MUMBAI: Canadian country folk singer Tom Connors passed away at his home in Halton Hills, Ontario due to natural reasons.
Aged 77, the singer’s toe-tapping musical spirit and fierce patriotism established him as one of Canada’s biggest cultural icons. He wrote more than 300 songs and sold nearly four million albums. He was best known for songs like ‘Sudbury Saturday Night’, ‘Bud the Spud’ and ‘The Hockey Song’ amongst others.
His work was shaped by his love and knowledge of Canada, influenced by everything from dredge-boat sailors, tobacco-pickers, short-order cook to gravedigger. The songs spoke about a potato-truck driver from Prince Edward Island, a polka-playing musician from the Yukon, and Red River Jane who left him high and dry in Winnipeg before becoming the subject of a sad song.
He was nick named ‘Stompin’ with the way he kept his left foot. He shunned the American music world, confining his touring and recording to Canada.
According to his autobiography ‘Before the Fame’, he often lived hand-to-mouth as a youngster, hitchhiking with his mother from the age of three and begging on the street by the age of four. At age eight, he was placed in the care of the charity Children’s Aid and adopted a year later by a family in Skinner’s Pond, Prince Edward Island. He ran away four years later to hitchhike across Canada.
Connors released his first album and garnered his first hit in 1970 with ‘Bud The Spud’. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1996, one of the country’s highest honours and also had his own postage stamp.
He is survived by his wife Lena, two sons, two daughters and several grandchildren.