, while working odd jobs to bring in a small amount of cash.
They were an inspiration for Connors because both men had made it as singer-songwriters, and he hoped he could as well.
His first songs were not written to music.
Connors said,
“They were poems. I wanted to be a poet. I can still remember every word of every poem we learned in grade school.”
He wrote while hitchhiking and working on cod boats in Newfoundland, picking tobacco in southern Ontario, working on a tugboat in British Columbia.
During the coldest parts of the year, he sometimes tried to get arrested for vagrancy so he could have a warm place to sleep.
Around 1956, Connors made a trip down to Nashville to meet his hero Hank Snow and show him a song he had written in 1951 called I’ll Be Gone with the Wind.
According to Connors, everyone who heard him play the song said it was perfect for someone like Hank Snow.
Snow t had moved from Canada to Nashville and his first US release, Marriage Vow, reached #10 on the country charts in 1949.
The next year he played at the famous Grand Ole Opry and his 1950 song, I’m Moving On, was the first of seven #1 hits for Snow.
The song remained at the top of the charts for 21 weeks.
He had two more number ones, The Golden Rocket and The Rhumba Boogie, that year.
Connors was hoping to meet Snow at the height of the latter’s fame and musical influence.
He arrived at Hank Snow’s home, called Rainbow Ranch.
Located just outside of Nashville and waited with two friends outside the property as a limousine and two cars pulled up.
Eight men got out and one of them was Hank Snow.
As Snow passed by, Connors heard him say,
“Get rid of that riffraff over there.”
A man named McDaniels came over to hustle them along and that’s when Connors said he had hitchhiked all the way from Canada to give Snow a song.
McDaniels said he would pass it on to Snow and told them to go to a nearby restaurant to wait.
One hour later, McDaniels arrived and paid for their meal.
He told Connors Snow liked the song and offered him $75 for it.
It was to be a one-time payment, with no royalties.
He was insulted by the offer and turned it down immediately.
Connors wrote in his autobiography, Before the Fame,
“I might be broke now but I’d rather starve before selling a song outright to Hank Snow or anyone else.”
The meeting with Hank Snow may have been a bust, but something else happened in Nashville that had a much more positive impact.
While in Music City, Connors stopped in at a furniture store.
He was browsing when he came across a Gibson Southern Jump acoustic guitar.
It was out of tune, but Connors felt an immediate connection with it.
He wrote,
“The intrinsic quality of the instrument was undeniable. As I thought what a beautiful sound this guitar would have with a new set of strings, I knew I just had to have it.”
The store owner priced the guitar at $100 but Connors only had $85, so he negotiated with the man until the price came down to $80.
The guitar became an extension of Connors.
He would go on to play it when he went back on the road and at each stop along the way he played for change, and at each dingy bar, he played for his supper.
Then in October 1964, he carried that guitar when he hitchhiked for the last time as he arrived in Timmins, Ontario and this is when his life changed forever.
In August 1964, Connors woke up in the back seat of a wrecked car in a remote Northern Ontario junkyard.
He walked to the road, stuck out his thumb and was picked up by a convertible.
He reached Larder Lake, located 100 kilometres northeast of Sudbury.
Connors walked into a hotel and picked up a job playing music every night and earned $25 a week.
After five weeks, he asked the hotel owner, Jerry, for a five dollar raise.
Jerry refused and Connors quit on the spot.
This wasn’t a rash move because by now, he knew that people enjoyed his music.
The hotel bar was always filled, and people often requested his songs and covers of other songs.
At the time, he knew 2,300 songs by heart, according to his own estimates, and it was rare for him not to know a song someone requested.
Connors went to other hotels in the area looking for work, when he didn’t pick up gigs he hitchhiked out of the area.
He didn’t know it at the time, but it was for the last time.
Usually on a podcast, that sentence denotes some sort of true crime tragedy but for Connors, that last hitchhike changed his life for the better.
The driver who picked him up said he was going to Timmins.
Connors, with no real sense of direction, said that was where he was going as well.
A few hours later, he was in Timmins and walked into a Lounge called Leon’s where he asked if he could sing some songs on stage.
The owner said sure and after a few songs, the owner told him he didn’t want him in his lounge.
Downtrodden Connors walked out and saw the Maple Leaf Hotel.
He stepped inside to have a beer but as he ordered, he realized he was five cents short.
Without being able to afford it, Connors told the bartender not to bother, and got up to leave.
The bartender, named Gaetan Lepine, said he could have the beer, and a second one, if he took out his guitar and sang a song.
He performed the song, and enjoyed two beers, and that’s when Lepine asked him to perform at the hotel.
Connors heartily agreed.
That one song led to a 14-month stay in Timmins, where he played music at the bar several nights a week.
Within a few months, his shows were standing room only and word about this new musician spread through the area.
With growing fame in 1965 he got a weekly spot on CKGB, a local radio station where he recorded eight 45-RPM vinyl records.
The first song was Carolyne.
Connors said,
“I had a good thing going for me there in Timmins. By the time I left, that was after about 14 months, I’d got up to about $100 a week at the hotel, and I’d been on radio and television, and started doing shows in places like Kirkland Lakes and then in places like Sudbury.”
At the hotel Connors also developed the habit of stomping his foot on the floor to keep the rhythm above the crowd noise.
During one show at the hotel, he was stomping his foot and was quickly told by two older women,
“Will you please stop banging your foot when you sing? It is very rude of you to do that when someone is trying to hold a conversation.”
When he didn’t stop, they complained. Connors was told to stop and when that happened, he replied that either he stomped, or he would walk out and never come back.
Connors was allowed to continue stomping.
He also never forgot Gaetan Lepine, the man who changed his life.
Over the next few years, continued to stomp as his fan base grew.
On July 1, 1967, at a Centennial Day event at the King George Tavern in Peterborough, Ontario, waiter, Boyd MacDonald, introduced him and got people to chant “Yay, Stompin Tom! Yay, Stompin Tom!”
Connors said,
“At first, I felt a little stupid and half embarrassed by the whole thing. But when I began to see how readily they all took to the new name, I just threw up my hands and said ‘Well, I was looking for a new name anyway!”
This was the first time he was referred to as Stompin’ Tom and from then on, there was Thomas Connors the private citizen, and Stompin Tom’ Connors the entertainer.
As soon as Connors was back in Toronto, he registered the name Stompin’ Tom and created Stompin’ Tom Ltd.
Despite his growing fame, money was still tight.
In 1968, he wrote a radio jingle for a tire store in Sudbury in exchange for winter tires on his car.
But things were slowly changing for him and in 1969 he signed a record deal with Dominion Records.
Over the next two years, he recorded six original albums, a compilation album and a five-album set of traditional music.
Two songs, Big Joe Mufferaw and The Ketchup Song, hit #1 on the Canadian Country Charts.
One song became one of his most famous,
Bud the Spud.
A year its release, Bud the Spud became a hit, reaching #30 in Canada, and led to an increase in potato sales from Prince Edward Island.
On June 1, 1970, he arrived in Charlottetown for what he thought was going to be just another show.
Instead, he was greeted by eight men in suits who told him they were members of the provincial government and were there to thank him for Bud the Spud and its impact on the Prince Edward Island economy.
Connor wrote that moments later, a pickup truck full of potatoes pulled up “Someone told me to climb up on the load while another guy passed me my guitar and before I knew it, I was following the parade.”
It was a complete surprise.
The parade was his honour, and he was happy to oblige the crowd and waved as it wound through the street and ended at the Provincial Legislature where the Minister of Agriculture, Dan MacDonald, presented Connors with a golden potato.
It was the first of many awards to come.
On 22 February 1971, he was awarded his first Juno Award for Best Male Country Singer. He went on to win it every year until 1975.
That same month, Connors was playing shows for two weeks at Johnny Reid’s in Charlottetown when he met a waitress he noticed while she walked down the stairs.
Her name was Lena Kathleen Joyce Welsh, and he had just met his future wife.
He was Immediately smitten and asked her out.
She said no.
The next day he asked again, and she said no.
He asked one more time the next day and she said sure but ended up cancelling.
The next night, she apologized, and he asked if he could drive her home.
She agreed and from that moment they were nearly inseparable and spent the rest of their lives together.
With her personal life fulfilled Connors focused on his career and kept it Canadian.
He said,
“My ambition? I guess you could say it’s to sing Canada to the world.”
In 1972, he recorded Moon-Man Newfie, which went to #1 on the Canadian Country Charts.
His star had risen high enough to tour alongside his childhood idols Hank Snow and Wilf Carter in 1973.
In a nice full circle moment, at the start of the tour he retired the guitar he bought on the trip to Nashville where he hoped to meet Hank Snow.
The guitar was a prized possession that went on display in his home.
On tour, Snow barely talked to him and shunned him most of the time.
Connors admired Snow but he said was one of the most unsociable and disgruntled individuals he ever met.
In comparison Wilf Carter was a joy to work with. In his autobiography, The Connors Tone, he wrote.
“I came to realize he was the real genuine article. With his big friendly smile, he immediately won the hearts of everyone he spoke with.”
In the summer of 1973, Connors had his first brush with royalty when he met Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II at a garden party in Charlottetown.
A day later, he performed, and the crowd was larger than the one that came out for the Queen.
That same year, he released the album Stompin’ Tom and the Hockey Song which contained his most famous song.
The verses of The Hockey Song were split up to resemble three periods of a game.
Although famous, the song took time to reach icon status.
That would take a few years, but we will get to that in a bit.
Meanwhile… 1973 was a big year for Connors because on Nov. 2, he married Lena Walsh on a live broadcast on the CBC show Elwood Glover’s Luncheon Date. Where New Brunswick premier Richard Hatfield, Prince Edward Island premier Alex Campbell and Toronto Mayor David Crombie were in attendance.
Throughout the 1970s, Stomping Tom Connors released 12 studio albums on his label, Boot Records, as well as six compilations.
He also wrote the song The Consumer, which became the theme song for the CBC program Marketplace. He also appeared in its opening credits during its first years on television.
His songs covered Canadiana from hockey to Newfoundland to history including The Black Donnellys, the pilot Wop May, to the Hollinger Mines Fire, and the collapse of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.
The National Post wrote of him,
“Stompin’ Tom is one of the great Canadian storytellers and a uniquely collegial one as well. The proper venue for a Gordon Lightfoot performance is a concert hall, where the audience connects silently and contemplatively. The proper venue for Mr. Connors is a smoky bar room where people connected by slamming their beer mugs together, hopefully obliterating whatever differences existed between them.”
It’s important to note that Connors never attempted to break into the United States.
He also didn’t like American singers getting special treatment, or when Canadian musicians relocated to the United States.
In 1973, Connors was hired to perform at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto for two hours and was offered $2,500. Soon after agreeing, he found out that American singer Charley Pride was being paid $35,000 for six songs. He said,
“I must decline this offer as a protest of the way Canadian entertainers are treated by the CNE and other exhibitions in Canada.”
He boycotted the exhibition after that.
Five years later, he launched his most famous protest.
In 1978, Connors returned his Juno Awards because they had awarded artists who did most of their work, and lived, in the United States.
He then retired from music and conducted a one-year boycott of radio and other media in protest.
His letter to the Juno Committee stated:
“Gentlemen:
I am returning herewith the six Juno awards that I once felt honoured 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”
In 1979, he released what was thought to be his final album, Gumboot Cloggeroo.
There was no new music for a decade.
He said of his decision,
“I’m not saying keep the Americans out. Just give Canadians their due, and we are overdue for that.”
But a musical icon can’t stay silent forever.
In 1986, at Connors’ 50th birthday, Dave Bidini of the Rheostatics crashed the party.
He presented Connors with a petition requesting he come out of retirement.
Bidini followed that by writing an article for Nerve Magazine recounting the event.
That sparked Stompin’ Tom Connors to come out of his self-imposed exile and he formed A-C-T Records to promote and record Canadian music.
He then signed with EMI Canada, which allowed for a complete re-release of his entire musical catalogue.
In 1986, the first new album in nine years was released, Stompin’ Tom is Back to Assist Canadian Talent.
Two years later, he released Fiddle and Song which marked Connors way back into the public eye as he promoted the album.
He performed in a few shows on CBC’s Morningside that year, and then appeared with k.d. lang on the CBC special Buffalo Cafe.
Two songs on the album, charted in Canada. Canada Day, Up Canada Way reached #29 on the Canadian Country Chart, and I Am the Wind reached #40.
With that the appetite for Stompin’ Tom Connors grew
In 1990, Connors played a 70-city tour of Canada, including two shows at Toronto’s Massey Hall. He had two conditions.
No radio stations as concert presenters and no interviews.
Canadians flocked to see Stompin’ Tom return to the stage, and the tour was a massive success.
One year later in 1991, he released, More of the Stompin’ Tom Phenomenon, followed by Believe in Your Country, which reached #9 on the Canadian Country Charts.
Then, a song from two decades earlier resurfaced to become an iconic part of Canada.
On Jan. 18, 1992, the Ottawa Senators were playing the Pittsburgh Penguins in a home game. During a break in the action, The Hockey Song blasted through the speakers.
Earl McRae, a sportswriter for the Ottawa Sun, was there and wrote a column about his disgust of the song and how embarrassed he was that an American sportswriter columnists heard it.
He wrote,
“I was embarrassed to be a Canadian last night when the media sophisticates of Pittsburgh were suddenly subjected to the horrendous caterwauling of that all-Canadian rube, Stompin’ Tom Connors. This yearning yob makes Dylan sound like Pavarotti.”
The response to the column made headlines across the country and the people were enraged.
Connors responded with a letter to the Canadian Press quote,
“The next time I play Ottawa, there’s going to be a big picture of Squirrelly Earl McRae glued to my stompin’ board.”
Pat Burns, the Toronto Maple Leafs coach, asked that the song be played during their games.
From there, the song slowly grew in popularity and eventually became a staple of games in both Canadian and American arenas.
As for Connors, he kept true to his promise. On Aug. 31, 1993, he played Ottawa and on his stompin’ board was a picture of Earl McRae.
For Christmas in 1992, Connors’ wife Lena took his retired guitar from Nashville, and sent it to be completely reconditioned.
She stuffed the guitar case with firewood so he wouldn’t notice the weight difference.,.
On Christmas Day, he saw a present under the tree and when he opened it, he found the guitar that helped launch his career, looking more beautiful than ever.
It cost $900 to refurbish it but to Connors it was a priceless gift.
Inspired by it he began to write new songs once again on that old $80 guitar.
In 1993, he released Dr. Stompin’ Tom Eh, which hit #28 on the Canadian Country Charts.
Around that same time, he was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, but he turned down the induction in protest like he had with the Juno Awards because he felt favoritism was given to artists who left Canada.
[BEAT]In 1994, Connors accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award from the East Coast Music Awards.
His only condition in his acceptance was that an award be created to honour those who made long-term contributions to the music industry on the East Coast.
That’s how the Stompin’ Tom Award was established.
That same year when he was also awarded the Order of Canada.
In 1995, Connors released Long Gone to the Yukon, which reached #5 on the Canadian Country Charts.
His next album was The Confederation Bridge in 2000, named for the new bridge that connected Prince Edward Island with New Brunswick.
That year he was also given the prestigious Governor General’s Performing Arts Award
His musical output began to slow down.
He released An Ode for the Road in 2002 and Stompin’ Tom and the Hockey Mom Tribute in 2004.
As his output decreased, he was cemented as an icon.
And he continued to be a staunch supporter for fellow Canadian artists who remained in the country He said in 2002,
“It’s a shame everyone today is writing about Nashville and Tennessee. Canadians are wasting their time and doing Canada a disservice by not writing about it.”
Connors was already known coast to coast, but thanks to an American red-headed comedian he was about to reach a much bigger audience.
In 2004, Conan O’Brien came to Canada to film a week of shows which featured several Canadian celebrities including Mike Myers and Jim Carrey.
It wouldn’t have been a tribute to Canadian culture without Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Connors was a guest of honour on one of the episodes where he played The Hockey Song.
This marked one of the few times Connors performed on American television.
That same year the CBC compiled a list of The Greatest Canadian where Stompin’ Tom Connors ranked 13th, the highest placing of any artist on the list. He didn’t crack the top 10 though, which was made up of three former prime ministers, David Suzuki and Sir Frederick Banting, Alexander Graham Bell, Don Cherry, Terry Fox, and the eventual winner, Tommy Douglas.
In 2005, Connors produced a live concert film, which cost him $200,000 to film that he hoped would air on the CBC, the organization that helped Stompin’ Tom Connors become a legend over the years.
After filming and editing was complete, he sent the film to CBC, and didn’t hear from them for a full 10 weeks.
CBC then sent him an e-mail that simply stated they were not going to air his concert film because they were moving away from music programming.
As consolation, the network offered him to perform a song as a guest on its Hockeyville series, or as a Life and Times Project.
Connors flatly refused and said,
“As far as I’m concerned, if the CBC, our own public network, will not reconsider their refusal to air a Stompin’ Tom special, they can take their wonderful offer of letting me sing a song as a guest on some other program and shove it.”
Even in his 70s, Stompin’ Tom had fire.
CTV, saw an opportunity, contacted Connors and offered to broadcast the film.
It was also released on DVD and sold more than 20,000 copies.
X many years later Connors released his final album, Stompin Tom and the Roads of Life in 2012
Over the course of his life, he had released dozens of albums, written hundreds of songs and was famous from Victoria to St. John’s. He had accomplished everything possible as the end drew near
He said,
“I think people should die without their dreams being fulfilled, so maybe they can have an excuse for coming around again.”
Knowing his health was in decline, Connors penned a letter s on his website which said Canadians had:
“Inspired with its beauty, character and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world.”
Connors died of kidney failure on March 6, 2013.
In his last message to Connors said,
“It was a long hard bumpy road, but this great country kept me inspired with its beauty, character and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world. I must now pass the torch to all of you to keep the Maple Leaf flying high and be the Patriot Canada needs now and in the future.”
Upon his death, the National Post wrote,
“He sang of a nation without politics, to its proud history, and to its better angels. His songs remind us that Canada matters, that we’ve built something amazing here, and must take it for granted.”
The National Arts Centre lowered its flags to half-mast to honour him and
Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated,
“We have lost a true Canadian original. Rest in Peace Stompin’ Tom Connors. You played the best game that could be played.”
At the Air Canada Centre during a Maple Leafs game, fans stood in silence as The Hockey Song was played after his death was announced.
On March 7, New Democratic MPs sang Bud the Spud in the foyer of the House of Commons to honour him.
His memorial at the Peterborough Memorial Centre was attended by Tommy Hunter, former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, hockey great Ken Dryden, Nova Scotian singer Rita MacNeil, General Romeo Dallaire and musician Liona Boyd.
Liberal MP, and former premier of Ontario, Bob Rae, said of Connors:
“Tom was a wonderful voice for Canada, and his music brought cheer to the lives of many. He was a true patriot and embodied the very best of what it meant to be Canadian.”
Corb Lund, a singer-songwriter, said,
“Artistry is doing exactly what you want to do in the face of all kinds of challenges and not letting your vision be diluted. He’s 1,000 per cent an artist that way. He did his own thing start to finish, front to back.”
Another Canadian icon, Gordon Lightfoot, honoured his long-time friend by saying,
“He was a powerful entertainer, and he had a powerful voice. He was a great player. He always had great musicians working with him.”
In 2017, Connors was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame and before I leave you, I have one final anecdote about Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Stompin’ Tom Connors wore a black hat for nearly all his adult life.
It was part of his image, and he was always seen with it.
Connors said of the hat, quote:
“I started wearing it when I was a kid because we didn’t grow our hair long then.”.
In public he was only seen without it twice and both times happened in 1973
I told you that it had been a big year for him.
He took off the hat when he met Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II in the summer of 1973 and a few months later in November 1973, he once again removed it to marry his wife, Lena.
Even his manager and friend of 40 years, Brian Edwards, said he had rarely seen him without it.
In October 2002, Queen Elizabeth II toured Canada and Stompin’ Tom Connors was invited to Rideau Hall to meet the Queen once more.
He said he was honoured to meet her, but only would if he could wear his trademark hat.
Messages went back and forth between Ottawa and Buckingham Palace before things were smoothed over.
In the end, Buckingham Palace stated that the black hat worn by Stompin’ Tom was akin to a religious headdress and he could wear it when he met the Queen.
Not many people could wear a hat when they met the Queen, but Canadian royalty like Stompin’ Tom Connors certainly could.
Information from Canadian Encyclopedia, Macleans, CBC, Wikipedia, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, National Post, The Windsor Star, The Connors Tone, Before The Fame.
There are 47 Canadian and 41 Canada in the document and there are a lot in the intro
I’ve made attempts to make trims
Information from Canadian Encyclopedia, Macleans, CBC, Wikipedia, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, National Post, The Windsor Star,
