Search - Stompin' Tom Connors :: Sings Canadian History

Rummaging up stories on the beaten path

tomcheese | Sydney, Nova Scotia Canada | 05/21/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"These twenty three tunes of tale-taling invoke history, myth and word-of-mouth, in Stompin' Tom's inimitable clear-eyed way;
his voice ringing as if alive in the rockies, rummaging up stories on the beaten path, or plucking guitar in the next-to-last diner.
Although an hour and a quarter may be too much of his patterned plank beat to take at once; there are definitely some stand-outs, and the overall effect is informative and keen, in a gentle rib-tickling way.
My favorites are: Big Joe Mufferaw with its outrageous, lively talk of Joe, how he "drank a bucket of Gin" and "beat the livin' tar out of twenty-nine men" and the hilarious heave of the music; Tribute To Wilf Carter, and its zany yodling, the composed in 1999 Confederation Bridge; the menacing, twisting tale of The Black Donnelys in Black Donnelly's Massacre; the ghoulish inevitability of How The Mountain Came Down; and Name The Capitals, really a teacher's guide.
Stompin' Tom often has a grinning likeability to his voice, and though the music can get repetitive, this isn't a musty lesson in history at all. MichaelM,
May 20/02"