REMEMBERIN’ STOMPIN’ TOM

One day in 1969 when I was in my last year of high school, Mom asked me if I’d heard this ‘crazy’ song called Bud the Spud by a guy who used to live ‘Up West’.  She said they’d been playing it all day on CJRW in Summerside and that I should listen to it.  In those days, we teenagers listened to Honky Tonk Women by the Rolling Stones, Suspicious Minds by Elvis, and the Beatles’ Come Together.  I really had no interest in a hick cowboy from Skinner’s Pond.

Eventually, I heard the song and laughed my way through it, too embarrassed to admit to any of my friends that I kind of liked it.  And when I saw Stompin’ Tom Connors on the Tommy Hunter Show one night I was hooked.  I’d never seen anybody dress like him, talk like him, or sing like him; not on TV anyway!  I thought: “This guy’s nuts, but there’s something about him!”

So I thought I’d share a few stories about my favorite Canadian troubadour.  The first takes me back to orientation week at the University of Prince Edward Island in September 1970.  I was a country kid living in the big city of Charlottetown for the first time, and more than a bit overwhelmed by the experience.  Knowing that Stompin’ Tom was headlining the Saturday evening bash was somehow reassuring.

The day before the big party, I noticed a couple of strange-looking hippies driving around campus in an old van with California license plates.  They both had long hair and beards, and wore beaded headbands.  Saturday night came around and, next thing we knew, the two hippies are on stage, opening for Stompin’ Tom.  Seals and Crofts, no less!  Those of my vintage may remember them for their million-selling album, Summer Breeze, and another pretty good song they wrote called Diamond Girl.  They might have been good but we couldn’t wait for them to get the hell off the stage!

The next time I saw Stompin’ Tom was in Fredericton where I attended UNB and he played in the Lord Beaverbrook Arena.  I got myself in a party mood with the rest of the Island contingent and we got as close to the front as we could.  Tom came out with his Mason jar of ‘shine’ and his stompin’ board and soon had the place in a frenzy.

He told his joke about the drunk guy who staggered out of the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, leaned on the open front window of a taxi and asked the driver: “Hey buddy, ya’ got enough room in yer’ cab for a pizza and a 2-4 a’ beer?”  “Sure”, says the cabby.  “Blahhhhh! goes the guy”, Tom said, “Threw up all over the seat!”  And he had an answer for the heckler in the crowd at UNB: “Buddy!” says Tom.  “The last time I saw a mouth that big it had a hook in it!”

I watched Stompin’ Tom on TV every chance I got and I listened to his music, learning the words to Tillsonburg, Sudbury Saturday Night, The Ketchup Song, Muk Tuk Annie, The Coal Boat Song, Margie’s Cargo, The Hockey Song,The Mule-Skinner Blues, and one of my favourites, Big Joe Mufferaw.

One day just a few years ago I was walking to a meeting in Gatineau just across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill and I noticed a sign on a high-rise Québec provincial government building: “Édifice Joseph-Montferrand”.  As I walked along, I mumbled to myself: “Joseph Montferrand; Jos Montferrand; Joe Mufferaw.  No!  It can’t be!”  So I looked it up on the internet and, sure enough, the guy Stompin’ Tom wrote about was a legendary logger, strongman and hero of the working people who lived along the Ottawa River in the early 1800s.

My last Stompin’ Tom story goes back to the Canada Games in Corner Brook in 1999.  My son, Clément, was a member of the PEI hockey team playing against Newfoundland and Labrador.  One of the parents, our ‘spiritual leader’, Sandra Ellis, decided she’d barge into the TSN broadcast booth and ask them to play Bud the Spud every time our boys scored a goal.  They did!  To the opposing team’s great consternation!  Our boys won 6-3 and the PEI team was featured on the daily TSN broadcast.

I bought Stompin’ Tom’s first book, Before the Fame as soon as it came out.  I was fascinated, finding his life far more interesting than I’d ever imagined.  A friend of mine believes there are two kinds of people in this world: victims and survivors.  Stompin’ Tom is the epitome of survival.  Those who haven’t read the book should do so.  If you don’t find it inspiring, you’re beyond hope! 

One of my favourite stories is about the pick-up line he used to lure his future bride, Lena Walsh.  It seems he was returning to the stage from having a few beers in the second-floor lounge at J.R.’s Place, a famous watering hole in Charlottetown where Stompin’ Tom often played   He's shown in the picture below with the proprietor, Johnny Reid.  He met the barmaid, Lena, coming up the stairs with a tray-full of beer.  They stopped, their eyes met, and he asked her: “Are those real or did you get them outa’ the Simpsons catalogue?”  Not my kind of line, but it worked for him!

Like many, I was saddened by the news of Stompin’ Tom’s death and I’ve read the many tributes in his honour over the past week.  Last evening I viewed his memorial service in Peterborough on TV, the town that added the brand “Stompin’” to his name.  I watched proudly as prominent Canadians like Adrienne Clarkson and Ken Dryden told how much he meant to them and to Canada, and it made me proud to be Canadian.  I listened to a wonderful poem by Island MP Gail Shea and watched intently as Tom Connors, Jr. offered a heartfelt tribute on the family’s behalf.

It reminded me once again that our country’s real leaders are not the pretenders on Parliament Hill, the Bay Street financiers, the Calgary oilmen, or the overpaid NHL brats our kids look up to.  No, the real leaders are those who inspire us with their courage, their sincerity and their love of country.  They understand what it means to be Canadian, and they teach us by their example.

Stompin’ Tom wasn’t perfect by any measure, and he didn’t pretend to be.  He didn’t have the best voice and he didn’t write the kind of lyrics that will elevate him to the pantheon of great performing artists.  But he was an original, true to his style, and true to his fans.  You either liked him or you didn’t.  He had a voice that made Johnny Cash sound like a soprano, and I loved it.

I’ll miss you Stompin’ Tom…