Performing Country Music in Canada
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Stompin’ Grounds: Performing Country Music in Canada by Erin Jan Elizabeth Schuurs A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Erin Jan Elizabeth Schuurs, September, 2019 Abstract STOMPIN’ GROUNDS: PERFORMING COUNTRY MUSIC IN CANADA Erin Jan Elizabeth Schuurs Advisor: University of Guelph, 2019 Dr. Catharine Anne Wilson Country music in Canada and its different geographical regions existed within a transnational set of fictions which were shared by a great many North Americans. Industry members, performers, and fans have relied upon the markers of sound, rurality, masculinity, and later “Canadian-ness” to prove the music’s “authenticity.” More than anything, what is noteworthy about country music is not that it is a continuation of “authentic” folk practices, but the music’s ability to continually reinvent itself while maintaining these fictions. By examining five distinct country music performers who had active careers in Canada – Wilf Carter, Earl Heywood, Don Messer, Stompin’ Tom Connors, and Gordon Lightfoot – this study examines how Canadian country music artists between the 1920s and the 1970s created “authentic” images. This was achieved through song lyrics and instrumentation, visual markers such as cowboy hats, and through interviews, autobiographies, photographs, and other publicity materials. iii “Country music is three chords and the truth.” -Howard Harlan “Music is the emotional life of most people.” -Leonard Cohen iv Acknowledgements It takes a village to write a dissertation and I am forever grateful to the many people who formed the village it took to see this dissertation completed. I would not have reached completion without their constant guidance and support, and indeed, this achievement is made all the better in that I share it with them. Now that I am able to look back upon this work, I see how privileged I am to have spent the last few years immersed in historical scholarship, a field I will always be passionate about, no matter where I end up. First and foremost, I have to thank Dr. Catharine Wilson for giving me the freedom to explore my interests and for nurturing my many cluttered thoughts into something valid and concrete. Dr. Wilson constantly helped me examine this research from new angles and challenged me to grow as a scholar. Her support and attention to detail was invaluable. I could not have asked for a better mentor. I am also grateful to Professors Adam Crerar and David Monod for their expertise and many helpful suggestions given over the years. I’d also like to thank Dr. Linda Mahood, Dr. Peter Goddard, and Dr. Paul Litt for joining my defense committee and providing many interesting comments and suggestions. I am appreciative to the many members of the University of Guelph’s History Department for creating a supportive and welcoming environment. I must also acknowledge my MA supervisor, Dr. Jane Errington. Dr. Errington’s encouragement and immense enthusiasm inspired me to continue moving forward on this academic path and taught me to always ask the ever-vital question: “So what?” My one disappointment is that my mother is not here to witness the completion of this journey. She saw the scholar in me before I ever did and eagerly read earlier drafts of these chapters, providing much encouragement and enthusiasm. She was the first teacher I ever had and the many lessons she imparted will forever shape my direction in life. I’m grateful to both my parents for investing so much of their energy in me. Over the years they spent many weekends taking me to museums, pioneer villages, and historic sites, instilling in me a love of learning. It was time well spent. v Table of Contents ii Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi List of Maps and Figures vii List of Tables viii List of Illustrations 1 Chapter One Introduction 45 Chapter Two Cowboys Wanted: Wilf Carter Becomes Canada’s Singing Cowboy 79 Chapter Three A New Twang in Town: Earl Heywood and the Barn Dance Radio Broadcast at CKNX Wingham 112 Chapter Four “A Folksy Fiddler and His Flock”: Don Messer’s Jubilee, Television, State Sanctioned Culture, and Viewer Responses 156 Chapter Five A Cowboy Philosopher: The Rise of Stompin’ Tom Connors 198 Chapter Six “Caught Between the Top Forty and the Back Forty”: Gordon Lightfoot as an “Authentically Canadian” Icon 236 Chapter Seven Conclusion 245 Appendix A: A Stompin’ Grounds Playlist 247 Bibliography vi List of Maps and Figures Maps 110 3.2 CKNX Broadcast Range Figures 135 4.1 Summary of Audience Composition, Don Messer’s Jubilee, 1965 137 4.2 Formal Education of Don Messer’s Jubilee Viewers, 1965 vii List of Tables 135 4.1 Composition of Audience by Age for Don Messer’s Jubilee, The Tommy Hunter Show, and Ed Sullivan, 1965 viii List of Illustrations 77 2.1 Wilf Carter playing guitar with Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies 78 2.2 Wilf Carter at the Calgary Stampede, 1967 109 3.1 Earl Heywood’s Serenade Ranch Gang 111 3.2 CKNX Barn Dance Souvenir Booklet Cover 153 4.1 Marg Osburne, Don Messer, and Charlie Chamberlain, 1966 154 4.2 A “Fiddle-In” staged at CBC Halifax Headquarters 155 4.3 A “Fiddle-In” staged at Parliament Hill 197 5.1 Stompin’ Tom, circa 1975 234 6.1 Lightfoot! Album Cover 235 6.2 1973 Juno Awards Ceremony 1 Chapter One Introduction This thesis examines how a regionally-sensitive Canadian musical identity became forged within the context of a yodeling, rhinestone studded, cowboy-hatted, hybrid art imported from America’s Appalachia, mid-West, and old South regions. How did Canadian country music artists create a seemingly authentic image for themselves, characterized primarily around the markers of sound, rurality, masculinity, and later “Canadian-ness,” when these notions were largely fabrications which changed over time? Such conundrums cannot be avoided because both fans and the country music industry have made these markers important. Country music is a created tradition and industry members, performers, and fans have relied upon a set of fictions made seemingly actual through the promotion of the idea of “authenticity.” Country music exists within the realm of fiction. All at once it can be construed as “folk” or “commercial,” “modern” or “traditional.” While performers and industry members have actively sought to define country music as a close relation to traditional folk music, the music demonstrates that folk art – as defined within the context of twentieth-century North America – is commercial in its essence. In it the traditional and the modern are inseparable. This study shows that relying upon strict categorization for musical genres proves to be an unrewarding approach as it is impossible to pull the tangle apart. Each of country music’s created traditions has its own history that has changed over time. This study traces how these authenticated fictions of Canada’s country music have changed from the 1920s to the 1970s. This is achieved by considering a selection of Canadian performers, the country music industry, fans, and the Canadian state. By examining five distinct country music performers who had active careers in Canada – Wilf Carter, Earl Heywood, Don Messer, Stompin’ Tom Connors, and 2 Gordon Lightfoot – this study demonstrates how and why new iterations of country authenticity replaced older ones, and the wider implications of these shifts. Recent studies in Rural History have shown an interest in the cultural side of rural life. Scholars have increasingly questioned how the rural has been constructed, how it has been made up of images and ideas, not only of farmers and their fields.1 By investigating country music, this study contributes to the field of Rural History by examining how ideas and images of the countryside became the basis for the many created traditions upon which country music relied. More broadly, this study contributes to our understanding of Canada’s cultural history. “Canadian” culture, like country music, consists of a highly fabricated set of ideals and images which have steadily been updated over the course of the twentieth-century due to social, political, and economic change. Each of the five figures examined here represents specific invented identities which found favour with segments of Canadian audiences, but the narrative they spun of Canada and rurality was not free of dissonance. These five figures found popularity among some listeners, but not all, demonstrating the importance of consumers’ individual tastes and preferences. It is important to consider how audience members responded to the images and narratives created by these performers and the country music industry. While often cultural histories about music leave out the role of the audience, this study contributes to the literature on cultural history and country music by considering the audience as a plural listening 1 Consider for example, studies on masculinity and sexuality such as Hugh Campbell, Michael Mayerfeld Bell, and Margaret Finney, eds., Country Boys: Masculinity and Rural Life (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006) and Catharine Anne Wilson, “A Manly Art: Plowing, Plowing Matches, and Rural Masculinity in Ontario, 1800-1930,” The Canadian Historical Review 95, no. 2 (June 2014): 157-186. Additionally, more attention has increasingly been paid to emphasizing that not all rural dwellers were farmers and not all rural lives were the same. See R.W. Sandwell, Canada’s Rural Majority: Households, Environments, and Economies, 1870- 1940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), as an example. 3 public. Wilf Carter, Earl Heywood, Don Messer, Stompin’ Tom Connors, and Gordon Lightfoot have been chosen for this study in large part because of their fame which ensured that primary source material was available.