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Canada Post honours legendary singers Anka, Lightfoot, Mitchell, and Murray |
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It used to be that you had to be the head of government, or dead, or both, to appear on a stamp. The United States waited 15 years after his death to honour Elvis Presley, even though he was called the King. In 2000, The Australians launched a trend, by immediately portraying their quite alive Olympic medal winning athletes on best-selling stamps. In Canada that same year, ice hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky’s image appeared beside a stamp, but not actually on it. Shouldn’t great Canadians be recognized with their own stamps while they too can appreciate the honour? |
 By the way, most countries now offer a service where ordinary people can order personalized stamps with pictures of themselves and their pets on them. So, the living and living in memory Beatles appear on a U.K. stamp issue this year. Now some of Canada’s best loved, and still living and touring singers, get a series of stamps of their own. I guess you could call them music royalty. They certainly earned their music royalties.
On June 29, 2007 Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, and Anne Murray 52c stamps will be issued, in Toronto, by Canada Post. Designed by Circle Design Inc., the Canadian Recording Artists issue comes in two formats: a gummed, disc-shaped souvenir sheet of the four domestic rate stamps, and in disc-shaped booklets of eight self-adhesive stamps, with four different covers. Canada Post notes that so far all the living persons who intentionally appear on non private order Canadian stamps, including 2005’s Oscar Peterson issue, are all recipients of the Order of Canada. |
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| Paul Anka was born in Ottawa, Ontario on July 30, 1941 and has sold 15 million of his own 125 albums, including having the second biggest-selling song, his first hit, “Diana,” yet recorded. He also wrote the words for Buddy Holly’s “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” Tom Jones’ “She’s A Lady,” and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” He has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, belongs to the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, and has been named to the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government.
Gordon Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ontario on November 17, 1938 and holds 15 Juno awards, membership in the Juno Hall of Fame, and the distinction of being the first inductee into the Canadian Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. Most Americans know him for singing “If You Could Read My Mind,” but I can’t look at these new stamps without hearing “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” in my own musical memory bank. He is also an inductee into the Canadian Country Music, Canadian Broadcast, Canadian Music Industry, and Canadian Railway, Halls of Fame. Joni Mitchell was born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, on November 7, 1943, but grew up in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Best known for “Big Yellow Taxi,” the lyrics of which Preston Manning currently uses for the introduction to his CBC Radio program “This I Believe,” she has a Grammy lifetime achievement award, and inductions into the Rock and Roll, and Canadian Songwriters’ Halls of Fame. Her song “Woodstock” was a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. When I visited Australia in 1988, the only Canadian the Australians I met knew was Joni Mitchell. You know how that goes, “Oh you’re from Canada, we love Joni Mitchell.” By the way, Paul Anka loves Joni Mitchell too. Anne Murray was born on June 25, 1945 in Springhill, Nova Scotia. Do you think the Canadian Forces Snowbirds demonstration flight team is named after her first hit “Snowbird?” The Aussies may have known Joni Mitchell as Canadian, but for many years the whole world recognized Anne Murray as Canada’s best-known singer. Anne Murray’s songs led international pop and country charts, garnering her four Grammys, three American, and Country Music Association Awards, three Canadian Country Music Association Awards, 24 Junos, and inductions into the Canadian Country Music, and Juno Halls of Fame. By the way, if Bhutan issued short playing record stamps in 1973, so you could hear their national anthem and folk songs, and has a cd-rom stamp with the history of their country on it coming out soon, might Canada Post, or the Royal Mail, have incorporated more music into these entertainers stamp issues? I know, they are stamps, records of service tax payment, or postage, not recordings, but still, we do have the technology and a legitimate claim to stars that Bhutan does not. Might a few people be introduced to the music of these great Canadian entertainers by seeing them immortalized on postage stamps? Might a few people who love their music already get interested in stamp collecting? Canada Post is hoping for some hits and some royalties here themselves. Buy them here. |
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