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Life on the road with Stompin' Tom Connors
From the legendary Hank Snow to k.d. lang's "cowpunk" sound to the contemporary Terri Clark, Canadians have made many contributions to country music over the decades. CBC Digital Archives presents a selection of radio and TV clips from our homegrown country musicians.
With only 35 cents in his pocket, Tom Connors didn't have enough money to buy a
beer in a hotel barroom in Timmins, Ont. But he had a guitar, so a friendly
barkeep offered to buy him a drink if he'd play a few tunes. By 1970, six years
later, fans are packing Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern to hear Connors and the
legendary plywood stomping board he uses to keep time. In this CBC-TV interview,
Connors describes his life on the road and a near-beating at a gig in
Kapuskasing, Ont.
• Born to an unwed teenage mother in New Brunswick in 1936, Stompin' Tom Connors
spent most of his childhood with a foster family in Prince Edward Island.
Unwilling to pick potatoes for a living, as he says in this 1970 clip, he left
at age 15 to make his own way.
• For 13 years Connors was an itinerant worker, hitching his way across the
country with his guitar and writing songs about the people and places he
encountered. His nickname, Stompin' Tom, was bestowed on him by a waiter
introducing him onstage in Peterborough, Ont. in 1967.
• Connors and his bride, Lena Welsh, were married in November 1973 in a live
broadcast of CBC-TV's Luncheon Date. After the ceremony, Connors
explained that he chose the live setting as a way for the fans who gave him so
much to participate in a special moment in his life.
• The song that almost got Connors thrashed in Kapuskasing was The Reesor
Crossing Tragedy, his account of a 1963
labour dispute that led to the deaths of three people.
• Connors became an officer of the Order of Canada in 1996 and has received
several honorary university degrees. In 2009 he was one of four subjects in a
Canada Post stamp series paying tribute to Canadian musicians.
• Stompin' Tom Connors died on March 6, 2013, at the age of 77.
• Stompin' Tom Connors died on March 6, 2013, at the age of 77.
Medium: Television
Program: Luncheon Date
Broadcast Date: Oct. 30, 1970
Guest(s): Stompin' Tom Connors
Host: Elwood Glover
Duration: 9:28
Program: Luncheon Date
Broadcast Date: Oct. 30, 1970
Guest(s): Stompin' Tom Connors
Host: Elwood Glover
Duration: 9:28
Last updated: March 15, 2013
Page consulted on March 25, 2013
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