ALFRED BRYAN - THE MUSICAL POET
Songwriter Inductee: Pioneer Era, Pre-1921
Birth: Brantford, Ontario, September 15, 1871
Death: New Jersey, April 1, 1958
Because he was never a performer, the name Alfred Bryan may not resonate with many music lovers. However, he was undoubtedly a monumental contributor to Canadian songwriting.
Born in Brantford, Ontario on September 15, 1871, Bryan was to become the most prolific lyricist of his era ever to emerge from Canada. Not much is known about his early years, or how he became involved in songwriting, other than he attended parochial schools in Canada, where he excelled at literature, before moving to New York City in the late 1880s to make his way.
In 1910, 20 years after his arrival in New York, Bryan finally achieved the success he deserved. It was that year that he wrote the lyrics to what is arguably his most well known hit Come Josephine In My Flying Machine, performed by Blanche Ring, and featured in the films The Story of the Castles (1939), Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949) and most recently in Academy Award winning Titanic (1997).
As a lyricist, Bryan would go on to partner with various composers, including Fred Fisher, Alfred Gumble, George Meyer, Pete Wendling, John Klenner, Larry Stock, Al Piantadosi and Joe McCarthy. He is said to have written more than 1,000 songs, 229 of them certified by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
Other popular Bryan works include: Oui Oui Marie (charted at #2 by CAPAC in 1918), Brown Eyes, Why Are You Blue? (#2 in 1925), When It's Night Time Down in Burgundy (#6 in 1914), Sweet Little Buttercup (#4 in 1917), When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to France (#4 in 1918) and My Song of the Nile (#7 in1929).
Bryan received considerable recognition for Peg O' My Heart, a song inspired by the Broadway Show Ziegfeld Follies that he wrote in 1913, which also served as the inspiration for the 1933 film of the same name. He also gained notoriety when his song I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier stirred controversy in the U.S. during the First World War.
After arranging for several publishing firms in New York, and contributing to Broadway scores including The Shubert Gaieties of 1919, The Midnight Rounders of 1920 and 1921, The Century Revue and A Night in Spain, Bryan later moved to Hollywood, where he expanded his work to include film scores.
Although he died in New Jersey on April 1, 1958, he was inducted posthumously into the American Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
____________
THE RED RIVER VALLEY
Song Inductee: Pioneer Era, Pre-1921
Year: 1870
Composer & Lyrics: Unknown (Traditional)
The Red River Valley is one of the best-known folk songs in the Prairie provinces. It is also widely known in America, where it was thought to be a Texas adaptation of an 1896 popular song, In the Bright Mohawk Valley. Later research by Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke indicates that it was known in some five Canadian provinces before 1896 and that it was probably composed at the time of the Red River rebellion of 1870.
Cover Artists Include: Andrews Sisters, Gene Autry, Connie Francis, Roy Rogers, George Strait, Slim Whitman
____________
THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR THE SUNRISE
Song Inductee: Pioneer Era, Pre-1921
Year: 1918
Lyricist: Eugene Lockhart
Composer: Ernest Seitz
An incredible child prodigy, Ernest Seitz, nicknamed "the boy wonder" by The Globe, wrote the basic tune of The World is Waiting for the Sunrise at the age of 12. Gene Lockhart, a 25-year-old actor who needed a co-writer for a Canadian travelling musical production, joined with Seitz in 1916 to write The World is Waiting for the Sunrise in slightly more than one day. One of Canada's finest concert pianists for more than two decades, Seitz was the long-time principal of the Royal Conservatory of Music. In his lifetime, Lockhart played for the Toronto Argonauts, penned hit musicals, and was even nominated for an Academy Award in 1938 for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Algiers.
Cover Artists Include: Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Fallis, Jackie Gleason, Benny Goodman, Ben Heppner, Spike Jones, Laurel and Hardy, Willie Nelson, Oscar Peterson, Les Paul and Mary Ford
____________
WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS
Song Inductee: Pioneer Era, Pre-1921
Lyricist: Joseph M. Scriven, 1855
Composer: "Erie" Charles C. Converse, 1868
Joseph M. Scriven originally wrote What a Friend We Have in Jesus to comfort his ailing mother who was living in Ireland. He published the poem a number of years later at a friend's insistence. The name of the collection of poems was simply entitled Hymns and Other Verses. Scriven and Converse did not intend for their respective lyrics and melody to be joined together. In fact, during World War I, Converse's score was actually paired with the words, "When This Bloody War is Over." It was a man named Ira D. Sankey that popularized the hymn when he published it in the well-known collection, Sankey's Gospel Hymns Number One in 1875.
Cover Artists Include: Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Ike and Tina Turner
____________
PEG O' MY HEART
Song Inductee: Pioneer Era, Pre-1921
Year: 1913
Lyricist: Alfred Bryan
Composer: Fred Fisher
Peg O' My Heart gained international recognition when it was featured in the musical Ziegfeld Follies Of 1913. The song was so popular that it was the inspiration behind the 1933 film of the same name. When the Harmonicats revived the song in 1947, Peg O'My Heart became a smash hit, surpassing its 1913 predecessor in popularity. The song has been a part of popular culture for 90 years and continues to enjoy renewed success. Peg O'My Heart has even forayed into American television as part of a Hardees commercial. In 2000, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) announced Peg O' My Heart as one of the most-performed love songs of the 20th century.
Cover Artists Include: Josephine Baker, Buddy Clark, Nat King Cole, Jackie Gleason, Benny Goodman, Dean Martin, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Vale, Lawrence Welk
____________
FÉLIX LECLERC - FATHER OF THE QUEBEC CHANSON
Songwriter Inductee: Radio Era, 1921 to 1960
Birth: La Tuque, Québec, 1914
Death: Île d'Orleans, Québec, August 8, 1988
A larger than life character, writer, poet, playwright and songwriter, Félix Leclerc is an icon in Quebec, known to many as the originator of the "chansonnier" tradition. His original style made him a trailblazer for French-language Canadian songwriters.
Born in La Turque, Quebec in 1914, LeClerc was the sixth of 11 children, but this did not stop him from pursuing literature studies at the University of Ottawa.
At 18, he began his academic studies at the University of Ottawa, where he wrote his first song, "Notre Sentier." Forced to abandon his schooling in 1933 because of the Depression, he went to work as a farmhand at Ste-Marthe. He was to draw on this experience for several of his songs.
During the Great Depression, Leclerc left school and began his career as a radio announcer in 1934 in Quebec City. He acted in various radio shows and gained himself a spot in Les Compagnons de St-Laurent of Père Emile Legault. From 1939 to 1945, he worked as an actor on Radio-Canada's "Vie de famille" and "Un home et son pêché."
On December 28, 1950, he made his debut as a singer at the Théatre de l'ABC in Paris: he was an overnight sensation. Leclerc was a three-time recipient of Le Grand Prix du Disque de L'Academie Charles-Cros, the highest music award in France.
Leclerc's songs dealt mostly with nature, dreams, solitude, love and death. His most successful works include: "Le p'tit Bonheur," "Moi, mes souliers," "Bozo" and "Le train du Nord." Through his singular qualities, Leclerc became a major creative influence on George Brassens, Jacques Brel, Gilles Vigneault and Jean-Pierre Ferland, amongst many others.
Throughout his career, Leclerc received a number of honours: the Calixa Lavallée award of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Montreal and in 1976, he was given the Award of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. In 1977, ADISQ named its Félix trophy after him. He was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1971 and made a Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Québec in 1985 and a Chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur in 1986.
2003 marks the 15th anniversary of Leclerc's death, which has been remembered throughout the French-speaking world.
____________
Madame Mary Travers Bolduc - THE VOICE OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Songwriter Inductee: Radio Era, 1921 to 1960
Birth: Newport, Québec
Death: Québec, February 20, 1941
The rags-to-riches story of Mary Travers Bolduc is the tale of an ordinary woman's transformation into the Queen of Canadian folksingers.
In a small Quebec fishing and lumbering town in Newport, Gaspéspie, Mary Travers was born into a large family of English descent. Although there was very little musical knowledge in her family, her natural talents could not be ignored: she learned to play the fiddle, harmonica, accordion and the Jew's harp on her own.
At the young age of 13, Mary left home to work as a domestic in Montreal. In 1914, she married tradesman Edouard Bolduc and together they started a large family. To provide for her growing brood in a time of economic hardship, Mary turned to music.
She was first hired as a fiddler for the musical show Veillées du Bon Vieux Temps, in 1927 and it was during this time that Mary began a recording career. Unknown to her, Mary's recordings of La Cuisinière and La Servante were issued on 78-rpm discs by the Starr recording label and sold an unprecedented 12,000 copies in Quebec alone. From these songs, her voice was heard throughout Quebec and she soon became universally know to her fans as "La Bolduc." Historically, she is regarded as Quebec's first "chansonnière."
Throughout the Great Depression, Mary wrote and recorded 85 songs for the Starr label. Most of her songs were written in French and were based on everyday life, expressing the burdens and joys of the common people. Her songs contained lively rhythms and upbeat tones featuring comic vignettes and humourous working-class characters. Some recordings, including, "Ça va venir découragez-vous pas" featured her playing the harmonica.
With a musical career spanning more than a decade, Mary turned her simple effort to support her family into a musical legacy. With her natural and unrehearsed musical style, Madame Bolduc greatly influenced the evolution of the Quebec chanson. According to the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (Toronto, 1992), "Though she has had many imitators, she has had no equals."
Mary Bolduc died of cancer on February 20, 1941, at the age of 46.
____________
HANK SNOW - CANADA'S COUNTRY BOY
Songwriter Inductee: Radio Era, 1921 to 1955
Birth: Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, May 9, 1914
Death: December 20, 1999
Because of his phenomenal success in the United States, his Canadian heritage sometimes goes unnoticed, but Hank Snow would be the first to exclaim that some of his best work was accomplished right here in Canada, before he even dreamed of going to the U.S.
Born Clarence Eugene Snow on May 9, 1914 in Brooklyn, Queens County, Nova Scotia, Snow turned to music to help him through his sometimes-arduous childhood. He learned to play guitar on his mother's Hawaiian guitar and purchased his own - a T. Eaton Special for $5.95 from the Eaton's Catalogue - in 1926, and used it to master his impersonation of his hero, Jimmie Rodgers.
Snow became a successful performer with a weekly radio show as "Hank, the Yodelling Ranger" on Halifax's radio station, CHNS, but it was his desire to record that spurred his songwriting career. At a 1936 audition for RCA Victor in Montreal, the A & R rep told him that if he didn't have any original material, the label wouldn't have room for him. Snow lied and said he had two good songs. Then he ran back to his hotel room, wrote Lonesome Blue Yodel and The Prisoned Cowboy and recorded them the next day.
Snow wrote travelling songs, cowboy songs and tributes to his native land. He was always true to the traditional country style, refusing to sing or write songs that were suggestive, that went into depth about drinking, or referred to narcotics of any kind. His first travelling song, I'm Movin' On, turned out to be one of his biggest hits ever, reaching number one on the country charts in 1950 and staying there for 21 consecutive weeks. As his popularity grew, he made frequent appearances on The Grand Ole Opry.
Between 1951 and 1955, Snow had 24 Top Ten Hits, including The Golden Rocket, The Rhumba Boogie and I Don't Hurt Anymore. He was a regular on the Country Top Ten until 1965 with hits like Big Wheels (number seven, 1958), Beggar to a King (number five, 1961), I've Been Everywhere (number one, 1962), and Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street) (number two, 1963).
Snow is arguably one of Canada's biggest contributors to country music, and proved to be its longest lasting as well. In 1974, at the age of 60, Hank Snow established himself once again as a legend with the number one hit, Hello Love, making him the oldest country performer to ever go to number one.
Snow recorded more than 100 LPs in his lifetime: 26 of them appeared on the charts and 54 of his singles placed in the Top 100. He was voted Canada's top country performer 10 times. He has been inducted into eight halls of fame, including the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Nova Scotia Hall of Fame. He died on December 20, 1999.
____________
I'M MOVIN' ON
Song Inductee: Radio Era, 1921 to 1955
Year: 1950
Lyricist & Composer: Hank Snow
Facts: I'm Movin' On remained in Billboard's top spot for a remarkable 21 weeks before it began its slow descent back down the charts. A record 44 weeks later, Hank Snow's tune finally left the charts, making it one of the most successful singles in recorded country music history. During the Korean War, Snow, along with a group of performers, headed to South Korea in an effort to cheer up UN soldiers. His rendition of I'm Movin' On was so popular that soldiers began to regard the song as a war anthem. It became so engrained in the wartime culture, that a maneuver was named after the Canadian: to "pull a Hank Snow" was a code for soldiers to make an unscheduled retreat or advance. In 1960, Ray Charles took his first recorded foray into country when he re-made Snow's immortal country classic into an inspired R'n'B rock fusion.
Cover Artists Include: Everly Brothers, Ray Charles, Charlie Feathers, Ashley MacIsaac, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, Ike and Tina Turner
____________
I'LL NEVER SMILE AGAIN
Song Inductee: Radio Era, 1921 to 1955
Year: 1939
Lyricist & Composer: Ruth Lowe
Ruth Lowe wrote this song shortly after the death of her first husband, Harold Cohen. Although, it is widely believed that Frank Sinatra was the first to record I'll Never Smile Again, it was actually first broadcast to CBC listeners in 1939 on Percy Faith's CBC radio program Music by Faith. The song became Sinatra's first #1 record. In fact, Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey's version was so popular that it was selected in 1958 as one of the best pop songs of all time. Lowe also wrote Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day), which was Frank Sinatra's closing theme for many years. I'll Never Smile Again received Grammy honours a year after Lowe's death, when it was inducted into the American Recording Hall of Fame.
Cover Artists Include: Count Basie, Ray Charles, Doris Day, Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Barry Manilow, Glenn Miller, Oscar Peterson, the Platters, George Shearing, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Fats Waller, Joe Williams
____________
BLACK FLY SONG
Song Inductee: Radio Era, 1921 to 1955
Year: 1949
Lyricist & Composer: Wade Hemsworth
Wade Hemsworth wrote Black Fly during a visit to Northern Ontario as part of a Hydro Electric Commission surveying the feasibility of a damn on the Little Abitibi River. As with most visitors to the area in the summer months, the party was constantly besieged by black flies, which served as inspiration for the song. This song launched Hemsworth's songwriting career. Hemsworth's most beloved songs - Black Fly Song and Log Driver's Waltz - were both made into short animated films by the National Film Board of Canada. The Blackfly animated short was nominated for an Oscar in 1992.
Cover Artists Include: Rick Avery, Judy Greenhill, The McGarrigles, The Travellers
____________
GORDON LIGHTFOOT - CANADA'S SONGWRITING LEGEND
Songwriter Inductee: Modern Era, 1956 to 25 Years Prior to Present
Birth: Orillia, ON, November 17, 1938
A true singer-songwriter leaves not only the lasting impression of his performance but also the legacy of his song. Multiple awards, astonishing record sales, and endless accolades by his fans and peers have marked Gordon Lightfoot's career as a singer. As a songwriter, he is already a legend.
Born Gordon Meredith Lightfoot on November 17, 1938, in the city of Orillia, Ontario, Lightfoot's first musical love was barbershop singing. He appeared in several award-winning groups in his youth, before trying his hand at penning his own material.
Lightfoot eventually did write his first song, called The Hula Hoop Song, in 1957. He pitched it to BMI publishing, and when it was turned down, he used the constructive criticism he received as inspiration to pursue songwriting with an even greater fervour.
Inspired by folk duo Ian & Sylvia, Lightfoot embraced the folk movement that was sweeping Toronto coffee shops and clubs. He became a performance mainstay on the Yorkville scene while he built up his repertoire. Some of Lightfoot's best work emerged from his friendship with Ian Tyson of Ian & Sylvia.
Lightfoot became a very popular singer-songwriter worldwide in the early 1970s. The public responded to his timeless folk style, his poetic narration and his love for describing all things Canadian. Some of his most successful songs in Canada were Canadian Railroad Trilogy, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Sundown.
In the United States, his success was in response to his songwriting, as introduced to the public by popular artists of the day, including Elvis Presley, Peter, Paul & Mary and Bob Dylan, covering songs such as Early Morning Rain, For Lovin' Me and If You Could Read My Mind. Lightfoot's work helped to open the door for Canadians to make it stateside.
Classic artists such as Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Olivia Newton-John and Barbara Streisand have all covered various Gordon Lightfoot works. Here at home, artists Stompin' Tom Connors, Ian & Sylvia, Anne Murray, Sarah McLachlan, and the Tragically Hip, to name but a few, also have recorded his songs.
Since his first solo recording in 1965, Lightfoot has recorded 18 other albums and more than 200 songs - and has written even more. In addition to his five Grammy nominations, Lightfoot was the recipient of a MIDEM award for best-selling Canadian artist for 1967 and has taken home 17 Juno Awards. In 1986, he was inducted into the Juno Awards Hall of Fame; in 1970, he became a companion of the Order of Canada; and in 1997, was honoured with the Governor General's Award. In September 2001, Gordon Lightfoot was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame.
____________
IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND
Song Inductee: Modern Era, 1956 To 25 Years Prior To Present
Year: 1969
Lyricist & Composer: Gordon Lightfoot
If You Could Read My Mind has been covered over 100 times since 1969. It became an international success in 1971 and stormed into the Billboard charts Top 10. For a man that had written the entire If You Could Read My Mind album in an empty house, working seven days a week, 12 hours a day for an entire month, the success was well deserved. Lightfoot's tireless dedication paid off when the recording yielded the best sales numbers of his career to that point - 350,000 albums sold and 750,000 singles of If You Could Read My Mind sold - and catapulted him onto the international scene. In 1975, Lightfoot re-recorded the song to reflect his current musical style for the album Gord's Gold. The song enjoyed renewed success when it underwent a disco metamorphosis for the film 54 starring Neve Campbell, Ryan Phillippe and Mike Myers.
Cover Artists Include: Amber, Aurora UK, Connie Kaldor, Johnny Mathis, Olivia Newton-John, Stars on 54, Barbra Streisand
____________
SNOWBIRD
Song Inductee: Modern Era, 1956 To 25 Years Prior To Present
Year: 1968
Lyricist & Composer: Gene MacLellan
This record-breaking song that launched the careers of Gene MacLellan and Anne Murray was crafted by a relative newcomer to the songwriting business. In just 25 minutes, MacLellan turned out his second song, Snowbird. Snowbird earned him a Juno for Composer of the Year in 1970 and propelled Anne Murray to become the first solo female artist in Canadian history to receive an American gold record. In 1990, BMI listed Snowbird as its 19th most-performed song of the previous 60 years.
Cover Artists Include: Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Loretta Lynn, Rita MacNeil, Anne Murray, Elvis Presley, Hank Snow
____________
AQUARIUS
Song Inductee: Modern Era, 1956 To 25 Years Prior To Present
Year: 1967
Lyricists: Gerome Ragni and James Rado
Composer: Galt MacDermot
Born and raised in Montreal, MacDermot grew up as the son of a Canadian diplomat. In 1967, at the age of 38, he wrote the music for the groundbreaking show Hair. The show was such a hit in Canada that the Toronto production, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, grossed over $1-million in the first 3 months. Following the success of Hair, MacDermot adapted his score for the big screen and teamed up with veteran director Milos Forman to bring the popular and controversial musical to life. Establishing a new style for musicals and spawning several imitators, Hair reflected the concerns of the hippie culture in North America during the 1960s. Hair received a Grammy composer's award in 1968 for best score from an original-cast show album. A medley of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In was a major hit in 1969 as recorded by the Fifth Dimension.
Cover Artists Include: Boston Pops Orchestra, Everly Brothers, Charlie Byrd, Cast of Hair, Engelbert Humperdinck, Diana Ross & The Supremes
____________
BORN TO BE WILD
Song Inductee: Modern Era, 1956 To 25 Years Prior To Present
Year: 1968
Lyricist & Composer: Mars Bonfire
Dennis Edmonton (aka Mars Bonfire) was originally in the Toronto blues band Sparrow, before he went on to pursue a solo career, while the three remaining band members went on to form Steppenwolf. Mars Bonfire's Born to Be Wild was a million-selling single for Steppenwolf and the song became an immortal classic when Dennis Hopper used it in the groundbreaking counterculture film Easy Rider. Over the years, as times and popular cultures have changed, the heavy metal image of Born to Be Wild has gone through a metamorphosis. While still a staple for bikers and bike lovers around the world (especially Harley Davidson aficionados), audiences can now hear this bad-boy classic in family films such as Stuart Little 2, Wild America, Neverending Story III and Recess: School's Out. Today, almost everyone can enjoy Bonfire's masterpiece in their own way, from films and CDs, to sheet music and even ringtones.
Cover Artists Include: Blue Öyster Cult, Crowded House, Dr & The Medics, INXS, Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers, Steve Martin, Muppets, Steppenwolf
____________
FOUR STRONG WINDS
Song Inductee: Modern Era, 1956 To 25 Years Prior To Present
Year: 1961
Lyricist & Composer: Ian Tyson
Originally a member of the influential folk duo Ian & Sylvia, Ian Tyson penned one of the most influential songs of the folk era. Tyson wrote Four Strong Winds the day after spending an evening with Bob Dylan. Apparently, Tyson came to the conclusion that if Dylan could do it, so could he. The next day, he went to his manager's apartment and wrote Four Strong Winds*. Tyson's first song, which became an immortal classic, is about the seasonal migration of workers across the country, from one harvest to the next, and its effect on a love affair. After Ian & Sylvia parted ways in the mid-1970s, Tyson returned to Alberta to train horses and write and record music as a solo artist.
Cover Artists Include: Harry Belafonte, John Denver, Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings, Neil Young
____________
MARIUS BARBEAU - FOLK MUSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST
2003 Legacy Award
Birth: Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, Quebec, 1883
Death: 1969
The name Marius Barbeau is synonymous with the pioneering and founding of traditional Canadian folklore and music studies.
He was born in 1883 in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, Quebec into a musical family: his mother was a trained pianist and his father a singer. After graduating in anthropology from Oxford University, Barbeau began his career at the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa.
During a conference in Washington, DC, fellow anthropologist Franz Boos suggested Barbeau explore the cultural significance of the songs and stories of the French Canadian community. In 1913, he subsequently began to collect examples of traditional French folk stories and songs.
In 1916, Barbeau began to study the traditional folklore of Native people including the Huron Indians. On his journeys, he brought along his phonograph, wax cylinders and a camera. By 1946, he had recorded an astounding 8,000 traditional songs, making him one of the first Canadian ethnographers to gather wax cylinders of folk songs throughout Quebec.
Barbeau's research in the field of Native studies took him across the country and grew to include the mapping of the customs, legends, art, and social organization of Native cultures in the Western and Prairie regions. In Quebec, his extensive research, recordings and articles about the lifestyles of the French Canadians helped define and popularize the province's distinctive songs, folk legends and popular and traditional art.
In the words of Barbeau: "In order to create good music you have to have basic material somewhere and this is in our folk music either Indian or French-Canadian or Scottish or Irish. These have to be consulted and absorbed by the creators, the composers. If they don't do that, they miss the boat. In the past it has happened that way. All the great composers have used the music they knew in their own churches, in plain chants, in Gregorian chants. From Vivaldi on, they all based themselves on the knowledge of their own native music."
Renowned as the premiere specialist in traditional folklore and music, Barbeau's work won international acclaim. According to Canada's Museum of Civilization, he was a three-time award winner of Quebec's prestigious Prix David, the recipient of honorary doctorates from the Universities of Montreal and Oxford, and was named a Companion of the Order of Canada.
Barbeau continued his work as an ethnologist and anthropologist at the National Museum of Man until he retired in 1948. Until his death in 1969, Marius continued to research traditional customs and folklore. His writings total more than 1,000 books and articles and he has left 40 linear feet of manuscripts and more than 100 linear feet of research notes. Barbeau's research collection of photographs, detailed geographical data, documentation of legends and mythologies, sketches, musical transcriptions and linguistic data research remains unmatched to this day.
____________
PIERRE JUNEAU: CANADIAN BROADCASTING PIONEER
2003 Legacy Award
Birth: Montreal Quebec, on October 17, 1922
Without Pierre Juneau, Canada's broadcasting landscape would be vastly different. He is the architect of Canadian content and a champion of public broadcasting and Canadian ownership.
Pierre Juneau was born in the Montreal suburb of Verdun on October 17, 1922. In 1949, he joined the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) first as their Montreal distribution representative and then as their European agent in London. Upon his return to Canada in 1954, Juneau served as secretary to the board of directors and assistant to the president. In 1964, he became the director of French language production for the NFB. It was also during this time that Juneau became one of the founding members of the highly influential review Cité libre with Gérard Pelletier, Pierre Trudeau and others.
Juneau left the NFB in 1966 to become vice-chairman of the Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG). In 1968, the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) replaced the BBG and Juneau was named its first chairman. He held this position until 1975. As CRTC chairman, Juneau is best remembered for promoting Canadian content regulations in radio, television and cable. These regulations, often referred to as Cancon, helped create a domestic market for Canadian music and television programs.
In the wake of the CRTC policy, in 1971, two supporters of Canadian music, Walt Grealis and Stan Klees, publishers of RPM, a weekly music trade publication, created the Gold Leaf Awards. A year later, at the suggestion of reader Hal Philips, they re-named the show the Juno Awards in honour of Juneau and the Roman goddess of the same name. In 1975, with the establishment of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), an agreement was made between CARAS and RPM to handle the event, working with all segments of the Canadian music industry.
In 1975, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Juneau Minister of Communications, which he later resigned after being defeated in a by-election. He went on to hold various deputy minister positions such as chairman of the National Capital Commission and deputy minister of Communications under the Trudeau government. He also served as Under Secretary of State during the Clark government. Juneau was appointed president of the CBC in 1982 for the usual seven-year mandate, which ended the same day Newsworld was launched in July 1989.
After retiring, Juneau created and chaired the World Radio and Television Council with the support of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and occasionally acted as an UNESCO consultant, advising on public broadcasting policy. In that capacity he travelled to various countries including Kazakhstan, Croatia, Malaysia and Brazil. He also served as president of a voluntary development organization called the Canadian Center for Study and Development (CECI) from 1990 to 1996.