1 of 1- paterson1
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Why Was This Song Cancon?
RadioWest.ca has a daily feature called Can Con 45 Of The Day. Every so often a song is featured that is a mystery why it is cancon. 1970/71 hit I Ain't Got Time Anymore was featured today. The Glass Bottle was a US band and the song was not written either music or lyric by a Canadian. But supposedly the song is cancon.
The answer is because the song and album were recorded in Canada at RCA in Toronto. The session for The Glass Bottle was headed up by the late great George Semkiw who worked at RCA for years as head sound engineer. George was also in the Toronto band Richie Knight & The Midnights who had a #1 hit in 1963 with Charlena.
Westbound #9 by another Detroit based band The Flaming Ember also was cancon. Again the group and writers were not Canadian. I guess a similar case with the song recorded here. In the early years of cancon, songs only needed to be one part of Music/Artist/Production/Lyric to qualify.
- Lorne
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
The Glass Bottle did have a followup that I heard on at least one station at the time, "The Girl Who Loved Me When", which also qualified as Cancon because of what you mentioned ... it reached #87 on Billboard. Roger Ashby played it on his show a couple of months ago after I had requested it. Two other examples of American artists recording here to qualify under the original rules as Cancon were "It's For You" by Springwell (#60 on Billboard) and "Awaiting On You All" by Silver Hawk (bubbled under at #108). However, I've never heard of "Westbound #9" being considered Cancon, and I've also never heard either it or Flaming Ember's other hits receive the kind of extra airplay that would be expected if any of them were.
Last edited by Lorne (May 13, 2024 10:39 pm)
- radiowest
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
This is the first time I've heard of Westbound #9 being counted as a Can Con. I know there was a few tunes from Detroit that were mixed down in Windsor (Dennis Coffey) and counted as CC in the early 70's.
Mississippi Queen by Mountain counted as Corky Laing was one of the writers.
To Sir With Love by Lulu is Can-Con. The music was written by a Canadian.
Mark London (born 30 January 1940) is a Canadian-born British soundtrack composer, songwriter and music producer. He is perhaps best known as composer of the song "To Sir with Love".
Last edited by radiowest (May 14, 2024 10:51 pm)
- Lorne
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Corky Laing was one of four writers of "Mississippi Queen". For it to be considered Cancon, he would have had to be responsible for either all of the lyrics, all of the music, or half of each, but I don't think that this was the case.
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Lorne wrote:
Corky Laing was one of four writers of "Mississippi Queen". For it to be considered Cancon, he would have had to be responsible for either all of the lyrics, all of the music, or half of each, but I don't think that this was the case.
Needed more cowbell. 
- Lorne
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Needed more cowbell.
Well, yes ... it definitely counts as Canadian cowbell!
- radiowest
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Corky Laing was one of four writers of "Mississippi Queen". For it to be considered Cancon, he would have had to be responsible for either all of the lyrics, all of the music, or half of each, but I don't think that this was the case.
CFOX in Vancouver played it for years as a Can-Con and never had a problem.
- paterson1
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Mixing a song in Windsor would not qualify as cancon and never did. If the song was recorded in Windsor or in Canada prior to 1972 then yes since it would be one part of MAPL.
My understanding was that Westbound #9 was recorded in Canada and did qualify as one part back in 1970, similar to Glass Bottle and I Ain't Got Time Anymore. This may be incorrect, but I have heard it a few times over the years. I once read on another site that songs lacquered in Canada would qualify but no. If that were true many 60's songs released in Canada would be classified as cancon since many were lacqured here.
Bob Seger recorded Night Moves at Nimbus 9 in Toronto but by 1976 a song needed to be two parts of MAPL and Night Moves was only one, the P or production (recording) of a song.
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Thread Starter- Lorne
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
I agree that mixing a song in Windsor was not enough to qualify. Re "Westbound #9", I did some further searching after I posted and found that it was produced by Stagecoach Productions. This was a name used by Holland-Dozier-Holland after they left Motown for legal reasons, and I'm not aware of any of their productions having been done in Canada to qualify as Cancon.
As for "Mississippi Queen", I don't recall CHUM ever playing it as Cancon. But I do recall them playing both "Love Child" and "I'm Livin' In Shame" as Cancon, and that was a similar situation with both songs having R. Dean Taylor as one of four writers. None of these records have the MAPL logo shown beside them in The CHUM Chart Book.
Last edited by Lorne (May 14, 2024 11:48 pm)
- Fitz
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
This from the RPM magazine archive site. An issue of the mag from July 1970 which has both Mississippi Queen and West Bound Number 9 in the top 20. The Top 100 is on Page 11 and on Page 9 there is a Top 50 Cancon chart based on the MAPL system. Neither song is on the MAPL list.
RPM July 1970
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Just for the record, here's the official CRTC definition of MAPL, the system that determines what makes a song CanCon.
The MAPL system - defining a Canadian song
- mace
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
This from the RPM magazine archive site. An issue of the mag from July 1970 which has both Mississippi Queen and West Bound Number 9 in the top 20. The Top 100 is on Page 11 and on Page 9 there is a Top 50 Cancon chart based on the MAPL system. Neither song is on the MAPL list.
RPM July 1970
Looking through that issue I discovered a subscription form for RPM. The business was located at 1560 Bayview Ave. Building is still there but currently unoccupied.
- Lorne
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Just for the record, here's the official CRTC definition of MAPL, the system that determines what makes a song CanCon.
The MAPL system - defining a Canadian song
Thanks for posting this, RA. When I made my comment about a record qualifying as Cancon if half of both the music and lyrics were composed by a Canadian, I was of course thinking of the change they made because of the Bryan Adams/Mutt Lange situation with Waking Up The Neighbours. But what I wasn't recalling was that this didn't apply retroactively to music recorded before September 1991, so that means for any older songs it would still have to be either all of the music or all of the lyrics. When multiple writers are involved in a song, I've wondered if sometimes they've all just been registered together as co-composing the lyrics and music ... I would think that there are many times when one person composes most of the lyrics or music, but because there are contributions from the other person(s) involved with the other aspect of the song, it just makes sense to credit everyone together for both.
- paterson1
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
I agree that mixing a song in Windsor was not enough to qualify. Re "Westbound #9", I did some further searching after I posted and found that it was produced by Stagecoach Productions. This was a name used by Holland-Dozier-Holland after they left Motown for legal reasons, and I'm not aware of any of their productions having been done in Canada to qualify as Cancon.
As for "Mississippi Queen", I don't recall CHUM ever playing it as Cancon. But I do recall them playing both "Love Child" and "I'm Livin' In Shame" as Cancon, and that was a similar situation with both songs having R. Dean Taylor as one of four writers. None of these records have the MAPL logo shown beside them in The CHUM Chart Book.
Good digging Lorne. I never heard that Holland-Dozier-Holland ever recorded anything in Canada. Not impossible but unlikely. So the Westbound #9 rumour was likely only that. The MAPL logo helped and also confused things sometimes. That little dot was not always used on cancon songs, and was never mandatory. But it was very helpful for radio stations and music directors.
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Thread Starter- Lorne
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
Another aspect of the situation regarding recording in Canada for Cancon purposes, is that all the examples I am aware of where this was done by American artists for this reason are from 1971. Of course this was during the first year of the regulations when this was enough to qualify, which wasn't the case with recordings made afterwards. When I had researched the situation with The Glass Bottle a while back as a result of a post about "I Ain't Got Time Anymore" on the Oldies Music Board, I came across something that suggested CKLW may have been involved. They charted this record well ahead of CHUM and Billboard and it reached their top 10, so that would fit with this possibility. And if they were involved, I think that this may have also been the case with Springwell and/or Silver Hawk which were both Detroit-area bands.
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Re: Why Was This Song Cancon?
The interesting thing about this song to me is that it was produced by Bill Ramal and Dickie Goodman...of the novelty records 'break-in' fame: "Mr. Jaws", "The Touchables", "Flying Saucer Parts 1 & 2", "Russian Bandstand" etc. Never knew that they'd produced 'straight' music records.
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