Stompin' Tom Connors (1936-2013)

2000 Lifetime Artistic Achievement (Popular Music)

Stompin' Tom Connors has earned his reputation as the quintessential Canadian. While there is no doubting his credentials as a true patriot, he is also much more than that. For more than thirty years, he has crisscrossed the country, singing about all things Canadian in a style all his own and showing us who we are.

Mr. Connors was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1936. He began his Canadian travels at the age of 15 when he left his home in the Maritimes to hitchhike across Canada. Over the next 13 years he traveled to every corner of this vast country, writing and singing songs about the places he visited and the people he met.

With his guitar, his Western boots and black cowboy hat, and his trademark plywood "stompin' board," Stompin' Tom Connors has become a much-beloved Canadian icon. From politics to potatoes, he has tackled just about every issue that matters to Canadians with his own brand of fierce homespun patriotism. Among his best known compositions are The Hockey Song, Bud the Spud, Sudbury Saturday Night, Algoma Central No. 69, Snowmobile Song, Movin' On to Rouyn, Little Wawa, and The Peterborough Postman.

Stompin' Tom has released over 20 albums during his career, and is a tireless promoter of other Canadian artists. In 1986 he established A-C-T Records to record and promote Canadian music.

Besides his career as a singer/songwriter, he has written several children's books and two best-selling volumes of autobiography (Before the Fame and Stompin' Tom and The Connors Tone), co-produced a movie, and hosted a television series.

An Officer of the Order of Canada, Stompin' Tom Connors has garnered countless music awards, an honorary doctorate from St. Thomas University, and the keys to the city of Peterborough, Ontario.