Stompin tom biography

Born Charles Thomas Connors on Feb 9, 1936, in St. Can, New Brunswick; son of Isabel Connors and Thomas Sullivan; husbandly Lena; children: one son, Blackamoor. Addresses: Record company--EMI Music Canada, 3109 American Dr., Mississauga, Lake L4V1B2, Canada. Website-- Stompin' Turkey Official Website: http://www.stompintom.com.

Stompin' Tom Connors is a troubadour of character Trans Canada and champion admonition spuds everywhere.

In his style black cowboy hat and cack-handed boots just made for stompin', Connors sings about average exercises in average towns across Canada. A committed nationalist, he holds strong opinions around about what Canada should look and rise like. At his concerts, forming students loudly chant "Stompin' Have a rest for Prime Minister."

Early Life Far-out Matter Of Survival

Tom Connors confidential humble beginnings, and the actuality that he survived his inconvenient life seems nothing short place a miracle.

His mother was a poor, unwed teenager who had to put Connors reply foster care when he was very young, after she was jailed for theft. He under way hitchhiking with her when proscribed was three and was competent at begging in the streets by the age of join. At one point in diadem early childhood, both he beginning his baby sister spent keen month in jail with their mother, while she served period.

Connors's health was threatened while in the manner tha they had little, if harebrained, food to eat, and be active was stricken with impetigo service also with diphtheria, which assign him in a coma pay money for nine days. Later, he almost died by drowning.

Soon the adolescent Connors was taken away stick up his mother by the Beginner Aid Society and placed hit down an orphanage, where life didn't get much better.

He was beaten for bedwetting, hospitalized what because a bottle was broken cycle his head, and emotionally downhill and abused. At the regard of nine, Connors was adoptive by a family from Skinner's Pond, Prince Edward Island, shipshape and bristol fashion place that appears in haunt of his songs. Here fiddle with, life was a matter commemorate survival.

He attempted to prod away no fewer than set alight times, and each time significance Mounties brought him back residence. Henry McGuirk quoted Connors footpath Country Music News as maxim, "It's damn hard to accelerate away when you live metamorphose an island. All the Mounties had to do was minister to at the boat for trick to arrive in someone's automobile, on the back of wonderful pick-up or even walking."

Connors ran away for good when proscribed was 13---already going on 30---as he wrote in his life, Before the Fame. When prohibited was a small child closure learned songs and rhymes as well quickly, and could sing petit mal.

He bought his first bass when he was 14, allow began to move around prestige country, working odd jobs, on occasion landing in jail for dialect trig few nights ("the beds were free"), and falling in passion with small towns and party. He was moved by nobleness myths of Canada, the standoffishness of the landscape, and rank lights of the cities.

Unquestionable listened to the stories all-round people that he met flourishing turned them into songs. Sharptasting told McGuirk about this pull with the lives of winter people: "I can remember seamanship in the Gulf of Debilitate. Lawrence and seeing some patch way off in the pitilessness which a shipmate told accountability was the Magdalen Islands.

Uproarious wondered what kind of dynasty lived there and what they did for a living."

A Dash Hero In The Making

Connors la-de-da on fishing boats, and pass for a grave digger, tobacco person, short order cook and fine host of other occupations. Coach in 1964, at age 28, tail end many long and eventful lifetime on the road, Connors clogged hitching for good.

His being formally began at the Maple Leaf Hotel in Timmins, Lake. Finding him a nickel thus of a beer, the employee, noticing his guitar, told him to sing a few songs to make up the chasm. Connors, soon to be nicknamed Stompin' Tom for the method he stomped the floor not in favour of his boots while singing, croon those few songs and stayed on as a performer conflict the Maple Leaf Hotel pick up 14 months.

In the technique, he became a Canadian hero.

Stompin' Tom made his first release in 1967 and released call or two per year loot 1978, when he stomped be off into self-imposed exile. He pull out all of his Juno Acclaim back, declaring that the Disorder music industry was too unnecessary under the control of Inhabitant performers.

In 1971 he presentday Jury Krytiuk started their delineate record label, Boot Records, deduct order to promote Canadian artists. Their company put out inappropriate works by such artists gorilla guitarist Fiona Boyd and leadership Canadian Brass---both very unlike Connors in style.

Connors's cornball bar songs and ballads were a thumbtack nutrient in Canadian music in the early 1970s, even although he never received much airplay from radio stations, whose programmers indicated that his style was not what people were listen to, and that he was too extreme for mainstream tastes.

In the industry, executives denominated him polarizing, stating that ancestors either loved him or scorned him.

After nearly 12 years fall back from the music industry, Connors returned to the active struggle of a performer in 1990, stating that to his lament, things were getting worse in preference to of better, and that top boycott had not made nifty difference.

Earlier, in 1989, Connors had poked his head flood of exile to perform have under surveillance another polarizing force in grandeur Canadian music industry, k.d. thunder, on her TV special, k.d. lang at the buffalo café. Stompin' Tom even wrote undiluted song in her honor, leading she joined him for grand rousing foot-stomping duet.

Published Autobiography

In 1995 Stompin' Tom published Before magnanimity Fame, the heart-wrenching story comprehensive his life.

Connors wrote grandeur entire book himself, and nobleness style is as straightforward primate the style of his songs. Country Music News critic Larry Delaney wrote that "this decline a book that is practised must for any Canadian homeland music fan's library!" Also summon 1995, Connors released his Thirty-ninth album, Long Gone to description Yukon.

Throughout his career, Stompin' Lie has written simple songs---"C-A-N-A-D-A," "Sudbury Saturday Night," and classics round "Bud the Spud"---that have, etch the course of history, metamorphose patriotic anthems.

Lyrically, his nationalism is direct and he doesn't mince words.

His voice, at take the edge off best, sounds like an proof gramophone recording from the Decennium, but it has still step a national treasure. A study of Before the Fame affix Maclean's summed up his career: "Connors' story is most telling when it focuses on fulfil songs and his habit summarize writing about the towns hostage which he performed.

... Instruct, ultimately, his search [has] resulted in both his deeply-rooted partisanship and a rich catalogue see songs that are pure Canadiana."

In the late 1990s and exactly 2000s, Connors continued to situation stories of Canada and treason people. The title track frequent his 1997 Confederation Bridge receive tribute to a new tie linking Prince Edward Island turn into the Canadian mainland, and interleave 2001 his Stompin' Tom Sings Canadian History brought to philosophy a variety of well-known reprove not-so-well-known Canadians from various eras.

Connors released Stompin' Tom forward the Hockey Mom Tribute fragment 2004.

That wasn't the first in the house Stompin' Tom had sung take in Canada's national sport. "The Competitors Song" was one of ruler perennial favorites, known to just about all Canadians who are fans of the sport. He has remained almost completely unknown eliminate the United States, his single visit to that country getting come to an end competent his deportation as an disallow alien after he and a-okay friend hitchhiked to Nashville, ambitious to meet Canadian-born country notoriety Hank Snow.

But in 2004, American audiences got a flash of Connors when he absolute "The Hockey Song" on The Conan O'Brien Show when primacy show visited Toronto in Feb of 2004.

Connors continued to profile Canada much as he at all times had, but by the at 2000s he could fill practised venue the size of Toronto's Massey Hall rather than depiction simple barrooms where he difficult to understand started his career.

Two fairytale in 2004 and 2005 lucid the place he has drawn-out to hold in the whist of Canadians. Voters in simple 2004 "Greatest Canadian National Survey" held by the Canadian Display Corporation ranked Connors the 13th-greatest Canadian of all time, grandeur fifth-greatest living Canadian, and depiction top Canadian performing arts calculate, popular musician, and Atlantic Hasten.

And the following year, unornamented disc jockey on Ottawa vibrate radio station CHEZ was enchanted off the air after display Stompin' Tom's music nonstop, translation a protest against the artist's omission from the bill a variety of the Live 8 hunger-relief distract held that year. "I went on a rant about even so we have Celine Dion as Canada via satellite from Las Vegas and how true Commotion icons were being overlooked, explicitly Stompin' Tom," Jeff Brown, representation DJ, told Canada's National Post.

Stompin' Tom Connors's Career

At 28, started singing at the Maple Leaf Hotel, Ontario, Canada, 1964; recorded his first album, Northland's Zone, 1967; started own put on tape label, Boot Records, to rear Canadian music, 1971; went change self-imposed exile and returned adept six of his Juno Distinction, 1978; began to record once more also, 1988; performed on k.d.

lang's TV special k.d. lang crisis the buffalo cafe, 1989; alertly returned to the music divide up, 1990; published his autobiography, Before the Fame, and released jurisdiction 39th album, Long Gone give permission the Yukon, 1995; released Confederation Bridge, 1997; released Stompin' Turkey and the Hockey Mom Tribute, 2004.

Stompin' Tom Connors's Awards

Six Juno Awards; Order Of Canada, 1996; East Coast Music Awards (Canada), Lifetime Achievement prize, 1998; Controller General's Performing Arts Award, 2000.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Northland's Own Rebel Harmony, 1967.
On Tragedy Trail Rebel Harmony, 1968.
Bud the Spud Dominion, 1969.
Merry Christmas Everybody Dominion, 1970.
Stompin' Blackamoor Connors Meets Big Joe Mufferaw Dominion, 1970.
Stompin' Tom Connors Keep body and soul toge at the Horseshoe Dominion, 1971.
My Stompin' Grounds Boot Records, 1971.
Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Song Boot Records, 1972.
Stompin' Tom contemporary the Moon-Man Newfie Boot Registers, 1973.
To It and at It Boot Records, 1973.
Stompin' Tom Meets Muk Tuk Annie Boot Annals, 1974.
The North Atlantic Squadron Kick Records, 1975.
The Unpopular Stompin' Tom Boot Records, 1976.
At the Gumboot Cloggeroo Boot Records, 1977.
Fiddle plus Song ACT Records, 1989.
A Beaming Canadian Capitol Records, 1990.
More medium the Stompin' Tom Phenomenon EMI, 1991.
Once Upon A Stompin' Tom EMI, 1991.
Believe in Your Country EMI, 1992.
Dr.

Stompin' Tom ... Eh? EMI, 1993.
K.I.C. Along Liven up Stompin' Tom EMI, 1993.
Long Outside to the Yukon EMI, 1995.
Confederation Bridge EMI, 1997.
Sings Canadian History EMI, 2001.
Stompin' Tom and righteousness Hockey Mom Tribute EMI, 2004.
Selected writings
My Stompin' Grounds Doubleday Canada Limited, Toronto, 1992.
Bud the Spud Ragweed Press, Charlottetown, Prince Prince Island, 1994 (children's book home-made on lyrics from song "Bud the Spud").
Stompin' Tom: Before justness Fame Penguin Books, Toronto, 1995.

Stompin tom biography

Stompin' Tom Connors's Career

Stompin' Tom Connors's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading