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I think we all realize that you're fascinated by Canada. But really, we're no different from anyplace else. Yes, some of us speak French, but most don't. Yes, our highway signs are much the same as yours. Yes, your most respected news announcers (Peter Jennings, Morley Safer etc.) happen to be Canadian. Not our doing; it's theirs, so we can do away with the "aboot" bull-stuff.
But here's the thing: stop trying to "surprise" us Canadians with stuff we've known for years. Yes, Gordon Sinclair was a Canadian broadcaster. He was on CFRB, 1010 AM, in Toronto. My parents listened to it for years. Granted, not everybody in Canada could, or did, but Gordon Sinclair was also a media personality on "Front Page Challenge," a CBC nation-wide panel show. Hell, I spoke with him a few times, on the Toronto subway, when I saw him getting on at St. Clair station, on a Yonge train heading southbound. (Note that the CFRB studios were in a building at Yonge and St. Clair.) If you were a Canadian in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and did not know who Gordon Sinclair was, you were doing it wrong.
You want to know who remembers Gordon Sinclair? Well, I do. Not because of his "The Americans" schtick, but because I remember a pleasant travelling companion on the Toronto subways.
Last edited by ChevySpoons; 08-14-2022 at 01:27 AM..
I remember Gordon Sinclair because it brings back fond memories of sitting in the back of my mom's car, stuck in Montreal's gridlock traffic, listening to CJAD.
Suesbal, I doubt there are many born and bred Canadians over the age of 40 who don't have some recollections of Gordon Sinclair. But I think in some ways he did both Canada and America an injustice when he wrote and recorded that "classic" because there were inaccuracies in it and Americans turned it into something aggressive that was beyond his simple intent to show recognition and appreciation to America. His intent was never jingoism, there was no back ground music playing and it was America that picked it up and turned it into a jingoistic battle cry.
When Americans made their first re-recordings of it there was back ground music which was the song "Bridge over troubled waters", it certainly wasn't the battle hymn of the Republic "Glory, glory hallelujah" nor any other kinds of battle cry music to get people all hyped up. But it didn't take long for others to re-record it with battle cry back ground music to fire up American people's blood. The recordings were played everywhere in America with the intent to make all other people in all other countries to look bad for not recognizing American superiority and beneficence. And the propaganda worked ....... on Americans. It didn't make other countries feel bad but it did rouse up some resentment in other countries because of many inaccuracies that were in Sinclair's transcript.
Ironically, only one year after Gordon Sinclair made his original broadcast of it in 1973, he admitted in 1974 in an interview to the Globe and Mail that he was sick and tired of hearing it or hearing about it. He said that he was embarrassed and regretful about the many inaccuracies he had made in it at the time and that as a consequence many of the inaccuracies he'd stated had become false facts to propagandized and misinformed Americans. But it was too late, the damage had been done.
Suesbal, I doubt there are many born and bred Canadians over the age of 40 who don't have some recollections of Gordon Sinclair. But I think in some ways he did both Canada and America an injustice when he wrote and recorded that "classic" because there were inaccuracies in it and Americans turned it into something aggressive that was beyond his simple intent to show recognition and appreciation to America. His intent was never jingoism, there was no back ground music playing and it was America that picked it up and turned it into a jingoistic battle cry.
When Americans made their first re-recordings of it there was back ground music which was the song "Bridge over troubled waters", it certainly wasn't the battle hymn of the Republic "Glory, glory hallelujah" nor any other kinds of battle cry music to get people all hyped up. But it didn't take long for others to re-record it with battle cry back ground music to fire up American people's blood. The recordings were played everywhere in America with the intent to make all other people in all other countries to look bad for not recognizing American superiority and beneficence. And the propaganda worked ....... on Americans. It didn't make other countries feel bad but it did rouse up some resentment in other countries because of many inaccuracies that were in Sinclair's transcript.
Ironically, only one year after Gordon Sinclair made his original broadcast of it in 1973, he admitted in 1974 in an interview to the Globe and Mail that he was sick and tired of hearing it or hearing about it. He said that he was embarrassed and regretful about the many inaccuracies he had made in it at the time and that as a consequence many of the inaccuracies he'd stated had become false facts to propagandized and misinformed Americans. But it was too late, the damage had been done.
.
Byron MacGregor, who worked at Windsor’s CKLW, recorded his own version with “America the Beautiful” playing in the background that became an even bigger hit than Sinclair’s in the United States. It reached Number 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and became a gold record (selling over 500,000 copies), compared to Sinclair’s original that peaked at 24. The major difference may have been that CKLW was heard in several major US cities.
I just think such a “song” would now be ripe for parodies.
But it was Gordon Sinclair and his creation that started it, and that's the only thing that counts. In hindsight he recognized all the inaccuracies and that it made him look like a liar and that he was a sycophant sucking up to America. The success of Byron MacGregor made MacGregor look like a worse suck up than Gordon and it made all of Canada look like even more of a sycophant to America than what it was already purported to be and is still purported to be by Americans to this day. No matter how you look at it, injustices were done to both Canadians and Americans and American attitudes toward fellow Americans were changed for the worse in terms of political polarity, aggressiveness and global isolationism. There was already a split there within America to start with, but it became worse and more destructive.
It was a nice thing for Gordon to say nice things about America but it should have been done in a more diplomatic and subtle way that wouldn't go to American people's heads and get the American people all worked up through false propaganda into a frenzy of aggressive and hostile patriotism and jingoism.
I don't think most Americans recognize how much damage was done, yourself included because you think of it as a big "hit" that brought attention to America. As if a big "hit" on the charts is the only thing that is important as long as it brings such sought after fame and glory to USA and makes America itself the one and only #1 hit on the world chart. Nobody can be that.
But it was Gordon Sinclair and his creation that started it, and that's the only thing that counts. In hindsight he recognized all the inaccuracies and that it made him look like a liar and that he was a sycophant sucking up to America. The success of Byron MacGregor made MacGregor look like a worse suck up than Gordon and it made all of Canada look like even more of a sycophant to America than what it was already purported to be and is still purported to be by Americans to this day. No matter how you look at it, injustices were done to both Canadians and Americans and American attitudes toward fellow Americans were changed for the worse in terms of political polarity, aggressiveness and global isolationism. There was already a split there within America to start with, but it became worse and more destructive.
It was a nice thing for Gordon to say nice things about America but it should have been done in a more diplomatic and subtle way that wouldn't go to American people's heads and get the American people all worked up through false propaganda into a frenzy of aggressive and hostile patriotism and jingoism.
I don't think most Americans recognize how much damage was done, yourself included because you think of it as a big "hit" that brought attention to America. As if a big "hit" on the charts is the only thing that is important as long as it brings such sought after fame and glory to USA and makes America itself the one and only #1 hit on the world chart. Nobody can be that.
.
You don’t need our war machines
You don’t need our guillotines
I remember him, I remember Front Page Challenge. I was "knee high to a grasshopper" back when I watched those shows, but I do remember.
If I may say so, I think there is a nostalgia for mid- to late-1900s Canadiana and it is showing up in some interesting places. Online, and in hipster boutiques. I was in an Ottawa-area crafty boutique this week that had a good representation of vintage CBC type items.
Canada has a pop culture going back a few generations, it just isn't used to the idea of it yet, maybe.
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