Wednesday, March 6, 2013

R.I.P Stompin' Tom

Blog post by Tina Winterlik © 2012
zipolita@gmail.com
http://tinawinterlik.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/#!/zipolita @zipolita
http://gplus.to/zipolita Google+

When I was a kid...we lived between Hope and Yale and we only got channel 2...the good ole' CBC. There wasn't too much choice.

 I basically memorized everything that was on that channel and a lot of the commercials too! ;).

Sunday night was the highlight with Walt Disney. I remember I would love to come home from school and watch Get Smart...with agent 99, I was just telling Angel about that the other day. M.A.S.H was another favorite of mine.

 On Saturday Night was of course Hockey Night in Canada. And there was Stomping Tom Connor, I think his show was on at 10 pm on Saturday night, I could be wrong...but I remember watching him a lot and I liked him a lot. He definitely was entertaining. He imprinted me. So when I heard tonight that he had passed away it made me sad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stompin%27_Tom_Connors
Charles Thomas "Stompin' Tom" Connors, OC (February 9, 1936 – March 6, 2013) was one of Canada's most prolific and well-known country and folk singers. Focusing his career exclusively on his native Canada, Connors is credited with writing more than 300 songs and has released four dozen albums, with total sales of nearly 4 million copies.[1] Connors died at age 77 in his home in Peterborough, Ontario on March 6, 2013, from natural causes.[2][3][4]


My little girl didn't know who he was, so I looked up a few videos on YouTube. See below. She also didn't know why he was called Stomping Tom, so I read her this from Wikipedia.

Nickname

Connors' habit of stomping the heel of his left boot to keep rhythm earned him the nickname "that stompin' guy", or "Stomper". It wasn't until Canada's 100th birthday, July 1, 1967, that the name Stompin' Tom Connors was first used, when Boyd MacDonald, a waiter at the King George Tavern in Peterborough, Ontario introduced Tom on stage.[6] 

Based on an enthused audience reaction to it, Tom had it officially registered in Ontario as Stompin' Tom Ltd. the following week. Various stories have circulated about the origin of the foot stomping, but it's generally accepted that he did this to keep a strong tempo for his guitar playing — especially in the noisy bars and beer joints where he frequently performed. 

After numerous complaints about damaged stage floors, Tom began to carry a piece of plywood that he stomped even more vigorously than before. The "stompin' " board has since become one of his trademarks. 

After stomping a hole in the wood, he would pick it up and show it to the audience (accompanied by a joke about the quality of the local lumber) before calling for a new one. 

It was reported that when asked about his "stompin' board", Tom replied, "it's just a stage I'm going through". Stompin' Tom periodically auctioned off his "stompin' boards" for charity, with the latest board selling for $15,000.[7]

And so I thought it would be nice to share a few of his videos here.

R.I. P. Stomping Tom, thank you for all your wonderful songs that made me smile and entertained me and so many others.













No comments: