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The single is also a physical product. It is what fed the music industry for the 1950's and 60's, and supplemented the albums we remember in "Milk Crate Classic" for the next 30 years. The 7" piece of vinyl (also known as a 45 because they were played at 45 RPM on the record player) was the song your favourite AM radio station played. Today, we would watch the video. Twenty years ago, we went out and bought the single. If the single were still in prominence, if the record companies hadn't been so greedy as to do away with 99¢ music, there would have been no need for Napster. But they are still out there, in some cases wasting away (in those crummy antique shops with old coke bottles and Beatles singles), alive and well heard in others (my basement). And in those piles of antique junk, and personal treasure troves, there lies the heart and soul of Canadian music.
For surely, this is where Canadian music exists; in the singles. Without 7" vinyl would we have ever heard of BTO, Anne Murray or Bryan Adams?
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We begin our journey with a descent, not a literal descent, but a physical one. My basement. There sits a few hundred singles, not a few in the field of CanCon. This is a place we will return again and again, examining the old and story telling from the past.
Today I pull out The Stampeders Sweet City Woman.
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What can you say about this song: "Great Beat and I can dance to it Dick. 4 out of 5!" That about covers it, but there's more. So much more. It has always seemed to me that Canadian music has an ability to deliver pappable pop with a very hard edge. This song does that. Hummable melody, high tempo banjo the like of which has never been done by a hard rock band, yet there is that guitar in the chorus, reminding you that these guys were hard rock. One of the great advantages of 45 (and of Napster, just in case some record company clown is reading) is that a group could switch gears and you didn't have to spend $20.00 to get one song you liked and 8 mediocre ones you would never listen to. So it was that hard rock acts like the Stampeders could do a song like "Sweet City Woman" and everybody would be happy.
The Stampeders had other hits: Ramona and Wild Eye's come to mind, and I distinctly remember the 45 for Hit The Road Jack around the house, although I have no clue what happened to it (hopefully that will be another installment of "The Singles Scene"). But Sweet City Woman is the Stampeders song. One listen to that old 45, and I remember why.
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