BY THOMAS FLYNN
Nearly 14 years ago, Stompin’ Tom Connors’ backup band, Whiskey Jack, gathered to celebrate Tom’s birthday, continuing the yearly tradition. The only difference that year was that Tom was not in attendance.
“Tom used to invite the band up to the house for his birthday party. After he died, I realized, well, I’m not going to get another invitation to a birthday party. So, I’ll host my own,” says band leader Duncan Fremlin. From that party grew The Songs of Stompin’ Tom, a show celebrating Tom Connor, his songs, his stories and everything he taught the world.
“I like to say that Tom taught us how to entertain,” says Fremlin, adding that he was reverent and playful; he engaged with the audience like no other. “He invited them to participate, you know, if they sang, he wanted them to sing loudly. If they had a comment, he wanted to hear it.”
Tom also had a serious side. He had strong political principles; he returned his JUNO Award and quit the music industry for 13 years to protest the Canadian radio and entertainment industry for not giving Canadian performers their due. This show gives you that Stompin’ Tom spirit in a modern-day context.
“It’s like taking Tom and sprinkling him with a bit of technology and virtuosity and next thing you know you’ve got Whiskey Jack playing his music.” Fremlin is also quick to point out that it is not a tribute show. “We’re Tom’s band. So, we come to the table with a degree of legitimacy, I think, that many other tribute acts don’t bring… these are some of the top Canadian musicians in the country, and here they are playing fairly simple three- and four-chord songs but making them sound very sophisticated.”
Whiskey Jack doesn’t just play Tom’s music; they also keep his beliefs and values alive. “After inauguration, when Trump started threatening us, I was invited to perform at the Horseshoe with this show, and I called it the Canada’s Not for Sale show. And so, you know, that continues to be a theme of all of our shows,” says Fremlin. This mirrors Tom’s outspoken nature when it came to free trade. He said we were selling our soul to the devil.
Tom was never scared to make a statement on stage. There is a famous incident in 1993 when Earl McCrae, a well-known Canadian columnist, wrote a scathing article about Tom’s Hockey Song being played at the start of every Ottawa Senators game, and in that article McCrae called Tom’s fans “inbred citizens of the Ottawa Valley.” In retaliation, at his next show, Tom taped a picture of McCrae’s face onto the plywood that he stomped on as a part of his music. Halfway through the concert, he showed the audience what he had done and then went right back to stompin’ on Earl McCrae’s face.
On top of all else, Stompin’ Tom was proud to be Canadian. “Tom was the loudest and most unapologetically patriotic Canadian in the public eye. In fact, even during the years when it wasn’t cool to be patriotic, he was patriotic and made no bones about it. So, he was often ridiculed, and he was alienated from conventional media because he was so pro-Canadian at a time when much of traditional media, and we’re talking about the top 40 country stations, were too busy kissing the Americans’ ass to, you know, wave the flag.”
Tom taught a whole generation that it was good to be a patriotic Canadian. In a time when Canada Day was a chance to have a barbecue in the backyard, Tom Connor was waving the Canadian flag high and proud. That’s what this show is about, and we need to be proud Canadians now more than ever before. So come to the Algonquin Theatre on Sunday, July 26th and be proud to be a Canadian.
Get your tickets at https://www.huntsvillefestival.ca/whiskey-jack-sean-cullen
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