An excerpt from CJAD's year end review of music in Canada:
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The year also saw a celebration of an important figure in Canadian music history.
Gordon Lightfoot's bout with a stomach ailment prompted others to fete the legend with a tribute album, induction into the Canada's Hall of Fame and a Companion of the Order of Canada - the country's highest honour for lifetime achievement.
"Gordon Lightfoot is one of our only towering figures (in Canada)," said Keir Keightley, an expert on the culture of celebrity who teaches at the University of Western Ontario, in London.
"We don't have another Gordon Lightfoot. There are other people who could be compared to Johnny Cash but who can we compare to Gordon Lightfoot?"
But what does the next chapter hold in Canadian music history? It's too early to tell if the Nelly Furtados and Avril Lavignes will make cultural impacts with their music.
Keightley thinks there seems to be a pop or urban idolization emerging in Canada, led by the Lavigne model of overnight success.
"There was a time when there was a very clear-cut sense of Canadian popular music having these folky roots and that's changing," he said. "Lightfoot is passing into history and the future of Canadian music is very likely elsewhere."
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Okay, let's not rush the man out the door just yet <g>. As for 'folky roots' music has been decidedly urban for two or more decades - if consider R&B 'roots' music - roots for rap & hip hop - it's been even longer than that. But it's a good point that there doesn't yet seem to be a person or group representative of a distinctively Canadian sound. The world is too small these days, I suspect, to support a national or even regional icon. Here's the link to the whole article:
http://www3.cjad.com/content/cjad_ne...sp?id=e122502A
And those rock-and-roll dinosaurs are still out-drawing the young pups in $$ at their concerts.
[This message has been edited by Auburn Annie (edited December 25, 2003).]
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