WCEH Playlist

This sends shivers up my spine. In mid-life, in his 50s, Tom Wilson learned that the parents who raised him were not his birth parents; that, in fact, he was adopted and that his biological mother and father were Mohawk from the Kahnawake reserve, just outside of Montreal. This track tells the story of finding his way home to meet some of his relatives for the first time.

Kim Mitchell’s songs were either really deep or just really fun. This was one that I don’t think anyone ever disliked as we were growing up. Just good fun.

It’s by a true Canadian band, and it envelopes much of cottage life in Canada

No Canadian playlist would be complete without the inclusion of Joni Mitchell, one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk-music circuit. Born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, she started singing in small clubs in Saskatoon and Western Canada before moving on to Toronto and from there to California. She has released 19 studio albums in a career spanning over 40 years, winning multiple awards along the way.

Alex Puentes, stage name Alex Cuba, is a Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter (and multi-instrumentalist) who sings in Spanish and English. He constantly explores, pushing the boundaries of the Latin genre and frequently collaborating with musicians from a variety of backgrounds.

His is a wonderful immigrant story of a young Cuban musician who met and fell in love with a Canadian girl and ultimately followed her to settle in Smithers in northern B.C. Many of his albums have been produced from his studio there. Alex recently quipped that, having now spent more than half his life in Canada, he should perhaps change his stage name to Alex Canada!

He won Juno awards in 2006 and 2008 (World Music Album of the Year), and has won four Latin Grammy Awards as well as the 2022 Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album (Mendó).

The conference is taking place in the summer, and that means we have to listen to songs about the summer. Bryan Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario. The album this song is on became the first album by a Canadian to be certified diamond in Canada, two of those songs become top ten hits in the US and Canada.

This song comes from a bad time in the main writers’ life, when they had broken up with their boyfriend, whose name is actually Brett. And they are saying how they can’t really date and don’t feel like normal, and to blame Brett for that. The Beaches is a Toronto-based band, whose independent and yet has travelled across North America and been on US late night tv.

Dizzy, no that’s the name of the band. Yes twist does sound like a weird song name, but it was one of my favourite lyrics in it “Thought I saw you on the GO last night. I followed you through the cars westbound” and if you’re from Durham Region, you know exactly what they are talking about.

Kingston may not have been the hippest place to grow up, but it certainly was The Tragically Hippest. Gord and the boys put a little bit of Canadiana in every song they wrote. If you ever want to see what giving it your all means, watch their last live performance from Kingston.

They made a movie once, in my hometown.

Canada’s songwriters songwriter. From Stompin Tom to Leonard Cohen, there is a long history of Canadian singer-songwriters dropping references to places, cultural and significant events into their lyrics and this haunting, powerful ballad is that to a T. If WordPress is all about democratizing publishing, we could do worse than to embody Gordon’s goal to ‘just tell a story’.

Félix Leclerc (1914-1988), a French-Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, writer, actor and activist, is an icon in Quebec, known to many as the originator of the “chansonnier” tradition. Quebec’s annual music awards, Prix Félix, are named in his honour. This version of one of his most famous songs, Le p’tit bonheur, comes from a 2015 album, Duos Félix, on which all songs but one feature the original voice recording of Félix, but with modern arrangement and a guest artist. This album was my starting point for an exploration of Canadian Francophone music.

Oscar Peterson (1925 – 2007), a Canadian jazz pianist and composer, is considered a virtuoso and one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. Hymn to Freedom is among his most significant compositions, embraced as the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. I first listened to Oscar Peterson over 40 years ago, long before I became Canadian.

The Esquires were a Canadian band, based in Ottawa, active from 1962 to 1967. The band is notable as the recipient of the first Juno Award (then known as the RPM Awards) in Canada, as well as being one of Canada’s earlier pop music recording acts, reputedly the first to be signed to a major label. The first Canadian music video ever made is said to be that of an Esquires song, The Man from Adano. This is a piece of Canadian music history that I discovered when I met the group’s founding member, Clint Hierlihy.

k.d. lang is recognized as one of Canada’s most versatile and gifted singer-songwriters and performers. As noteworthy as her multiple Juno and Grammy awards is her contribution to the LGBTQ community. k.d. publicly came out in the early 1990s, at the peak of her fame, helping to shed light on the issue of gay rights. I remember how significant this felt, as well as being blown away by the quality of her voice when I first heard Constant Craving, back when I was still a Brit.

Jeremy Dutcher is a Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, and ethnomusicologist from Tobique First Nation in Eastern Canada. He gained international acclaim for his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which earned him the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the 2019 JUNO Awards. His musical style blends the songs of his community with neoclassical, jazz, and pop influences. Mehcinut (literal translation, “I’m running out of time”), was his first single. His beautiful vocals intertwine with piano melodies and a recording made over 100 years ago of a speech by Wolastoqiyik ancestor Jim Paul. I am awe-struck every time I listen to this.