There is a phrase that pops up frequently in the British music press: “the handful of people who ran the 1960s.” The meaning behind it is that what we now accept about the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll of that era were actually the adventures of a tight circle of artists and privileged hangers-on.
If a similar circle existed in Canada at that time, it was certainly even smaller. The music scene here circa 1967 was nothing compared to what was going on in London, New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. There may have been glimmers, but anyone with real ambition, be they Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Steppenwolf or the Collectors, knew that Canada was nowhere.
The stage was therefore set for someone to do something—anything—to create a modern home-grown music industry in Canada. To some degree, that person was Bernie Finkelstein, now known as the longtime manager of Bruce Cockburn, founder of True North Records and a major force in the creation of CanCon...
Jason Schneider is an assistant editor at Exclaim!, the author of Whispering Pines: the Northern Roots of American Music from Hank Snow to The Band (ECW Press, 2009) and co-author of Have Not Been The Same: the CanRock Renaissance 1985–95 (ECW Press, 2001).
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