Canadiana

What's up music lovers!

It's that time of the week again where @ablaze likes to have a display of everyone's 3 tune collection with the #threetunestuesday or #TTT. It would be easy to take 3 well known songs from American music collections of stars but that would be to easy. Based on the music links I shared here, probably hard to get my preferred music genre as I color outside of the lines of my own taste when I share my music selections. This post, this wont be any different, I might leave you guessing a bit longer. I decided to dig deep and find 3 songs/artists that are way too Canadian to pass up. All 3 have different connections to this country from different walks of life. Lets dig in!

From the Buffalo Nations Museum located in Banff National Park.

A simple soothing view of the Canadian Prairies, driving along highways is mostly large fields filled with Canola and hay bails.

From the East Coast of Canada, Newfoundland to be more specific, Bernie LeRoux spent considerable time traveling back and forth to Between east to western Prairies for skilled trade work. I actually knew him personally and met him at work. He had been one of my early mentor on a job or 2 in my early days as a welder. When I had some of my struggles with the union and fighting for m rights, he did have some very helpful insight that helped me navigate the strange circumstances I was experiencing since he had his fair share of social and workers grievances having been part of the Unionized trade movement when many advances for workers were made. Between holding the stinger and burning rods all day doing his part building Canada's energy sector, he had additional talents.

What's more Canadian than a 1 oz RCM silver hologram maple leaf. #silverporn

He passed a few years ago being retired and getting older but he did leave us with a few auditory gifts. Much of work is done in isolated areas and living in work camps. Many workers have hobbies, back in the day electronics were far and few between. Bernie had lots of time to practice his guitar and songwriting/producing while coming here to work or around his peers back at home in Newfoundland. Born with a guitar, died with one too. RIP Brother. How popular was his music in Canada? I'm not sure but he did produce and sell CD's and played on local Radio stations back in his homeland. Here is Dark Side of the city from his last recorded Album or single. Look at that beard! I bet he kept it in heaven too. Been a while since I have listen to this song, I had to listen to it a few times in a row.

This next Canadiana champion was well known across the country and one of the most popular music icon there ever existed in our county always finding a way to bring everyone from every walk of life with his music and poetry. Somehow the American market has never been kind to the Tragically Hip and they never gained any significant fandom, market or attention despite their popularity and fandom in Canada. Much like Bernie's tunes, they are easy listening, something you put on when you just want to sit and relax, campfire music. Their music made it's way across the landscape not only on radio station but being used in TV production's as well. If I remember correctly, the next song I will share made it to CBC's Ann of Green Gables mini series based on a popular novel written by Lucy Maud Montgomery

1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables
2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gord_Downie

No pun intended, all of Canada watched with sadness as the tragedy slowly unfolded and the tenacity of lead singer Gord Downie as he was diagnosed with an aggressive and deadly brain tumor that would slowly eat away at all his functions and affecting his performance and memory of the lyrics. At first he was able to hide it but as the disease progressed, his stage appearances became far and few between in the last year or 2 as live shows were becoming too much of a challenge and the cancer was deeply affecting his memory and his own self confidence in being able to deliver a show he thought Canadians deserve. Thankfully, before his passing, he gathered the strength of his youth before he got sick to bring the country together again and deliver one last live production concert that was aired on CBC for the whole country to watch in solidarity. He was truly Ahead by a century.

For this last song, I thought it would be a perfect fit for this Canadiana post. I'm not sure about her popularity but given Gord was a strong figure in speaking for fairness for Indigenous communities, he may have really liked this song if he had lived long enough to hear it combined with the fact that I live in the Prairies where it's traditional Cree Territory, this little wonder hits home a little more. Tammy Lamouche turned this popular American Christmas song into an epic Creemix.

She translated all the lyrics in her traditional language with the goal to revive it's usage to do her part in proudly reclaiming her culture along with encouraging others to learn and implement it back into their daily personal lives and creative expression after the residential schools and other settler controversies almost wiped out many of the various traditions along with their tribal dialects across Canada. Soon after the release of Tammy's video, it made it's way to Canadian news across the country and this gave her some instant promo. This tops the charts in Canadiana! Well done Tammy, I bet that made Cree Nations proud, I hope the rest of the Hive music three tunes community gets as much of a kick out of this as I did!

As an added bonus, I wanted to include a few other odd Canadiana non music related things. This next item on the Canadiana list is a book that I found in a used book store years ago an got it for really cheap and had to get it because of it's contents and how weird and unique it was. I didn't read the whole thing because it's pretty big and rather than one large topic, it's a collection of letters.

Here in Canada, we always laugh at our postal system and it's shortfalls and our mail's odds of even making it to the right house more often then we should because at the end of it, it's not funny, lost letters or packages to never be heard from again. This book says, maybe they will arrive in a couple generations from now for you great grandchildren. Canada A portrait in letters by Charlotte Gray is a collection of lost letters that were found over the years. Some may have been handed in by willing living descendants while others are letters from well know figures that walked across the two centuries. The letters cover from all the way back to the 1800 to a more modern time of 2000. There is a special charm in the language and slangs that was used in the old times. Like a portal back in time.

All images taken with Nikon z-6 except museum pictures with a D7000

Alright time to go, Have a good week all! xox