The King of Canada: Stan Rogers

Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada

Some of my favourite stories as a young boy were those of explorers and adventurers and conquistadores. I went through a patch where I couldn’t get enough of books like Ice Station Zebra and other stories that took place in the ice and snow of Canada’s frozen north.

This fascination with the Arctic continued and became stronger when I went to University in Minnesota where snow and ice is on the ground in large quantities for months on end.

So when I first heard Stan Rogers record Northwest Passage it hooked me instantly. It was as if I had been waiting for this music.  Like Gordon Lightfoot, another old Canadian favourite, Stan Roger’s songs paint glorious pictures of the wild and fabulous Canadian landscape. And the tough people—oil workers, farmers, lonely housewives, fisherfolk--who inhabit it.

What make’s Stan such a wonderful folk singer, beside his storytelling, is his snug baritone that’s as deep and wide as Hudson’s Bay.  You can’t help but melt or sit up straight and listen to Stan Rogers when he sings.

Stan’s music came to an end when he died tragically at the age of 33 in an airline fire in Cincinnati in 1983.

                        Track Listing:

           01 Northwest Passage

02 The Field Behind The Plow

03 Night Guard

04 Working Joe

05 You Can't Stay Here

06 The Idiot

07 Lies

08 Canol Road

09 Free In The Harbour

10 California

Listen here.